Although the Steelers made a change to their depth chart Tuesday morning, moving Kenny Pickett from the third-string spot to No. 2, Mitchell Trubisky‘s name remained with the starters. That will be the case Sunday against the Bengals.
Mike Tomlin confirmed Tuesday morning the long-expected path the Steelers will take to open the season: Trubisky is the starting quarterback. The former No. 2 overall pick had been viewed as the starter since signing a two-year, $14MM deal in March. This is all but certain to change at some point this season, with Pickett being groomed to take over. For now, however, the Pitt product will learn from the sidelines.
Chosen 20th overall, Pickett played well in the preseason and is now in position to dress as Pittsburgh’s gameday backup. Tomlin said he has been “really pleased” with Pickett’s development thus far. This will be the first time since 2007 that no rookie QB will have started in Week 1 (h/t ESPN.com’s Field Yates, on Twitter). Pickett and third-round Falcons pick Desmond Ridder almost certainly will make starts this season, but Atlanta (Marcus Mariota) and Pittsburgh will go with vets to open the campaign.
After Trubisky’s Bears tenure underwhelmed, putting it mildly, he rebuilt his stock somewhat by backing up Josh Allen in Buffalo. Trubisky, 28, has started three openers — 2018-20 — previously and was Chicago’s full-time starter early in his 2017 rookie year. The North Carolina product replaced Mike Glennon five games into his rookie season, but after his Bears tenure began to go south in 2019, the Matt Nagy–Ryan Pace regime traded for Nick Foles. The former Super Bowl MVP replaced Trubisky early in the 2020 slate, though the younger passer regained his starting job and helped the Bears to that year’s playoff bracket.
Trubisky has made 50 career starts. He is a career 64.1% passer (6.7 yards per attempt) who is 29-21 as a starter. The Giants were connected to the ex-Brian Daboll Buffalo pupil as well, but the Steelers landed him to be Ben Roethlisberger‘s immediate successor. Pickett looms, however. Roethlisberger took over as a starter in Week 3 of his rookie year, though a Tommy Maddox injury prompted that change. Save for 2019, when Roethlisberger’s elbow injury led to both Rudolph and Devlin Hodges making starts, the Steelers did not need to worry about their QB depth chart for the next 18 seasons
The Steelers will only dress Trubisky and Pickett in Week 1, Tomlin said, noting a clerical error had Rudolph above the rookie on Monday’s depth chart. Rudolph, who has been with the Steelers since 2018, emerged in late-summer trade rumors. The Steelers passed on moving the former third-round pick, but Rudolph will not be in uniform on gamedays — as long as Trubisky and Pickett are healthy.
I get that it doesn’t really matter, because Pickett is the plan for the future and Trubisky is really intended to be the bridge/backup QB, and I think he’s a perfectly fine candidate for that job. What I don’t get is the people who seem convinced Trubisky is suddenly going to be a better QB than he was in Chicago after spending a year with a better run organization, but not playing a lick.
He wasn’t that bad a quarterback in Chicago. Sitting and observing, he may have learned some things in Buffalo, who seem to have their act together better than the organization he was part of with the Bears. Give Trubisky a chance.
He put the ball in harm’s way too much and handled pressure too poorly while not making or even attempting enough big plays to ever compensate. I’m not sure how he’s supposed to fix those things by watching Josh Allen for a year and then playing behind a dicey offensive line. I think he’s probably in the upper echelon of backups, but I think he’s at best in the Carson Wentz echelon of starters. Which, hey, beats spending draft picks and $28 million to have Carson Wentz be your actual plan.
I have the “fortune” of watching every Bears game he started. He wasn’t terrible and was held back by a terrible coaching staff. But, he wasn’t good either.
Lucky for him, replacing 2021 Roethlisberger will be easier than replacing him in his prime. And he will definitely fare better in the Burgh based on the coaching staff and weapons alone.
Yeah, Nagy and Pace didn’t do him many favors, but he didn’t rise above his circumstances or flash all that much either. We’ll see if Canada, this line, and he himself can put him in a position to benefit from these weapons.
There seems to be a need in a lot of articles to modify the reference to the QB by saying something instead of quarterback or simply their name. First pass it’s usually QB then, signal-caller and then from there it spirals. Using this article as a template, next would be “the former North Carolina product”, “the former 2nd round pick”, “former Bear (or Bill) player” etc…I guess the idea it not to have to say their name too many times or repeat Quarterback or “passer”. But every article about a QB, and there are a lot of them, does this and it makes for poor flow in the article and feels forced. This article didn’t do it too badly overall but “ex-Brian Daboll Buffalo pupil” was the furthest stretch I’ve ever seen- which is what led to this comment. Anyway, I digress.
*2nd overall pick, not round*
Kinda like every article about the Jaguars has to mention Duval.
My favorite QB euphemism is the one where they call some guy with a 78.6 passer rating a “gunslinger”.
It’ll be weird to have a starting QB who isn’t a selfish jerk.
But enough about Terry Bradshaw and Bubby Brister… 😉
I don’t think Bradshaw was a selfish jerk but rather, a guy who didn’t take kindly to Noll’s style of coaching, which never sought to coddle. Interesting that the Steelers announced Franco’s number being retired today. Great. Now what about 12, 59, 58, 47, 52 and 43 (Is 75 retired? If not, that too)
And I’ll refrain from any comment about Bubby. Oy.
I’m hoping that they’re going to retire a number every year or 2 going forward.
absolutely no one of the team or coaching staff thought Ben Roethlisberger was a jerk.
I’m glad you feel that way tho. you are very important after all.
oh ya I forgot, that classy guy Antonio Brown didn’t get along with Ben ..
Should’ve brought back Charlie Batch.
Nah, if we bring someone back, let’s go all out and bring back Tomczak or Malone.
You young guys. Has to be Hanratty and his single bar helmet
Vinny Testaverde could probably still toss 300 yards a game with 2TDs and a few picks for ya.
What’s the over/under on how many games played until Pickett becomes the starting quarterback?
I think Pittsburgh will go 2-3 in their first 5 games and good, bad or otherwise, Pickett may be the starter for the week 6 game against Tampa.
it’ll prob be week 4,,,
depends way more on the steelers record than how Mitch preforms..
Mitch could be awful but good D and running could save his job for 10 or 12 games or so
Seems pretty inevitable that Kenny will start at some point this season tho.
Whomever is QB1….behind Pittsburgh’s woeful o-line…is going to take a beating.
not necessarily.. they specifically have 2 qbs who are comfortable rolling out of thr pocket.
Ben’s lines were never great pass blockers outside of a handful of seasons
it was more Ben slowing down last year than steelers doing anything different in pass protection.
(the main difference is they couldn’t run block last year either)
Trubiskey has a better W/L record than DeShaun Watson, yet everyone seems to think he is nothing more than a backup. Given Tomlin’s ability to coach .500 football out of people with less talent I wouldn’t be so quick to think that Pickett will hit the field by game 6 – unless Pittsburgh’s makeshift O-line fails him.
he seems very comfortable and gave us nothing to worry about in the preseason games
so far, so good, and that’s all we can say for now.
if they beat the Bengals week 1 it’s massive
Tripp Mybrewskie time!
Chicagoland should be in for a treat come Sunday noontime. Steelers are projected to be on CBS at the same time that the Bears are on Fox. And if Da Bears start bumbling while the Steelers are rolling …
The right call imo