Kovacevic: Emotional, effective and ... wow, really, just excellent, Rudolph's got to be the one leading the way now

The ball was bound to be a touchdown from the moment it took flight from Mason Rudolph's fingertips.

Know the kind?

Yeah, the kind where every solitary witness on hand can envision the six points on the scoreboard several seconds before they're counted. The kind where the touch is so soft that the arc's appreciated even before achieving its apex. The kind where all the rest, with all due respect to George Pickens matching the pass' path stride for stride, then cradling it like a newborn fallen from the clouds, then high-stepping the remainder of those 66 yards ... seems almost anticlimactic by comparison.

Merry Christmas, Pittsburgh: 

"You know," Pickens would tell me later when I'd ask about the pass, "I was just hoping he'd give me a chance."

A chance?

Man, I'll bet the quarterback was thinking much the same. For about half a decade now.

____________________

This was beautiful, this Saturday evening at Acrisure Stadium. Every bit of it.

For the Steelers, it brought a stunning 34-11 body-slam of the Bengals, a snap to their three-game losing streak, a peek back above .500 at 8-7 to hang in the AFC playoff picture, and, although intangible, a season-best performance that just might've swung a home finale capacity crowd of 66,646 from unprecedented surliness to a postgame serenade no one could've foreseen:

As Najee Harris worded it with a wide smile, "This is the last home game, so it's good that we left on a good note, and for them to be chanting something different than 'Fire somebody.' "

Exactly. Like a big pause button.

And for Rudolph, this meant ... wow, where to start?

In his first NFL start in two-plus years, he'd complete 17 of 27 passes for 290 yards and two touchdowns, both to Pickens, including this in-route catch-and-run for 86 yards in the first quarter ...

... plus that other one in the third.

But the one just above's worthy of its own applause, even setting aside, once again, from Pickens' breathtaking burst from the Cincinnati safeties. This ball traveled only 14 yards by air, but it's a bullet that's delivered on time and just over a nearby linebacker, Logan Wilson.

"I just gave them a good release on a 3-yard slant," Pickens would recall of this one. "Mason put it on timing and made the safety miss. The rest's history."

To boot, Rudolph wasn't intercepted, he was sacked only once, he'd smoothly settle into rolling with the running game once the score was lopsided enough, and he'd wind up with a 124.0 quarterback rating. All of which, according to super-intensive research I've just performed within the span of typing this sentence, is so far superior than anything else we've seen from any quarterback sporting hypocycloids on his helmet that I can't come close to recalling it.

Suffice it to say this marked the first time anyone around here's passed for 250-plus yards and two-plus touchdowns since the retirement-year Ben Roethlisberger in 2021.

"He was Mason," Mike Tomlin would say. "We talked about it early in the week. He has a belief in himself. He's aggressive in his play style. I thought he did a really good job of not displaying a lot of rust for a guy who hadn't played a lot."

Meaning, uh, 769 days. 

Plus a whole lot else: He was the Steelers' third-round pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, both stuck behind Roethlisberger and shunned by him. He was forced by a Roethlisberger injury into eight starts in 2019, twice concussed and once having his reputation wrongly assailed by the excremental Myles Garrett. In 2020, he was outstanding in starting a meaningless regular-season finale in Cleveland. And on Nov. 14, 2021, he should've been an easy winner against the Lions at Acrisure Stadium but was tagged with a 16-16 tie because his receivers repeatedly dropped passes and fumbled.

From that to this. With the entire transition consisting of being demoted to No. 3 behind Kenny Pickett and Mitch Trubisky and practicing with the scout team to mimic that week's opposing quarterback. Most game days, he wasn't even handed a helmet, inactive or designated for emergencies.

"It was awesome," T.J. Watt would say, "but I'm not surprised, because he's put in so much work. He hasn't gotten any opportunities. He could've complained, but he's owned up to being on the scout team, he's given us great looks the past couple years, and I just knew he'd seize his opportunity when he got it."

"I'm just so happy for him," Alex Highsmith would say, "because I know how hard he works and how committed he is. He prepares like he's the starter every week, staying extra, you know, taking care of his body, watching film. He got his opportunity, and he ran with it. I'm so proud of him."

Afterward, Cam Heyward would present him with the game ball in the locker room.

"It was great," Rudolph would recall. "Yeah, Cam's the leader of our team, and he was very kind. Such a competitor. I don't know, he does everything right. Great dude. So it meant a lot. It was special. Yeah, I'm not one for speeches, so I just kept it quick, broke it down."

Dude barely made it through that sentence. And a slew of others.

____________________

The entire press conference spanned a dozen minutes, and I can't recommend watching it all strongly enough:

In an era of increasing whininess among professional athletes, not just in the NFL, and certainly not just in Pittsburgh, here's Rudolph who hated what'd become of his career, but who also continued to push through. And, as Watt observed, without complaint. In the years I've known Rudolph, at the team's facility and away from the field, he's never spoken an ill syllable of anyone associated with the team and, to the contrary, he's been known as a tremendous teammate.

But the slice of this storyline that's most stirring, as I see it, is that he didn't stand still.

"Yeah, as hard as it is to sit and watch for 2 1/2 years, I think you can sort of just go on autopilot mode, or you can try to improve," Rudolph would say. "Put yourself in the game. Call the play in the huddle, follow the snap count, you know, try to simulate what you would do if you were in there. I think just, when years go by, your football IQ improves. And I credit that to our staff and Mike T. We have great meetings each week in the morning where he kind of gives a synopsis from a defensive perspective."

Simply put, he didn't stop working. He didn't run to the bank with the $1,080,000 salary he'd receive for being a No. 3 and, in all likelihood, carrying a clipboard around the facility.

As he'd offer unsolicited after this game, "I enjoyed earning my paycheck and not feeling like a freeloader." 

Which would explain why, this past week, upon learning from Tomlin that he'd replace Trubisky after the latest offensive debacle in Indianapolis, he had a fitful night on the eve of his first practice in forever as the No. 1.

"Last time I played," he'd remember of the Detroit tie, "I found out 12, 24 hours before. So it was nice to build the confidence through the week."

But not nice initially.

"I don't think I slept at all, Monday night to the Tuesday practice. I hadn't taken a full day of reps in a while, so you're a little nervous and tightly wound."

But he'd have that quelled upon arriving and discussing a game plan that Eddie Faulkner and especially Mike Sullivan would tailor to his strengths.

"The way Coach Sullivan took a lot of input from me and the sort of things that I like, a lot of the same stuff as Kenny and Mitch but a few tweaks here and there ... he was very open to it. And I think you just feel confident when you have a good week of practice and you have no regrets, like whether I watched enough film. I wanted to have no regrets in that department. That gives you the confidence."

So, by the time the weekend arrived, sleep wasn't an issue. Not even Friday night.

And he'd emerge looking ... I mean, better than ever, right?

Sharing three choice examples ...

Remember how the signature strike against Rudolph's long been that he lacks touch? How he could always drop the bombs at Oklahoma State to his old bud James Washington but would struggle with the standard 7-yarder?

This was in the first quarter, and I felt right then that he'd crossed one off his checklist. He looks off to the left toward Jaylen Warren, then drops this gem deftly into Allen Robinson's waiting hands along the same sideline.

This is different:

This one's a third-and-6 with an aim of finding Pat Freiermuth, who's covered right off the line. The old Rudolph forces a pass, anyway. Or sails it over his head. But this one recognizes the futility, tucks the ball, follows Isaac Seumalo's double-effort block and then -- oh, yeah! -- plows his way forward to the first down.

Had the whole place eating from his palm with that one.

But talk about toughness:

I've got a bunch of these I could show, but this one illustrates the Cincinnati defense bringing a heavy linebacker blitz and making plenty enough penetration on a third-and-12 ... and Rudolph neither blinks nor budges. This happened all evening long.

Giving full credit, the line picks up that blitz well, as does Warren. But Rudolph held his pocket the way an NFL quarterback should. He didn't flee at the first sight of trouble. He hung in there and made the play he wanted to make.

My God, this alone represented maybe the most stark separation from Pickett and Trubisky. One that, all by itself, should sell anyone and everyone in the Steelers' orbit on who'll be the starter next Sunday in Seattle.

Which he'll definitely be, right?

____________________

I asked Tomlin, while prefacing that he'd generally consider it too early for such a question, if Rudolph will start against the Seahawks:

I didn't think that'd get anywhere.

Rudolph, wisely, dodged a question as to whether he felt he now deserved the next start, saying, "You're asking the wrong person. Listen, we play this game to play. I love to play. But that's out of my hands. I'll find out the marching orders as we go."

I'm not feeling any suspense here. He'll start. He has to.

I've got as much chance to start as Trubisky does. And Pickett, whose wonky ankle had him limited through practice the past few days just hasn't been anywhere near this good. Not in any single game he's played in the NFL. Not even close.

Me, I want the quarterback who'll present me with two soul-crushing passes to Pickens to share, and yet still have this 44-yarder to spare:

That's a third-and-15, for crying out loud. And that's what a big arm can bring:

I want the quarterback whose own situation mirrors that of the team. Meaning, of course, desperation.

Asked if he'd weighed whether this start might've been seen as a do-or-die for his career, Rudolph couldn't have been more candid, replying, "Absolutely. Yeah, I think you never know. You've got confidence in yourself as a player, but you're kind of thinking, 'Am I going to jump into commercial real estate realm next year or be playing quarterback?' Those thoughts come into your head."

Uproot that RE/MAX sign.

I'll go ahead and admit it: I want the quarterback who's got "the good story," as Harris described this Rudolph development. Not to be hokey, but because, to be blunt, I don't know what the hell else this team's all about amid this bizarre season. A rallying point can break ties in these settings.

This was Rudolph in a full sprint down the field after the second touchdown to Pickens:

I had to ask where he was looking off to his left.

"Just looking at my parents out there," he'd say of Brett and Jamie Rudolph, both of whom had flown in to watch with other family and friends. "I know where they sit, so I was just seeing if they were enjoying it as much as I was. Yeah, that's all that was."

It wasn't all. There were the multiple chants of 'MA-SON RU-DOLPH' reverberating through the place all through the second half, even when the Steelers had possession and would typically seek silence.

Asked about that, he'd point out, honest as ever, that it was only a year ago that he was being booed in the same place during a preseason game.

"You know, we're all human. I’d be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it or like it. But it's a week-to-week league. I've been on the other end of it, so ... you try to block it out and play the game. We still had the second half to play despite the lead. You can't let that enter your mind and relax for a second. You know, hey, we've got a bunch of passionate fans, and it was just ... what a joy to play in front of them tonight. Last home game, all my family in town … so it was amazing."

Kinda like Christmas.

Look, we'll all be wondering, maybe all winter, why it took Tomlin, Omar Khan, Andy Weidl and even previous management forever to find out that their own ideal present might've been buried under their own tree. Or maybe we won't, and this was a three-hour mirage manufactured mostly by a bad Cincinnati defense that Pickett himself picked apart just a month ago.

But I don't think so. Rudolph's hardly old at 28. He's actually young when it comes to wear and tear. And he was out there doing stuff that, quite clearly, not everyone can do, all while overcoming rust, nerves and intensive personal and team-wide pressure.

Might be another arc to love.

THE ESSENTIALS

• Boxscore
• Live file
• Highlights
• Team feed
• Standings
• Statistics
• Schedule
• Scoreboard

THE IN-GAME INJURIES

• Steelers: ILB Elandon Roberts (pec) exited in the second quarter and didn't return. Tomlin had no update on his status afterward.

• Bengals: None.

THE MULTIMEDIA

THE SCHEDULE

Next up are the Seahawks, New Year's Eve, 4:05 p.m. Eastern, in Seattle. I'll fly out to cover.

THE FEED

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