Steely McBeam
Well-known member
- Mar 20, 2019
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The Steelers have decided to stick with Duck Hodges at quarterback. And it’s the right call, for the balance of the current season and beyond.
With Ben Roethlisberger getting closer and closer to the end of the road and given the possibility that his anti-TB12 approach to health and fitness could lead to other parts of his body breaking down, the Steelers need to be thinking about Life After Ben. In so doing, they need to remember Life Before Ben.
In the 20 years from the retirement of Terry Bradshaw until the drafting of Roethlisberger, the Steelers learned the hard way the consequences of not having a franchise quarterback. From Cliff Stoudt to Mark Malone to David Woodley to Scott Campbell to Bubby Brister to Steve Bono to Todd Blackledge to Neil O’Donnell to Mike Tomczak to Jim Miller to Kordell Stewart to Tommy Maddox, the Steelers had their own version of the Browns’ jersey that spanned two decades from Tim Couch to Baker Mayfield.
As the Steelers get closer and closer to the end of the Roethlisberger era, they need to be planning for the future. Which means that they need to know whether any of the options currently on the roster are good enough. They’ve likely seen enough from Mason Rudolph to know that he isn’t. With Hodges, there’s still a ceiling that could be significantly higher than where his play currently resides. Over the balance of the season, the Steelers will see whether and to what extent Hodges can get closer to his maximum level of performance.
The sooner the Steelers know what Hodges can do, the sooner they’ll know whether they can trust an undrafted quarterback from Samford, or whether they’ll need to invest a first-round pick in a quarterback sooner than later, in order to avoid 20 years of for-the-most-part mediocrity until they find their next Super Bowl-winning quarterback.