The Pittsburgh Steelers are in Shambles

After injuring his elbow in yesterday’s loss to the Seattle Seahawks, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is expected to be placed on injured reserve. In his absence it is expected that second-year quarterback Mason Rudolph will take over. Rudolph, 24, was a third round pick of the Steelers in the 2018 NFL Draft.

It is unclear how Pittsburgh will adjust to having its star QB out for the year, but yesterday they did a good job rallying around their young backup. Pittsburgh scored 16 points with Rudolph under center while Big Ben was only able to lead the team to 10 first half points.

Either way, losing a two-time Super Bowl winning quarterback is a hard pill to swallow, especially when the team starts 0-2. Add in that the Steeler’s starting running back James Conner also suffered an injury in the game, Pittsburgh could be in for a long year.

There can be a sense of optimism having a young quarterback with potential playing the position, but there is no help from Antonio Brown or Le’Veon Bell for Rudolph. Those two are gone. Mike Tomlin will have to hope that Rudolph establishes a real connection with wideout Juju Smith-Schuster if the offense wants to get back to how it used to be.

-Jarrod Ribaudo (@Jribs53)