Mason Rudolph, QB: The Full Story From Oklahoma State to Pittsburgh’s Third Stint
Mason Rudolph is a 30-year-old quarterback currently on his third stint with the Pittsburgh Steelers. He’s 6-foot-5, 235 pounds, wears number 2, and has spent most of his NFL career doing something quarterbacks rarely get credit for: being genuinely good when called upon without ever being the guy. Born Brett Mason Rudolph III on July 17, 1995, in Rock Hill, South Carolina – he is not related to the golfer of the same name, a question that apparently comes up enough that Wikipedia addressed it directly.
From Rock Hill to Oklahoma State – The Backstory That Actually Explains the Player
Rudolph attended Westminster Catawba Christian School before transferring to Northwestern High School in Rock Hill. His senior season is worth actually reading: 4,400 passing yards, 80 total touchdowns, a 15-0 record, a 4A State Championship, and a number 7 national ranking for the program. He was a Mr. Football award finalist in South Carolina and was named offensive MVP of the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas after leading South Carolina on a game-winning drive with under 20 seconds left. Rivals.com rated him a four-star recruit and ranked him ninth among pro-style quarterbacks nationally. He committed to Oklahoma State.
What happened at OSU is genuinely impressive in ways that get glossed over in NFL backup profiles. He wasn’t recruited to start immediately – he entered as third-string behind J.W. Walsh and Daxx Garman in 2014. Both got hurt. Rudolph started his first career game against Baylor, threw for 281 yards (the most ever by an Oklahoma State quarterback in a first career game), and never really gave the job back. By the time he left, he held no fewer than 54 Cowboys school records. His 2017 season alone: he led the entire NCAA with 4,904 passing yards. Career totals: 41 starts, 13,618 passing yards, 92 touchdowns, 26 interceptions, a 32-9 record as a starter. That 32-9 made him the winningest quarterback in school history. Fourth in Big 12 history in career passing yards. He won the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award – given annually to the nation’s top senior quarterback – plus the Sammy Baugh Trophy and the Camping World Bowl MVP. The NFL projected him as a second-round pick going into the draft. He went in the third.
Pittsburgh Traded Up Three Spots to Get Him – and Then Let Him Watch for a Year
On draft day 2018, Pittsburgh gave up their 79th overall pick and a seventh-rounder to Seattle just to move up to 76th. He was the sixth quarterback selected that year. The logic was clear enough: Ben Roethlisberger was still playing, but the franchise needed to identify its next quarterback. What they actually found, over the next seven years, was something slightly different.
His first full season he didn’t throw a regular-season pass. That’s just how backup quarterback careers go in Pittsburgh when Big Ben is healthy. The 2019 season was different – and chaotic. Roethlisberger went down early, and Rudolph played in 10 games with 8 starts, throwing for 1,765 yards, 13 touchdowns, and nine interceptions with an 82.0 passer rating. The Steelers also started Devlin Hodges for six games that year. Pittsburgh finished 8-8. It was a messy season for everyone, and then the last game of the regular season happened on November 14.
The Myles Garrett Incident – What Actually Happened and What’s Still Disputed
On November 14, 2019, the Steelers played the Browns on Thursday Night Football in Cleveland. Cleveland won 21-7. With nine seconds left in the game – nine – Myles Garrett sacked Rudolph, and a scrum developed at the bottom of the pile. Garrett ended up with Rudolph’s helmet in his hand after yanking it off during the tackle. Rudolph, now helmetless, charged at Garrett. Garrett swung the helmet and struck Rudolph in the head. The swing connected but missed cleanly enough that Rudolph wasn’t seriously injured. The brawl that followed pulled in most of both rosters.
The NFL suspended Garrett indefinitely, which translated to six games and over $1.2 million in lost pay – the longest suspension for a single on-field act in league history at the time. The Steelers and Browns were each fined $250,000. Pittsburgh center Maurkice Pouncey received a three-game ban for his role in the fight. Browns defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi got one game.
Then, in February 2020, Garrett went on ESPN’s Outside the Lines and claimed Rudolph had used a racial slur during the scrum – which he said explained his reaction. Rudolph denied it flatly, calling the claim something he “couldn’t believe” Garrett “would go that route” with. The NFL’s own investigation found no audio evidence on any of the mic’d-up players near the incident. Garrett’s specific explanation for the absence of audio – that Rudolph “somehow lost his helmet” and therefore wasn’t mic’d – was factually wrong, since quarterback helmets contain speakers, not microphones. The NFL made this clear and did not change its ruling. What actually happened at the bottom of that pile is still disputed. What isn’t disputed is what happened after: the two spoke briefly on the field after a Browns-Steelers game in 2020, Garrett said “good game, hell of a game,” and both moved on. The incident defines how a lot of casual fans first encountered Rudolph’s name, which is a strange thing to be known for when you were the one who got hit.
The Quiet Years That Almost Wrote His NFL Story for Him
After 2019, Rudolph went three seasons without a meaningful start. The Steelers’ QB room reshuffled around him – Roethlisberger came back, then retired after 2021. General manager Kevin Colbert said publicly in the 2022 offseason that the team would “build around” Rudolph. The depth chart released in September 2022 listed him as the second-string quarterback. The following day, head coach Mike Tomlin called it a “clerical error” and moved Kenny Pickett ahead of Mitchell Trubisky, pushing Rudolph to third. He didn’t take a single snap in the 2022 regular season.
He re-signed in 2023 for $1.35 million – a $2 million cut from his previous deal – because there weren’t better options and he apparently still believed Pittsburgh was the right place to be. He spent most of that year as third-string again. Then Week 15 arrived and Kenny Pickett got hurt.
Three Games, Three Wins, One Franchise Record – The 2023 Run That Changed the Conversation
Rudolph started the final three regular-season games of 2023 for Pittsburgh. He won all three. This isn’t purely a narrative detail – the numbers from those games are genuinely strange for a player who’d barely seen the field in three years.
Week 16 against Cincinnati: 17 completions on 27 attempts, 290 yards, two touchdowns, 124.0 passer rating. He threw an 86-yard touchdown to George Pickens in the first quarter and a 66-yarder to Pickens in the third. The 86-yarder was the longest pass play of Rudolph’s career. It was also the longest reception of Pickens’ career at that point. Week 17 in Seattle: 274 yards, 75% completion rate, 112.2 passer rating, averaging 11.4 yards per attempt – the highest figure for a Pittsburgh quarterback (minimum 20 attempts) since Roethlisberger averaged 13.1 against Carolina in 2018. Week 18 at Baltimore, which clinched a playoff berth: 18 completions on 20 attempts, 90.0% completion rate, 152 yards, one touchdown, 115.0 rating. That 90.0% is the best single-game completion percentage in franchise history with at least 20 attempts. Roethlisberger’s prior record in that category was 85.7%.
For December and January of that season, Rudolph posted a 118.0 passer rating – best in the entire NFL. His 74.3% completion rate ranked second in the NFL. His 9.7 yards per attempt ranked second. He was the only one of three quarterbacks in the league to go undefeated in December and January with at least three starts.
Then came the Wild Card game against Buffalo. He threw for 229 yards and two touchdowns, completed 22 of 39, and the Steelers lost 31-17. That loss is the honest footnote: Pittsburgh’s defense allowed 31 points and the offense couldn’t sustain the regular-season efficiency against a legitimate Bills defense. It wasn’t a collapse – it was a realistic outcome – though the 39 attempts on 22 completions showed some of the limitations that explain why he’s been a backup most of his career, even while throwing for 90% on a Monday night in Baltimore the week before.
After the season, Rudolph declared free agency. The Tennessee Titans signed him in March 2024.
One Year in Tennessee – Competent, Unspectacular, Exactly What the Titans Needed
The 2024 Titans were a difficult team to evaluate. Will Levis was the nominal starter, but coach Brian Callahan lost patience with him multiple times across the season. Rudolph started in his place against the Indianapolis Colts in Week 14 and handled the role the way he always has – no turnovers that kill games, no explosive plays that win them, a floor that’s consistently above disaster. When Levis came back healthy, Rudolph went back to the bench. This is the recurring arc of his career and he seems to understand it clearly. He called himself “good to be wanted” during the 2025 offseason, which is either a healthy perspective or a coping mechanism, probably both.
Back in Pittsburgh – A Two-Year Deal and a Crowded Room
In March 2025, Rudolph signed a two-year contract with Pittsburgh worth $7.5 to $8 million total, depending on which report you trust (NFL Network put it at $8 million with $4.5 million guaranteed; Spotrac’s contract breakdown shows $7.5 million with a $3 million signing bonus and $3 million guaranteed – the gap likely reflects incentives). His 2026 base salary is $3 million with a cap hit around $4.6 million. That’s backup quarterback money, comfortably above the veteran minimum, well below anything a team would pay a projected starter.
The timing of the deal made sense when it happened. Aaron Rodgers still hadn’t committed to Pittsburgh. Rudolph was the credible plan B – a quarterback Tomlin had publicly said he was “comfortable” starting if needed. Rodgers eventually signed. Then, during the 2025-26 season, Rodgers missed time with a left wrist injury and Rudolph started again, threw for 310 yards, two touchdowns, and two interceptions across five games with an 84.6 QBR.
Then the 2026 NFL Draft happened. Pittsburgh used one of their three third-round picks on Penn State quarterback Drew Allar. The QB room now has Rodgers, Rudolph, Allar, and Will Howard. That’s four quarterbacks – two more than any team needs. Reports from steelernation.com in May 2026 suggest the Steelers may release Rudolph as a favor, since cutting him would open his market rather than leaving him stuck behind a 42-year-old and a rookie on a team that drafted his replacement. ClutchPoints listed three trade destinations in the week following Allar’s selection. Whether any team bites at his contract terms is unclear.
Career Numbers, Unfiltered
Through the 2025-26 season: 34 career games, 21 starts, approximately 4,925 passing yards, 30 touchdowns, and around 20 interceptions. His career record as a starter sits at 8-4-1. That winning record is the number his proponents lead with, and it’s legitimate – he’s never been the starter for long enough to accumulate the losses that come with sustained starting roles in the NFL. His passer rating in the 2023 stretch was elite by any standard. His 2019 full-season numbers were roughly average. The Tennessee and 2025-26 numbers were fine. None of it suggests a top-15 starter. All of it suggests a quarterback who won’t lose you games when the line is functioning, which is a genuinely valuable thing to be.
One thing that doesn’t fully add up: the 2023 run was statistically better than anything most backup quarterbacks have posted in recent memory over a comparable stretch, and yet no team offered him a starting job in 2024 or 2025. The Bills had a quarterback situation that winter. The Steelers themselves went and chased Mitchell Trubisky types in the years prior rather than promote from within. The market’s judgment on Rudolph as a backup is probably right, but the gap between “guy who completed 90% of his passes in Baltimore in Week 18” and “guy no one seriously considered as a starter” is wider than the numbers alone explain.
Personal Background – The Third Brett Rudolph, and a Strange Connection to Drake Maye
His full name is Brett Mason Rudolph III. He was named after his father and grandfather, which is why he goes by Mason. His father Brett played linebacker at the University of North Carolina in the mid-1980s, where his college roommate was Mark Maye – father of New England Patriots quarterback Drake Maye. The two families stayed close for decades after graduation. When the Rudolphs lived in Virginia, both families vacationed together once or twice a year. After the Rudolphs moved to Rock Hill when Mason was in middle school, they were a 45-minute drive from the Mayes in Huntersville, North Carolina. The two quarterbacks grew up attending each other’s games. That Mason Rudolph and Drake Maye – separated by a decade in age and on completely different career trajectories – have known each other since childhood is the kind of detail that belongs in a football novel.
He’s active on Instagram at @rudolph2mason with around 233,000 followers. His management contact for inquiries is listed as [email protected], which is visible in his bio – not the kind of detail that matters much, but it suggests a quarterback who handles his own professional presence without a large apparatus around him.
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