First in a daily series leading into the 2020 NFL Draft, April 23-25:
The Steelers saw what life could look like without Ben Roethlisberger in 2019. And it wasn't always pretty.
Roethlisberger suffered an elbow injury just two weeks into the 2019 season, playing just six quarters. In his absence, Mason Rudolph and Devlin Hodges started the team's final 14 games, with Rudolph going 5-3 in his eight starts and Hodges posting a 3-3 record.
It added up to an 8-8 finish for the Steelers and a second-consecutive season on the outside looking in on the playoffs.
All reports on Roethlisberger's progress on his return to the lineup have been positive to this point and he's on track to return in 2020. But now that he's 38 years old, the Steelers are one step closer to having to deal with life without their future Hall of Fame quarterback.
And if 2019 showed them anything, it's that there's a good chance their future franchise quarterback isn't currently on their roster.
Rudolph, a 2018 third-round draft pick, showed flashes of being a potential NFL starter, beating the Colts and Rams in back-to-back weeks midway through the season before an unfortunate set of circumstances led to a loss in Cleveland that sidetracked him and led to his benching the following week against the Bengals.
Rudolph replaced Hodges a few weeks later in a loss to the Jets, but suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in the second half after leading the Steelers back from a 10-0 deficit.
Hodges, an undrated rookie who was released at the end of training camp only to be brought back after Josh Dobbs was traded and Roethlisberger was injured, won his first three starts, then lost his final three as opponents seemed to figure out his inadequacies.
He'll be pushed in training camp this year by former Broncos first-round draft pick Paxton Lynch, signed to be the third-string quarterback after Roethlisberger was injured, and former Ohio State star J.T. Barrett.
With five quarterbacks on the roster, including four who are 26 or younger, the Steelers don't figure to have much interest in adding another young player to that mix -- at least not this year.
That's probably a good thing considering the team doesn't have a first-round pick in the NFL Draft, which will be held April 23-25. The Steelers traded their first-round pick this year to the Dolphins as part of the deal to acquire safety Minkah Fitzpatrick.
It's probably also not a bad thing to not be in the market for a quarterback this year, as this year's draft class is lacking in overall depth at the position.
LSU's Joe Burrow is considered the best of the bunch and should find a home with the Bengals, who own the top pick in the draft.
Ironically, it is one of the quarterbacks on the Steelers' roster who played a role in Burrow's development.
A native of Ohio, Burrow initially began his career at Ohio State before transferring to LSU. Burrow was a backup to Barrett for two years before leaving Columbus when he realized Dwayne Haskins would be the eventual replacement.
He did graduate from Ohio State in three years with a degree in consumer and family financial services, and was eligible to play at LSU immediately as a graduate transfer student.
"I have a little more experience with it than a lot of people because I was a two premier programs and saw guys like J.T. Barrett do it and I did it myself at LSU," Burrow said. "I’ve had a lot of different experiences that I think have helped shape my mentality when it comes to that. I think I’m very prepared to be that guy when it’s asked of me."
Transfer quarterbacks are a common theme among the top players at the position in the draft this year. Alabama's Tua Tagovailoa beat out Jalen Hurts for the starting job for the Crimson Tide. Hurts then transferred to Oklahoma. The same thing happened at Georgia with Jake Fromm beating out Jacob Eason, who then left for Washington.
All are considered among the top seven quarterbacks available this year, though only Tagovailoa is, like Burrow, considered a first-round prospect.
But it does lead to some questions about the guys who transferred. What will they do if they get stuck behind a veteran starter? After all, they won't have the opportunity to transfer to a new team.
"From a competitive standpoint, you always want to be the guy who’s out there leading the troops. Especially for me, I was a starter 11 or 12 games my freshman year, then had an unfortunate injury," said Eason. "From a competitive side, it was really tough. I had to adapt to that, but as a team player and as a person, it felt like the right thing to do was support (Fromm) and support that team. ... I didn’t want to make the narrative anything about me, I wanted to make sure the focus was on the team wherever we were going, then after that we were going to make my decision.”
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