Madden Monday: 'I don't think the Steelers will go QB in the 1st round'
Sports commentator Mark Madden predicted the Pittsburgh Steelers would let Mason Rudolph start at quarterback rather than use a first-round pick on the position.
In a "Madden Monday" column for TribLIVE, commentator Mark Madden predicted the Pittsburgh Steelers would not use a first-round draft pick on a quarterback, instead opting to let Mason Rudolph start and evaluate his performance.
The column, published on TribLIVE, ran under the headline "Madden Monday: 'I don't think (the Steelers) will go QB in the 1st round. They'll let Mason Rudolph start and see how he does.'" The prediction came during the tail end of Ben Roethlisberger's final season with the team, as speculation mounted over Pittsburgh's succession plan at the position.
The retrieved coverage of the original column is limited to its headline and topic; the full text of Madden's reasoning, and any additional predictions he made in the same column about the Steelers' 2022 draft strategy, were not available in the sources retrieved this session.
The context at the time
The column appeared as the Steelers were weighing their quarterback options heading into an offseason that would ultimately see the team draft Kenny Pickett in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft — a move that ran counter to Madden's prediction. Rudolph, who had already served as Pittsburgh's starter during Roethlisberger injury absences in prior seasons, was the presumptive bridge option Madden referenced.
What it signals
The prediction reflects how uncertain the Steelers' quarterback succession looked in real time, before the front office's actual decision was known. Later reporting on the team's approach to first-round quarterbacks in subsequent draft cycles — including 2026 coverage from CBSSports.com about the team's draft odds — shows the same debate over whether Pittsburgh would use an early pick at the position recurred in multiple draft years, though those later cycles are separate matters from the 2021 column.
How the 2022 draft actually played out
Madden's prediction did not hold. The Steelers selected Pitt quarterback Kenny Pickett with the No. 20 overall pick in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft, according to the team's own reporting and ESPN's draft coverage — making him the first quarterback taken off the board that year. Pickett, a four-year starter at Pitt who passed for 4,319 yards and 42 touchdowns against seven interceptions in his final college season, then had to beat out both Rudolph and 2018 first-round pick Mitch Trubisky to win the Steelers' starting job that summer, per ESPN's reporting on the position battle.
Madden's later reversal
Madden's own coverage of the Rudolph-Steelers relationship continued for years after the column referenced in this article. In subsequent TribLIVE columns, Madden argued Rudolph should have been the team's starter after Roethlisberger's retirement and, in later columns, urged the team to "go back to Mason Rudolph at quarterback" and to stick with Rudolph over rookie Will Howard — commentary that shows Madden's underlying view of Rudolph as underrated by the organization persisted well beyond the specific first-round prediction referenced in the original 2021 column, even after that prediction was proven wrong by the Pickett pick.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage by TribLIVE. It restores a story originally published on this site in December 2021; figures are as reported at the time.