Aaron Rodgers recently said “preseason football is not necessarily real football.” And he’s right.
Still, in August, preseason football is the closest thing we have to real football. And, on Saturday night, the two Steelers quarterbacks who played against the Jaguars did a pretty good job playing not necessarily real football.
With Mason Rudolph taking only 15 snaps and Skylar Thompson handling 51, both performed very well.
Rudolph, who got the start, completed nine of 10 passes for 84 yards and a touchdown. Passer rating? 135.0.
With rookie Will Howard injured, Thompson handled the rest of the game. He completed 20 of 28 passes, generating 233 yards and three touchdown passes. Rating? 132.0.
“Good to be back in the black and gold, man,” Rudolph said after the game in a one-question press conference. (It was one more question than coach Mike Tomlin got.)
Ideally, neither Rudolph nor Thompson (nor Howard) will handle anything more than garbage time this season. But maybe, if one or more of them are needed to play, the cause won’t already be lost.
