LATROBE, Pa. -- In the highly competitive world of the NFL, there are always competitions.
Typically, however, they are battles for starting jobs or just trying to win a spot on a roster. That's what makes the competition between Josh Dobbs and Mason Rudolph a little different.
Both know there's a good chance they will be on the roster -- something they didn't know a year ago at this time. But what they don't know just yet is how they will fall in the pecking order behind Ben Roethlisberger.
It's been an interesting dynamic throughout training camp and the offseason workouts as the coaching staff has worked hard to give both young quarterbacks as much work as possible while still getting Roethlisberger ready for the 2019 season.
Thing is, as last year proved, you never really know how things are going to work out.
The Steelers selected Dobbs and Rudolph in back-to-back drafts in 2017 and 2018, using fourth- and third-round picks, respectively. They liked both, but with veteran backup Landry Jones on the roster, it looked as if Dobbs might be the odd man out.
Instead, he made the most of his opportunities, played well and won the backup job to Roethlisberger last year. Jones was released at the end of the preseason.
This year, the Steelers are going through that process all over again, allowing Dobbs and Rudolph to compete against each other. They've also liked what they have seen from Devlin Hodges, an undrafted rookie out of Samford.
With the team's first preseason game coming up this Friday at Heinz Field, where the Steelers held their annual Fan Fest practice Sunday night, it will be interesting to see how the workload is divided in the exhibition games.
"They’re all going to get a chance to play and play a lot. I’m rooting for the whole group," offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner told me. "I want to see them all do well. We’ll see which one comes out and is capable of being that guy, who will be the two and who will be the three. It’s been positive. We sat here last year and thought Landry was going to be here. He had been a pretty consistent backup."
It wasn't so much Jones losing the No. 2 job last season as it was Dobbs staking a claim to it. The third-year pro out of Tennessee completed 67 percent of his passes last preseason for 434 yards with four touchdown passes, posting a 112.0 passer rating.
Rudolph, meanwhile, completed 54.5 percent of his passes for 315 yards and a score with a passer rating of 90.6.
So, it was Dobbs holding down the No. 2 spot last season, with Rudolph serving as the team's No. 3. That carries weight in the regular season because not only does the No. 3 quarterback not dress on game days, he also gets very few opportunities to run the Steelers offense during the practice week. His main job is to run the scout team, which means he's running the plays of the opposing team each week.
Ideally, the Steelers would like Rudolph to ascend to that No. 2 role this season. But it won't be handed to him. The Steelers still like Rudolph as a potential long-term replacement for 37-year-old Roethlisberger, who just signed a contract extension through the 2021 season.
That extension would take him through the end of Rudolph's rookie contract. But they believe Rudolph might be the long-term answer.
"The development for Mason, to me, is a little bit more long term," Fichtner told me. "He has some really unique talents, and he just needs to keep getting all of it in perspective. The preseason is going to be huge for them all. I’m excited to see it happen."
In the meantime, the No. 2 job remains up for grabs. But it's nothing new for Dobbs and Rudolph to compete against each other. Even though they never played against each other in college -- Dobbs playing at Tennessee in the SEC and Rudolph for Oklahoma State in the Big 12 -- they've known each other for a while.
The two first met at the Manning Passing Academy in 2016, when they were two of the top 40 or so collegiate quarterbacks invited to go and work out for the week at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La.
It's a good chance to measure your skills against the top QBs in the country. And they were all there that week, from Patrick Mahomes to Baker Mayfield.
"Yeah, always. You want to do well," Rudolph told me of trying to be the best that week. "They try to downplay it. ‘Oh, we’re just going to go out and throw,’ but they’ve got agents and scouts in the stands. I always threw well there, and you try to get better each year. I learned a lot from the Mannings. It was a great experience for them to give their time like that while they were still playing."
Dobbs and Rudolph formed a relationship there that week. In fact, when the Steelers drafted Rudolph in 2018, Dobbs texted him congratulations and welcomed him, even though he knew it meant there was another young quarterback on the roster.
The quarterback fraternity seems to welcome that competition.
"Both of us are obviously competitors at the QB position. You want to play," Dobbs said. "And that’s the dynamic of the room. You go out there and compete on a day-to-day basis, work to improve and continue to run the offense and find ways to improve. You focus on what you did good at and try to get better on the things you didn’t. That’s what we’re trying to do."
The Steelers have continually mixed up the work throughout the offseason and training camp, not letting the quarterbacks know until the start of practice who will be working with which group.
On days Roethlisberger has sat out, sometimes it's Dobbs working with the first team. Other days it's Rudolph. The same goes for second- and third-team snaps. They've even peppered in Hodges on occasion.
The idea is to find the best backup for 2019 while still continuing, as Fichtner said, to develop Rudolph.
Rudolph feels he can be the No. 2 this season. But, that also was his goal a year ago.
He just feels this time around, he's putting his best foot forward. He worked with a throwing coach in the offseason to improve his arm strength. But more importantly, he's more comfortable with what's being asked of him. That allows him to throw the ball with more confidence.
"I don’t think anyone knew anything. I don’t think anyone thought that Landry wasn’t going to be here," Rudolph told me of last season. "Who knows what we all thought? There was a chance that anything could have happened. I was not totally comfortable with the offense. You get to get up on each install and you learn it. You make mistakes and you learn from them.
"I’m so much more comfortable this year. The offense, the players, pre-snap, how to communicate, how to grab a guy and get some work on the side. I just feel 100 times better and I think you’re seeing it on the field. You’re seeing it in me being a lot more accurate, a lot more comfortable under center. That was completely new for me last year."
Dobbs, meanwhile, won't go down without a fight. Just as he did last season, when he surprisingly knocked off Jones, he hopes to hold off Rudolph for another year. But he doesn't see it as a one-on-one competition.
"My approach is that you’re competing against yourself," Dobbs said. "It’s a daily competition with yourself to fight that complacency. There’s only one way to do that and that is to improve on a daily basis."
LOLLEY'S VIEW
If I had to judge things from the first week and a half of training camp practices, I'd say Rudolph has a slight lead on Dobbs right now for the No. 2 spot.
But the preseason games will play a large role in that. It was interesting to hear from Fichtner that the team feels Rudolph is the long-term development guy.
Some have stated if Rudolph isn't the clear-cut No. 2 this season, he will be a disappointment, but that isn't necessarily the case. The Steelers are thinking big picture with him.
And if he and Dobbs both play well in the preseason, that's a positive thing for the team. It also could be a scenario in which Dobbs might be the No. 2 on a weekly basis, but if Roethlisberger were to suffer a long-term injury, it would be Rudolph who takes the No. 1 spot.
Rudolph's at his best when he plants his foot and throws decisively off his pre-snap reads. That's when his accuracy shows up. The Steelers could make some slight adjustments in their offensive scheme to make that work well.
Dobbs, meanwhile, hasn't been quite as accurate with his throws in camp this year, but he is bright and is the perfect No. 2-type guy, a player capable of getting you in and out of a stadium on game days if something happens to the starter.
