Why the Steelers are right to stick with Devlin ‘Duck’ Hodges at quarterback over Mason Rudolph

At 6-5 on the season, the Steelers are still fighting for a playoff spot. That’s why it’s a big deal that they benched quarterback Mason Rudolph against the winless Bengals on Sunday, turning to rookie Devlin “Duck” Hodges.

With Pittsburgh down 7-3, Rudolph came out for the start of the second half, went three-and-out, and then rode the pine the rest of the way. He finished 8 of 16 for just 85 yards and an interception.

Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin explained after the game that the Steelers needed a spark and that Rudolph “wasn’t doing enough.”

Days later, Tomlin said Hodges will start in Week 13 against the Browns, and that the team will evaluate the quarterback position after that.

For now, the Steelers made the right decision to go with Hodges — and not just because he’s taking better care of the ball than Rudolph:

Hodges is also coming off a strong performance in which he led the Steelers to three scoring drives for a 16-10 win over Cincinnati.

If you looked at Rudolph’s stats before the loss to the Browns in Week 11, you might mistake him for a quarterback who takes good care of the football. He had 11 touchdowns and four interceptions at that point. That changed when he threw four interceptions against Cleveland, a stat that is likely overlooked after he made headlines for his involvement in a wild brawl.

Rudolph had so few picks before that because the Steelers simply didn’t attempt much with him under center. Since taking over for the injured Ben Roethlisberger in Week 2, Rudolph has shown that he’s a game manager at best.

Then he even failed at that against the hapless Bengals, and that sealed his fate. But in recent weeks, Rudolph’s stock was steadily declining. After a season-high 74.3 completion percentage against the Colts, he didn’t surpass 60 percent in any of his last the games. It’s been a month since he has thrown more than a touchdown pass in a game. He’s been averaging 6.2 yards per pass, second-worst in the NFL among qualified starters. There is very little threat that he will make a big play on any given snap.

Perhaps the most damning piece of evidence is what Hodges has done with less. Top weapons like JuJu Smith-Schuster and James Connor both missed Sunday’s game due to injury, but Hodges still found a way to put points on the board when Rudolph couldn’t.

Sunday was actually the third time we’ve seen Hodges this season. The undrafted rookie closed out an overtime loss to the Ravens when Rudolph suffered a concussion, and led Pittsburgh to a win over the Chargers the following week. This is the first time the Steelers have switched to him for performance reasons.

Will it stick? Let’s take a look at some of his throws this season, mostly from Week 12.

Here we have a pretty decent throw where Hodges looked to his left first, then to his right, before hitting his guy with a quick and easy slant. The Bengals rushed six players to try to shake the rookie, but he easily completed the 14-yard pass to Diontae Johnson.

It wasn’t all good, however.

Hodges threw plenty of incompletions on the day — he finished 5 of 11 for 118 yards and a touchdown. Here is one where he didn’t really read the field and threw to what appears to be his first option. Unfortunately, that option wasn’t even close to open and it really should have been an interception to the linebacker.

That said, most of his incompletions against the Bengals were when Hodges quickly read the field before throwing it away in the face of pressure. He seems to have a good head for when plays aren’t going to result in positive yardage, and all but two of his incompletions on Sunday were balls thrown away.

He was part of the biggest play of the game, too.

That’s Hodges finding James Washington, after looking to his right where there were three different underneath options. A lesser quarterback would dump that ball off, but Hodges calmly stood in the pocket and tossed a deep pass to Washington, who stiff armed B.W. Webb en route to a 79-yard touchdown.

Washington and Rudolph, notably, were teammates at Oklahoma State, but they’d only hooked up for one touchdown together this season. Hodges and Washington got one on the quarterback’s third play of the game.

The Steelers didn’t trail again, and Hodges didn’t have more than one or two errant passes on the day. You have to go back to his start against the Chargers to find a turnover.

Hodges stood in the pocket, with his team up by a couple touchdowns, and had time to elect NOT to throw a pass into triple-coverage. Instead, he tossed it, and it was an easy interception for the Chargers. Fortunately for Hodges and Pittsburgh, the game was out of reach by that point.

It’s not surprising that Tomlin elected to go with Hodges in Week 13, though it’s surely disappointing to the Browns players following the aforementioned brawl in Week 11:

Hodges didn’t blow anybody away with his play, but in his limited time, I like what I’ve seen from the rookie. He’s got active feet in the pocket and would rather abort a play than force a poor decision. He certainly seems to have a higher ceiling than Rudolph.

Pittsburgh likely isn’t in the running for the AFC North crown due to the Ravens being among the NFL’s elite, but a wild card berth is still possible. Based on what we’ve seen, Hodges gives them the best chance of winning going forward.

Plus, they need to be thinking about what comes after this season as well, with Roethlisberger near the end of his career. While Tomlin was adamant that his decision didn’t reflect their “intended plans” for Rudolph or his career trajectory, at this point a long look at Hodges has to be preferable to more lackluster play from Rudolph.