Sitting at home without an NFL contract seven months ago, Mason Rudolph opened up a Microsoft Word document he hadn’t edited since his freshman year at Oklahoma State.
It was time to update his résumé, he thought, with his life seeming to approach a crossroads. Once a third-round draft pick with an arm that helped him become OSU’s all-time winningest quarterback and career leader in passing yards, touchdowns, and total offense, Rudolph’s entire life had played out on the gridiron. At that moment, though, Rudolph realized it might be time to start thinking about life after football.
Remember his postgame quip after the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday, wondering if he’d be in commercial real estate next year? That wasn’t a joke.
I didn’t know what was going to happen, and I wanted to have a plan B and think about a plan B a bit,” Rudolph said Wednesday of his mindset earlier this year. “Your whole life you’re doing one thing and your head’s down and I’m, I’m not going to think about it. And I had a little bit of time with family to kind of think about maybe what I might be interested in, and I still had a lot of confidence that I was going to get an opportunity somewhere.
“I know from other guys that sometimes there’s a transition period [when football ends], and I just want to jump in. If it was going to be this path, I wanted to just jump into something and keep my brain moving and not be sitting around waiting.”
Now, Rudolph is on the precipice of his second NFL start in as many weeks, the first time he’s started back-to-back games since his ill-fated 2019 season. This week’s anticipated start also comes against the Seattle Seahawks, the team Rudolph faced in his first NFL action when he came off the bench to replace an injured Ben Roethlisberger in the second half of an eventual 28-26 loss in Week 2 of 2019.
