Football justice is one of Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin’s newer Tomlinisms.

Tomlin believes in football justice. As far as he’s concerned, football justice is when good things happen for a player who puts in the work and stays dedicated to his craft.

Tomlin has used the phrase recently to describe Kenny Pickett and the time and effort he constantly puts into being the best quarterback he can be. While it’s no secret that Pickett is committed to physically and mentally mastering the most difficult position in all of team sports, his efforts have yet to bear much fruit through 25 games.

Maybe Pickett isn’t the best example of football justice. Perhaps it’s Mason Rudolph, the sixth-year quarterback who was relegated to an afterthought following a tumultuous 2022 offseason and preseason. Rudolph began the 2022 offseason as the Steelers’ top quarterback on the heels of Ben Roethlisberger’s retirement. However, it wasn’t long before veteran free agent Mitch Trubisky was signed and presumed to be the top quarterback on the depth chart. To make matters worse, Kenny Pickett was then selected in the first round of the 2022 NFL Draft.

Reports out of training camp that summer suggested that Rudolph, a player who had struggled to endear himself to Steelers fans through 17 appearances and 10 starts over the previous three seasons, was balling out. Fans almost seemed offended by the mere suggestion that Rudolph looked good in Latrobe.

They had made up their minds by the end of 2019, the season in which he appeared in 10 games in place of an injured Roethlisberger, that Rudolph simply didn’t have what it took to be a starting quarterback in the NFL.

Rudolph certainly didn’t help his cause two years later when he started in place of an ill Roethlisberger and led Pittsburgh to a 16-16 tie vs. the winless Lions at Heinz Field.

That would be Rudolph’s last appearance for quite a while.

At least in the regular season.

He did appear in Pittsburgh’s three preseason games in 2022 and was booed by the folks at Acrisure Stadium in the first one.

Speaking of the fans, they almost revolted right before the start of the season when the Steelers’ first official depth chart listed Rudolph as the backup and Pickett as third-string.

Turned out that it was a “clerical error,” but, geez, talk about giving a guy a complex.

Rudolph seemed virtually anonymous throughout the 2022 regular season. The belief was that he would finish up his contract and then sign with another team in the 2023 offseason. Rudolph wanted to start somewhere or at least be a team’s primary backup quarterback.

Rudolph got no offers in free agency.

Actually, Rudolph did eventually get an offer from the Steelers to come back and be their third-string quarterback again in 2023.

Rudolph again began the 2023 offseason and regular season as an afterthought, but the Steelers’ offensive woes, woes that had persisted since midway through the 2020 campaign, just never subsided. Offensive coordinator Matt Canada was Public Enemy Number One way before fans started chanting for his dismissal in a Week 2 game vs. Cleveland at Acrisure Stadium. Furthermore, the progress fans hoped to see from Pickett in his second season just wasn’t there. And the offense looked no better after Pickett was injured and replaced by Trubisky in a game vs. the Jaguars in late October.

The offense briefly improved following Canada’s surprising dismissal on November 21. But it immediately regressed after Pickett suffered a serious ankle injury and was again replaced by Trubisky in a game against the Cardinals on December 3.

The offense struggled vs. Arizona. It struggled vs. the Patriots. It struggled vs. the Colts. Pickett was still injured, and Trubisky remained at the top of the depth chart.

Rudolph was sent in to mop up at the end of that Colts game, a 30-13 loss on December 16. It was a welcome sight for thousands of Steelers fans who, believe it or not, had spent weeks clamoring for Rudolph to get another shot.

That brings me to Saturday afternoon and Pittsburgh’s clash with the Bengals at Acrisure Stadium. It would mark Rudolph’s first regular-season start since that infamous tie against the Lions on November 14, 2021.

I wanted to give you a bit of a long-winded review of Rudolph’s career struggles through Saturday just to offer some perspective on his journey to football justice.

You know what Rudolph did on Saturday and how he looked against Cincinnati’s defense. You know that he completed 17 of 27 passes for 290 yards and two touchdowns. You know that he averaged 10.7 yards per attempt and finished with a passer rating of 124. You saw those perfect sideline passes. You saw how he hit George Pickens in stride, twice. The first one was a quick pass over the middle that Pickens turned into an 86-yard touchdown catch and run early in the first quarter. The second was a deep pass down the left sideline that Pickens turned into a 66-yard touchdown early in the third quarter.

Speaking of the left sideline, what about the deep pass Rudolph threw to Pickens late in the second quarter? It could have been a touch more accurate, and Pickens bailed Rudolph out a bit by making a twisting and turning catch while also managing to get both feet in bounds, but that 44-yard bomb was still about as pretty a pass as any Steelers quarterback has thrown in 2023.

By the end of what would be a 34-11 Steelers victory, fans at Acrisure Stadium could be heard chanting, “Mason Rudolph!” What a turnaround. What a comeback.

What a great reality show football is.

This isn’t to suggest Rudolph should be Pittsburgh’s starting quarterback indefinitely. But there certainly are many people who now feel as if he should get the nod in next week’s important road clash against the Seahawks.

Fans are fickle, but it’s easy to get on their good side if you show you’ve made improvements to your game.

It sure does look like Rudolph has.

Rudolph could have complained. He could have gotten on with his life’s work after receiving no offers in free agency this past offseason. In our minds, collecting a seven-figure salary to be a third-string quarterback is a pretty good gig. But just put yourself in the shoes of a quarterback who was good enough to start in the Big 12. He then was good enough to be selected in the third round of the 2018 NFL Draft. Both of those things are hard to achieve in life, and you’re likely not going to achieve them unless you have a lot of confidence in yourself and a sizable ego.

Rudolph’s first five years in the NFL did nothing but erode his confidence and ego–or so it would appear.

Maybe Rudolph’s belief in himself never did waver. While we were all certain that 17 games was enough of a sample size to determine that Rudolph just wasn’t very good, maybe he was studying just as much film as Pickett. Maybe he was conditioning his body just as much as Pickett. Even as a third-stringer, maybe he was taking advantage of every single rep he received, in training camp, in the preseason, and at practice during the regular season.

Who knows where Rudolph’s career goes from here, but if Saturday’s performance was the pinnacle of it, well, I’d say that’s still some pretty darn good football justice.

If Mike Tomlin still believes in football justice, maybe he now believes in Mason Rudolph.