PITTSBURGH -- A couple of hours before the Pittsburgh Steelers' first practice of the week, offensive lineman Jesse Davis leaned forward in his chair to talk past the other offensive linemen sitting beside him in the team's locker room.
"Hey, Rudolph," he said in a tone somewhere between an indoor voice and a shout, "are you QB1 this week?"
Mason Rudolph, whose locker is sandwiched between practice squad linemen Ryan McCollum's and John Leglue's, was in the middle of getting dressed and glanced up.
"I'm splitting reps," he told Davis.
At that moment, he noticed a reporter standing nearby.
"Way to go, Jess," he said with a laugh, glancing at the reporter. "There ya go, there's your answer."
With rookie quarterback Kenny Pickett sustaining his second concussion in eight weeks and backup Mitch Trubisky throwing three picks in Sunday's loss to the Baltimore Ravens, Davis isn't the only one wondering about the starting quarterback entering the Week 14 game against the Carolina Panthers.
There won't be a resolution anytime soon, though.
Coach Mike Tomlin said Tuesday he was taking the quarterback decision day-by-day to monitor Pickett's progress in the protocol, and Trubisky and Rudolph would start out splitting first-team reps as long as Pickett is out of practice. When Pickett sustained his first concussion in Week 6, he cleared the protocol in time to start against the Dolphins in Week 7.
"We've been here before," center Mason Cole said. "We've got confidence in whoever's back there. We know we've got to be good at our jobs to help whoever's back there, and we'll take it in stride as we go."
Rudolph signed a one-year extension with the Steelers in 2021 to guarantee he'd be with the team through 2022, and Pittsburgh kept Rudolph on the roster amid widespread speculation he could be dealt during the preseason.
But after a year of almost exclusively mental reps, his future likely isn't with this franchise. Rudolph needs a fresh start, and playing Sunday -- in a stadium fewer than 30 miles from his hometown in Rock Hill, South Carolina -- could be the springboard to his next move.
"My only concern is obviously winning the game," Rudolph said, deflecting a question about his future. "If I get the nod, let's go win the game."
Wednesday, in the team's first practice of the week, Rudolph and Trubisky did indeed split reps, though Pickett went through individual drills and was listed as a limited participant. That doesn't necessarily mean he's on the road to clearing concussion protocol by Saturday's 4 p.m. deadline, but limited participation followed by evaluation is one step in the process.
"That first play called being back in the huddle and calling plays with the starting offense was fun," Rudolph said. "And I think I shook off the rust relatively quickly, so it was a good day." In dividing the first-team work, Tomlin opened the door for Rudolph to play for the first time this season after the 2018 third-round pick's role was greatly reduced this year with the additions of the other two quarterbacks. Rudolph hasn't started a game since Week 10 against the Detroit Lions, and despite a strong showing early in training camp, he never truly had a shot to win the starting job over the first-round draft pick and former first-rounder acquired in free agency.
In his Tuesday news conference, Tomlin downplayed the gap between Trubisky and Rudolph, saying he felt like they were "2 and 2a." Rudolph, though, politely disagreed.
"I felt like I hadn't been active on Sundays," Rudolph said when asked about Tomlin's characterization.
After being inactive his entire rookie season, Rudolph was on the active game-day roster for all but one game of the next three seasons. Even if he wasn't likely to see playing time, Rudolph often went through a meticulous warmup. He warmed up his arms, bending his elbows at 90-degree angles and waving them up and down. He limbered up by stretching and throwing dozens of passes.
This year, though, Rudolph hasn't been active for a single game, and he isn't out on the field running through his pregame routine. Instead he arrives at the stadium in his standard business casual attire, changes into sweats, and puts in his earpiece.
"I put my coaching hat on Sundays and I do a good job, or I try to do a good job to help any way I can and communicate," he said. "But sometimes less is more. I'm never going to annoy anyone with too much analytics stuff."
In practice, Rudolph's limited team-period reps most often come with the scout unit. One week, he took No. 2 reps while Trubisky repped a Taysom Hill-like position on scout team ahead of the New Orleans matchup. It's a departure from Rudolph's years as Ben Roethlisberger's backup from 2019 to '21 where he got first-team reps on Wednesdays during the quarterback's weekly rest day.
"I see the same guy, still see the same level of urgency, attention to detail and competitive spirit," Tomlin said of Rudolph.
Before this week, Rudolph most recently worked with the starting offensive skill players during the Week 9 bye.
"I bartered with Mitch and Kenny to get a rep each day," Rudolph said. "They gladly agreed. But before that, anything significant would've been training camp."
It's the fewest reps with the starting offense Rudolph can remember getting since his rookie season, when Joshua Dobbs was Roethlisberger's primary backup.
If Rudolph sensed his role would be greatly diminished this year, he didn't let it affect his preparation during camp. He used St. Vincent wrestling coach Dominick Nania's office to study film and the playbook, spending time between practices and meetings at Nania's desk. There, he noticed an Oklahoma State wrestling sticker. Rudolph, an OSU alum, got Nania a signed photo of legendary Oklahoma State wrestling coach John Smith as a thank you for loaning the quarterback his office.
"It's close to the locker room, and it's a comfortable chair," Rudolph told ESPN during training camp. "There's not a lot of comfortable chairs over in the locker room. ... I'm not a huge [wrestling] fan, but I'm a fan of coach John Smith. So, yeah, I got him a little picture from Coach. Seemed like he liked it."
Rudolph's teammates have noticed his dedication and commended the quarterback's attitude.
"He comes with a great attitude each and every day," Leglue said. "His work ethic is definitely displayed on the practice field. I'm just super happy for Mason."
Earlier this season, Rudolph got some advice from legendary quarterbacks coach Tom Moore, a former Steelers assistant currently consulting with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Now, Moore's wisdom is Rudolph's mantra.
"Hey, you don't know when your opportunity's going to come," Rudolph says Moore told him, "but you can always be ready for the one that you do (get).
"That's the way I've tried to approach this year."