The Steelers’ quarterback room may have just lost a useful safety net.
As Pittsburgh gets rolling at training camp, the team also watched a possible emergency option disappear when ESPN’s Adam Schefter reported Wednesday that the Atlanta Falcons are signing free-agent quarterback Cooper Rush. That matters because Rush, who spent years working under Mike McCarthy in Dallas, looked like a clean fit for the Steelers if their roster shakeup at quarterback goes the way some expect.
Rush was McCarthy’s backup behind Dak Prescott with the Cowboys, and he handled that role well enough to matter. In Pittsburgh, he would have made sense as a practice squad arm if the Steelers move on from Mason Rudolph during cutdowns.
If Rudolph stays as the QB2 for the 2026 season, then Rush would have been a nonstarter anyway. But if Rudolph is the one who gets traded or released, the loss stings a little more.
That’s because Rudolph is the only other quarterback on the roster, outside of 42-year-old Aaron Rodgers, with any in-game experience. If the Steelers go in a different direction and keep Will Howard and Drew Allar as the reserve options, they could be staring at a depth chart where both backups have never taken an NFL snap. Neither has even been on the field for a preseason snap.
A lot of fans want the team to keep building toward the future at quarterback, which is why there’s support for Howard to stick alongside Allar. If that’s the path Pittsburgh takes, Rush would have been a strong fallback.
His Dallas résumé gives you a pretty good idea why. Rush went 9-5 as a starter for McCarthy, throwing 20 touchdowns and 11 interceptions with a 91.1 passer rating. The sample came across four seasons, but the numbers were good enough to paint him as a low-end starter rather than just a placeholder.
There’s no promise that production would have followed him to Pittsburgh, but the connection to McCarthy is real. Their history goes back to Rush’s rookie season in 2017, and after eight years together, the two would have had no trouble getting on the same page if Rodgers ever went down.
Pittsburgh had two possible paths to land him. The first was the cleanest: sign him to the practice squad and bring him up if one of the team’s three quarterbacks got hurt. The other was simpler but less ideal: have him land on the active roster if Rodgers, Howard, or Allar missed time this summer.
Now that Rush is headed to Atlanta, that hidden contingency plan is off the table. Nobody wanted him taking snaps for the Steelers, but if the team really does choose Howard over Rudolph, it would have been nice to know Rush was there if things got weird.
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Mike McCarthys decision to set that order early is as much about managing expectations as it is about camp logistics. Pittsburgh wants to compete with Rodgers at the helm, but it also means the team is asking fans to be patient with two drafted quarterbacks who may spend most of their summer fighting for limited chances rather than pushing for meaningful snaps. [Read more 🡒]