Signing Josh Rosen should be a no-brainer right?
Anyone who watched the 2019 Pittsburgh Steelers knows the backup quarterback situation is questionable at best. The Miami Dolphins have just done the Steelers a tremendous favor be releasing Josh Rosen yesterday. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/dolphins-releasing-former-first-round-pick-josh-rosen-after-failing-to-find-suitable-trade-per-report/
The tenth overall pick in the 2018 draft is now available after being cut by the Dolphins. He is worth at least a look, especially considering what the Steelers have behind Ben Roethlisberger right now. Not signing this player would be a huge mistake for the Steelers.
Strange Road:
It has been quite the rocky road for the former UCLA star. Two teams and several offensive coordinators later, Josh Rosen finds himself on the street after just two seasons.
Rosen’s career started out like most rookie quarterbacks do. A 3-10 season with eleven touchdowns and fourteen interceptions is par for the course for a first year starter. When you consider how dismal the 2018 Arizona Cardinals were, those numbers aren’t half bad. The Cardinals would go on to fire head coach Steve Wilkes after just one season. This is where things went bad for Rosen in his short NFL career.
The Cardinals hired Kliff Kingsbury as their new head coach the following season. Kingsbury’s familiarity with Kyler Murray led the Cardinals to take him first overall in the 2019 draft. The Cardinals had made the extremely rare move of drafting quarterbacks in the top ten two years in a row. Murray was a much better fit in the style of offense Kingsbury offense. The writing was on the wall for Josh Rosen.
He probably didn’t think it was possible, but Josh Rosen was traded to an even worse team than the 2018 Cardinals. The Miami Dolphins sent a second and fifth round pick in exchange for the former UCLA quarterback. Rosen would only play in three games in 2019, giving way to veteran Ryan Fitzpatrick. Like Groundhog Day, the Dolphins would have a terrible season and promptly draft another quarterback in the top ten of the draft. This time the Dolphins could not find a trading partner, and had to outright release Rosen.
Steelers Opportunity:
We have been urging the Steelers to acquire Josh Rosen since the day he became available from the Cardinals.Steelers need to use their first round pick on……Josh Rosen
If 2019 taught us anything, it is that the backup quarterback situation is an absolute disaster. Rosen would immediately be better than Devlin Hodges and Paxton Lynch without even opening the team’s playbook. Given a month in the system, he would easily surpass Mason Rudolph as the best quarterback not named Roethlisberger on the roster.
Kevin Colbert should use use a waiver claim to ensure they get Rosen. If he were to get into the open market, there will surely be several suitors. The Dolphins and Cardinals have already paid nearly all of his salary at this point. According to a tweet from Tom Pelissero, all that would be left to pay is $3.6 million over two seasons. Less than two million per season for a highly drafted quarterback entering his third season.
Players like this almost never become available after only two seasons. This is a situation where two bad franchises have inexplicably bungled their quarterback plan. Now the Steelers stand to benefit from those team’s mistakes. At worst, you have upgraded the backup to Ben Roehtlisberger significantly. At best, Pittsburgh may have found themselves a future franchise quarterback basically for free. As we said earlier, this signing should be a no-brainer for the Pittsburgh Steelers.