Revenge Tour, Backup Concerns, and Paxton Lynch

PITTSBURGH -- As we inch closer to training camp, hoping it happens to any degree, it's time to look at each position on the Steelers roster.

We'll begin with quarterback. A returning future Hall of Famer, a backup many lost faith in, a duck, and a former first-rounder turned practice squad player - oh, and J.T. Barrett - make up the room. Leaving plenty of questions, concerns, and maybe faith for the season.

Quarterbacks on the roster:
Ben Roethlisberger
Mason Rudolph
Devlin Hodges
Paxton Lynch
J.T. Barrett

The Return of Ben Roethlisberger

They're calling it a revenge tour. Big Ben is back from reconstructive surgery on his throwing elbow and has everyone thinking the comeback story could be one for the history books.

After months of worry that Roethlisberger went from starting quarterback to present-day caveman, he shaved his beard and showed everyone he's just been hiding under the facial hair.

"He's confident. He works so hard to get back to where he's playing confident," Steelers running back James Conner said about Roethlisberger on ESPN last month. "We're just excited for him. That's our guy. We're just so thankful that we've got our quarterback. He has Super Bowl rings and that's what we all want to do. He leads by example going out and organizing things. It's been awesome to be back there with him."

"He's back," JuJu Smith-Schuster described it. He wasn't lying.

Conner said Roethlisberger's passes were "whistling," and it's starting to feel like the pain in his arm really is gone. If he walks into the season with a fresh arm, this offense goes from barely hanging on to one of the league's best.

Can You Trust Mason Rudolph?

According to James Conner, yes. When I asked about is faith in Mason Rudolph at the beginning of June, Conner didn't hesitate to give his approval to his backup quarterback.

"I know Mason has a great work ethic," Conner said. "He wants to learn; he's anxious to learn. I see the way Mason works, so I'm confident in Mason."

Mike Tomlin, Kevin Colbert, and Art Rooney II said time and time again that Rudolph was the Steelers backup in 2020. The narrative has never changed, as much as some people wanted it to.

Now we're here, and the big question remains - can Mason Rudolph be trusted? Well, he has to be, because he's Ben Roethlisberger's backup.

Duck, Lynch and Barrett

So who's next? The first guess has to be Devlin Hodges. If you replace Rudolph and start six games in 2019, you have to come in as the expected third-stringer.

Hodges' 3-3 wasn't terrible. Becoming an overnight star and starting a craze in the city of Pittsburgh that's still going today aside, the undrafted rookie completed 62% of his passes and brought confidence of a starter when called upon.

Next would be Paxton Lynch. The 2016 first-round pick started just four games for the Denver Broncos in two years on the team.

Most of Lynch's time in Denver was spent behind seventh-round pick Trevor Siemian. When he got the chance to prove himself, Lynch went 1-3 as a starter and was ultimately removed from the Broncos' future.

At 26-years-old, the 6-foot-7 quarterback does have potential. The problem is that he hasn't shown progress towards reaching it. Still, he's been talked about as a possible backup this season.

Finally, there's J.T. Barrett. The college star went undrafted in 2018 and bounced around through 31 NFL transactions.

It's hard to say anything about him. He's got little to no NFL experience and was a stretch to make a roster when he left Ohio State. Now he's in Pittsburgh as an emergency plan, but he's still determined to play.

"Do I feel like I can play in the NFL? I wouldn't be here if I didn't," Barrett told Trib Live's Chris Adamski earlier this year.

"It's all a process, right? You talk about not just football but life, you have to start off somewhere, right? And then from there, you grow or you decline.

"I'm still just grinding because I still love the game of football. I still think I have the ability to play, and I still want to play. From there, it's just trying to make it, working hard and trying to keep getting better every day."

Noah Strackbein is a Senior Writer with AllSteelers. Follow Noah on Twitter @NoahStrack, and AllSteelers @si_steelers.