When Ben Roethlisberger went down with a season-ending elbow injury back in Week 2, Mason Rudolph was the next quarterback in line for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and early on, he was impressive.

Rudolph vaulted the Steelers back into playoff contention, and while he wasn't Roethlisberger, he showed enough for Pittsburgh to stick with him and for many to tag him as the Steelers' quarterback of the future.

However, recently, the game has not been so kind to Rudolph.

Over the past couple of weeks, Rudolph has thrown just one touchdown as opposed to five interceptions, which resulted in the second-year signal-caller getting benched in favor of undrafted rookie Devlin Hodges midway through Pittsburgh's Week 12 win over the Cincinnati Bengals.

Now, Rudolph has lost his job entirely, as Hodges has supplanted him as the starter under center.

But the 24-year-old isn't letting it get to him, saying that he believes he will make it through this ordeal:

“I’d been benched once in college for a half and once in high school,” Rudolph said, according to Brooke Pryor of ESPN.com. “So yeah, there’s some past experiences you do draw from. I conquered that, and I think I’ll conquer this the same way. Just going to be a matter of staying true to myself and believing in myself and staying in the fight.”

In nine appearances and eight starts for the Steelers this year, Rudolph has thrown for 1,636 yards, 12 touchdowns and nine interceptions while completing 61.6 percent of his passes and posting a passer rating of 80.3.

Pittsburgh is 6-5 and is in desperate need of a win when it hosts the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.