Almost a year ago to the day, Ben Roethlisberger hosted sixth-round QB Will Howard on his Footbahlin podcast, and ever since then, he’s been a big proponent of the Pittsburgh Steelers giving him a starting opportunity. Now, Pittsburgh muddied the waters by drafting another young quarterback in Drew Allar, and Roethlisberger has thoughts.
“This is one that I’m not sure yet if I love it or hate it,” Roethlisberger said on his post-draft episode of Footbahlin. “You can get a lot of really good players in the third round…I think it was [that] we liked a big physical quarterback. I think he had a lot of hype behind him at one point…I didn’t watch a lot of Penn State games. When I did watch, he never jumped off the page to me. Is he big, can he move, can he throw? Yeah, but there was never a time when I was like ‘Whoa.’…We’ll see about this one.”
Roethlisberger gave his opinion leading up to the draft that Pittsburgh should hold off on taking a quarterback for the next year or two and build the team around Howard. That didn’t happen, but they did take his advice to finish the long-term offensive line overhaul with the early additions of OT Max Iheanachor in the first round and OG Gennings Dunker in the third.
This isn’t the first time Roethlisberger has been left confused about the Steelers drafting a quarterback in the third round. He made his displeasure known about Pittsburgh taking Mason Rudolph in 2018. Of course, that was in a completely different scenario. Roethlisberger was in his prime then and felt they could have added an impact player to help them win now. Now the future of the position is up in the air, and the future franchise quarterback may not even be on the roster.
For now, you can count Roethlisberger firmly on team Howard.
“Will was a sixth-rounder. This is a third-rounder. I think this will push Will,” Roethlisberger said. “When I watch tape, or if I watch games, Will Howard jumped off the tape to me way more than Drew did.”
Mike McCarthy was hired with one main objective in mind. They need him to identify and develop the next franchise quarterback in Pittsburgh. If Howard really is as good as everyone thinks he is, he will win the competition and become the long-term starter. And if that ends up being Allar, nobody will care that it came at the expense of Howard’s opportunity.
If one of the two emerges, then the mission is accomplished for the Steelers. Now, Howard has somebody to push him to be great. Nothing can be taken for granted because, up to this point, nothing has been earned.
Roethlisberger doesn’t see it with Allar—at least not yet. Now it’s on the rookie to give him a reason to.