PITTSBURGH — Mike McCarthy stepped to the podium at Acrisure Stadium on Thursday night, fresh off his first preseason win as the Steelers head coach. As he began answering the first question, he placed two hands on a brand new (and quite wobbly) lectern.

“We’re going to fix this,” McCarthy chuckled.

It was just about the only thing that went wrong during a night of debuts for the head coach and his two young quarterbacks. McCarthy was hired in large part because of a history of developing successful signal callers. That they were during 28-9 win, combining for 313 passing yards.

“It’s a really good quarterback room,” McCarthy said. “I thought they played that way tonight.”

What we learned from Drew Allar’s stellar preseason performance

Mike DeFabo

Starter Mason Rudolph led a 16-play, 84-yard drive. Second-year pro Will Howard, playing in the preseason for the first time after a pinky injury derailed his rookie season, orchestrated a successful two-minute drill. And Drew Allar provided the exclamation point. The rookie from Penn State led three touchdown drives in his three series. He completed 10 of 13 passes and finished with a passer rating of 154.8 (not far off from the perfect score of 158.3).

“My job as a quarterback is to go out and put up points no matter what the situation is,” Allar said. “I feel like we did a good job of that.”

As the rookie trotted onto the field early in the second half, he was greeted by “Drewwwwwww” chants. Three plays later, Allar faced his first test — a third-and-7 from his own 23-yard line. Allar recognized the man coverage and initially looked for the tight end running a crossing route out of a 3×1 formation. When a Packers linebacker took that away, Allar quickly went to his second read.

Showing off the way the ball explodes out of his hand, Allar threw with timing and anticipation for rookie wide receiver Kaden Wetjen on a 12-yard dig. Wetjen sidestepped the crashing safety and raced 74 yards before he was tackled at the 3-yard line. Allar punched it in himself a few plays later, keeping the ball on a read-option.

After the rushing TD, Allar orchestrated a 10-play, 89-yard drive that ended with a 5-yard touchdown pass to Wetjen. The rookie QB followed that with a 10-play, 63-yard drive, capped by a 4-yard touchdown pass to fullback Riley Nowakowski.

“I think it’s a huge confidence boost,” Allar said. “But I think I came into the game confident, just because of the preparation and everything that has gone on the last two weeks down in Latrobe. Then Coach McCarthy and the whole offensive staff putting together a really concise game plan, just calling stuff that they know I’m comfortable with, and just allowing us to go out and play fast.”

Sure, it was just the preseason against a defense that didn’t do much to disguise its pre-snap looks, and Allar acknowledged he’ll probably get a minus grade for one piece of footwork on a “crazy reverse on the center exchange.” Still, it was a promising debut that highlighted some of Allar’s upside. Even on a throwaway near the end zone, he showed solid decision making.

“I kind of screwed up in the first part of the read,” Allar said. “But you don’t make a bad play worse is something that we kind of always talk about.”

Allar executed many of McCarthy’s staple concepts, especially the Dragon (slant/flat) that’s been part of the head coach’s playbook since his first time as a play caller in New Orleans in 2000. Allar also showed his mobility on the rushing touchdown, when he bootlegged to the left and threw on the move for the final touchdown pass. Dinged for his footwork in the pre-draft process, Allar has taken well to the coaching points.

Howard’s “peaks and valleys”

Howard’s highlights came during a successful two-minute drill just before halftime. McCarthy places a huge emphasis on situational football, especially the two-minute drill. On fourth-and-inches, the head coach dialed up a play-action pass; Howard rolled to his left and found Ben Skowronek for a 17-yard gain.

“As a quarterback, that really instills confidence in you,” Howard said. “You’re like, man, coach is throwing the ball on fourth-and-1, he’s putting the ball in my hands … that feels great.”

One of Howard’s best moments came later that same drive. Feeling pressure, he did an excellent job of stepping up in the pocket, keeping his eyes downfield and finding tight end Robert Tonyan for a play that was a initially ruled a touchdown. (Running back Lew Nichols punched it in a few plays later.) During practices, QB coach Tom Arth is regularly running at the QBs with a pad during individual periods to drill exactly the scenario Howard executed.

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“I feel like pocket movement is more of a feel thing than anything,” Howard said. “I came back and watched the film, and I didn’t really even realize that I stepped up around that. It’s just something that naturally kind of happens … I feel like the more that you’re in the game, the more that it just becomes second nature.”

While the two-minute drill and the fourth-down were executed well, the two series on either side of that scoring drive showed room for growth. On the first, Howard was chased down from behind on third down for a sack. His biggest miscue came on his third and final drive, when he threw a dangerous third-down pass to a covered receiver short of the sticks. Had it not been overthrown, it would have been a turnover-worthy play.

“Will had some peaks and valleys there because some things didn’t go quite right,” McCarthy said. “I thought he did a really good job on his composure. The two-minute drill was excellent.”

From the moment he was hired, McCarthy has emphasized the importance of building up the QB room. It’s going to be a process and development takes time if either Howard or Allar is going to reach his ceiling. But in their own ways, both young passers showed promise on Thursday.

“Today was the real test,” McCarthy said. “You really never know in this business until you know you’re able to call a play, look in the guy’s eyes and see how they handle it. And I thought Will and Drew handled it very well today.”

More takeaways

Rudolph’s steady showing: Rudolph may be the known commodity, but he gave the Steelers few reasons to rethink the current rotation. He went 10 of 11 on two series. The only incompletion came in the red zone: Rudolph did his best Ben Roethlisberger impression to avoid the rush, and then connected with Germie Bernard; the rookie caught the pass but was unable to get his second foot down in the back of the end zone. The drive stalled on the 1-yard line, but Rudolph converted a trio of chain-moving, third-down passes on the series.

Bernard’s YAC: In practices without tackling, we haven’t been able to fully appreciate Bernard’s physicality and potential for yards after the catch. He showed it on several instances Thursday, including when he spun out of one tackle and ran through another on the same play for a 25-yard gain. He was often Rudolph’s preferred target and finished with four catches for 51 yards.

McCarthy’s play calling: The first-year Steelers head coach displayed aggressive and clever play calling. The aforementioned fourth-down took guts. My favorite call was a few plays later: The Steelers lined up with three receivers to the right and then motioned the running back to the same side to create an overloaded 4×1 formation. That misdirection set up an easy screen pass the other way to Tonyan, lined up as the nub tight end, for a chunk play.

Running back rotation: The decision to sit the top two running backs (Jaylen Warren and Rico Dowdle) provided an opportunity to analyze the RB3 competition. The takeaway there is Kaleb Johnson’s job seems very much uncertain after he carried the ball just twice for three yards. Travis Homer took most of the reps with the first-team offense. He failed to adequately pick up a blitz, leading to a Rudolph sack — that’s an area where an RB3 usually needs to thrive. Meanwhile, Nichols (a preseason darling a year ago) picked up where he left off with 10 carries for 36 yards. One of his most impressive runs came near the goalline when he showed patience to the line of scrimmage, vision to bounce outside and an explosive first step. Rookie Eli Heidenreich was also productive, rushing nine times for 21 yards, often getting a bit more than was blocked for him.

Samuel Jr.’s strong camp continues: Asante Samuel Jr. has made the most of Joey Porter Jr.’s absence during training camp. During the Packers’ first drive, Samuel showed what we’ve been seeing in Latrobe. Jordan Love tested him on a third down. Samuel was in perfect position and showed good ball awareness to break up the pass and force a field-goal attempt. On the second drive, the Packers tried a deep ball in Samuel’s direction that again was well covered.

The biggest red flag: All those flags. The Steelers committed 11 penalties for 134 yards. Special teams was particularly problematic, with seven infractions (six accepted). The penalties spanned the spectrum, which could make it difficult to clean up right away.

Pass protection spotty: Pass protection wasn’t at the level it needed to be on a number of instances. On the Rudolph sack Homer didn’t pick up the blitz, but it didn’t help that left tackle Troy Fautanu got beat around the edge. On another sack, Dylan Cook got beat and Rudolph hung onto it a bit too long. Broderick Jones got beat quickly around the edge on Howard’s sack.

Patrick Graham far from vanilla: The new defensive coordinator showed a number of different pressures. In one instance, the Steeler had six defenders up at the line of scrimmage pre-snap, dropped two out and brought the nickel. Later, they brought the nickel for a six-man pressure. Safety Israel Mukaumu green-dogged, adding onto the rush when the RB stayed in to block, and came up with a sack. Another time, the Steelers showed pressure and dropped out of it to rush just two. This defense will clearly have an aggressive identity, and Graham will make it hard for offenses to know how many players are rushing and when.