The Pittsburgh Steelers drafted Ohio State QB Will Howard, as well as teammate Jack Sawyer—but is he “the guy”? As a sixth-round pick, history doesn’t favor that being the case, but he’ll have a chance to prove himself. He was the guy last year for the Buckeyes, however, and Sawyer recalled when he first realized that.
For context, while Sawyer spent his whole career at Ohio State, Will Howard only arrived in 2024. He entered the transfer portal after four years at Kansas State, the Buckeyes having a need at quarterback. USC and Miami also pursued him, but Howard knew Ohio State was the best opportunity.
“Kyle [McCord] has just gone in the portal and I was like, ‘what are we gonna do at quarterback?’”, Jack Sawyer said on Ben Roethlisberger’s Footbahlin podcast. “Coach [Ryan] Day just smiled. He was like, ‘We got the guy’. And I was like, ‘Who?’. He was like, ‘I can’t really say anything yet, but I think we’re gonna get Will Howard’”.
Sawyer then relayed that he watched and rooted for Howard while at Kansas State. And while his new Buckeyes teammates were excited about him, they also wanted to find out what he’s made of. They saw that he was big and could “sling it around”, in Sawyer’s words, but does he have the makeup?
“I want to see how tough this guy is. Is this guy really that gritty dude that we see on film? Is he really gonna be like that? A guy that can will us to victory, take a couple shots?’”, Sawyer recalled saying of Howard. And so he made sure to test him at spring practices, laying a hit on him “a few times”.
After a couple weeks of practice and growing aggravation, Will Howard finally unleashed on Jack Sawyer. “He throws it and I just give him a little check to the chest-chin area. And he goes back and he shoves me”, he told Roethlisberger. “He’s like, ‘What the hell are you doing, man? Knock that shit off!’. And I was like, ‘Finally! I’ve been waiting for you to do something like that for the last two weeks! Finally!’”.
“That’s when we knew, okay, we got the guy. We got the guy”.
Howard went on to lead the Ohio State Buckeyes to the national championship title that season. Howard, also appearing on the podcast, credited the program in full for his growth as a player. Despite his successes, however, he still fell to the sixth round. Yet he landed with the team he would have chosen for himself, anyway.
The Steelers had a need at quarterback either way, with just two on the roster at the start of the draft. They passed on the position four times before reaching the sixth round. With Will Howard still on the board, they just couldn’t say no anymore, their other major needs satisfied. And they didn’t have to take him at the top of the draft. “Kenny Pickett without the first-round pressure”, one reporter recently said.
Howard is likely to spend his rookie season as the Steelers’ emergency quarterback, whether Aaron Rodgers signs or not. Mason Rudolph would start, and they are likely to bring in a veteran backup. They are also not counting on Howard developing into the future face of the franchise. But they saw something in him, perhaps the same things Jack Sawyer saw on the practice field, that drew them to him even as they seemed set on passing on this quarterback draft class in its entirety. If he does succeed, it will be thanks in no small part to that indefinable drive that separates the greats.
