Rookie sixth-round QB Will Howard has a challenging path ahead of him to ever start a game for the Pittsburgh Steelers. But it’s important to take things one step at a time. The first step is trying to win his spot on the 53-man roster as the team’s third quarterback on the depth chart. By the sound of it, he is already well on his way to checking that first box.
“Will Howard…I thought on-field stuff, yeah, he looked somewhat poised,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Brian Batko said via 9.37 The Fan’s Morning Show. “The guy that first pops into my mind when I think of a rookie at Steelers training camp is Kenny Pickett…He looked, I thought, more skittish, and maybe that was just [because] some of the guys in front of him were stocking shelves a couple months later. But I remember him looking like the game was moving pretty fast, and it wasn’t like any of us, I don’t think, were clamoring for him to move up the depth chart quickly.
“With Will Howard, I don’t think it’s gonna be long before Skylar Thompson, all due respect to that young man, is in the rearview and Howard’s working in there as the third quarterback.”
To be fair to Pickett, he was a first-round pick and naturally had more pressure on him. But that is one of the advantages that Howard has. He has absolutely zero pressure to ascend to the rank of starting quarterback in his first season behind Aaron Rodgers and Mason Rudolph. It has also been just one practice, and Howard has already experienced some ups and downs throughout OTAs and minicamp in the spring.
According to our Alex Kozora, who is on-site at camp, Howard was already splitting third-team reps evenly with Thompson. Rodgers and Rudolph each got 12 snaps while Howard and Thompson got six.
Even if Rodgers plays in the preseason, it shouldn’t be much. The team already knows what Mason Rudolph is from his six years in Pittsburgh. We can expect Howard to get the lion’s share of work in the preseason so the team can get a good look at what they have in him.
All signs point to the Steelers drafting a quarterback in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft. But that’s looking too far ahead. For Howard, it’s still one step at a time, and he continues to look good each step of the way.
