LATROBE (93.7 The Fan) – A game where both were successful, the rookie leading three drives all in touchdowns. What Steelers head coach Mike McCarthy is saying about each leading up to the second opportunity for both Friday against the Jets.
We don’t yet know the rotation of quarterbacks, but would expect each to get considerable time.
Drew Allar was 10-13, 153 yards with two touchdowns passing and another rushing in his first action. McCarthy remembers well how beet red Allar was during their first meeting at the NFL Combine, but he impressed him overall with what he did in Indianapolis and that just grew during the Steelers rookie mini-camp. McCarthy praised him for handling the volume of work that weekend. He’s also overcome the nerves of working with Aaron Rodgers that first time and settled in.
Maybe what continues to keep his attention is Allar being able, and willing, to correct himself when he makes a mistake, especially with the changes in footwork.
“He's played a lot of quarterback,” McCarthy said. “I mean, this young man has been playing quarterback for a long, long time, and you can see it. He's thrown the football a lot in his life, going back to his high school days, and that's important. That's all the things you look at when you look to draft a young man.”
There were also compliments for how second-year quarterback Will Howard has progressed. Howard was 7-9 for 86 yards in three series against Green Bay leading a touchdown drive and near TD pass. McCarthy said he remembers the first time he sat down with Howard shortly after he got the job.
“I think he's clearly done everything that's been asked of him,” McCarthy said. “He's changed his body. I think when he left here at that time, came back for offseason program, you could see the effects of the training and then took another step in the five weeks off.”
“I think he's very athletic. There's a lot there to work with. Football comes very natural to him, so he's definitely grown a lot and he'll continue to grow.”
What each has done to their coach’s satisfaction is use the resources available to them. Not just talking to McCarthy, but the Steelers head coach believes assistant coach Tom Arth is one of the best in the game in helping quarterbacks and Arth was a player for McCarthy as a rookie in Green Bay so he understands exactly what McCarthy wants.
These two young quarterbacks have, in McCarthy’s opinion, a very unique quarterback room in that they have a nine-year veteran in Mason Rudolph and a future Hall of Famer in Rodgers who has 20,000 reps in his career in this offense. And both have been good with asking questions about concepts or footwork or a read.
It was the first NFL game for each of them and neither did anything to hurt themselves in the eye of their head coach.
“We’ve got two fine young quarterbacks here and I'm excited about their future,” McCarthy said.
How each are improving with the 2nd preseason game Friday
How each are improving with the 2nd preseason game Friday
