The Pittsburgh Steelers are hoping that Aaron Rodgers will re-sign with them for the 2026 season. However, if he doesn’t, they’ll be left with a huge question mark at quarterback. Will Howard, the team’s sixth-round pick, seems like an option. While quarterbacks drafted that late don’t often pan out, Omar Khan is confident that Howard will get a shot at the starting job at some point.
“There’s a lot that can happen between now and then, but the opportunity’s gonna be there, I think, whether it’s this year or at some point, for him to show us what he’s got,” Khan said Tuesday on The Rich Eisen Show. “We wish we would’ve seen him play in the preseason. He got hurt, that was unfortunate, but we spent a lot of time dissecting his practice film and what he’s done.
“I understand it’s practice, but Mike McCarthy and I, we’ve evaluated it and feel really good. We’ve seen the improvement week to week when he was out there, and it was just unfortunate he got hurt last year, and we couldn’t see him on the field.”
There’s been a lot of hype surrounding Howard, even though he hasn’t even played in the preseason in the NFL yet. Part of that is because of the mystery surrounding him. There’s no telling how good he is right now because an injury limited him last year. However, Khan sounds impressed with what Howard showed in practice.
Khan had a lot of good things to say about Howard during his NFL Combine press tour. It sounds like the young quarterback will get a serious look this year if Rodgers doesn’t return to Pittsburgh.
However, even if Rodgers comes back, it feels unlikely that it would be for more than a year. Therefore, the Steelers could face the same predicament next year.
That could be Howard’s time to shine. It’s too far out to predict where the Steelers will be in 2027, but they don’t have a long-term quarterback option. Perhaps they’ll draft one high, either this year or next, but that’s not guaranteed. There’s a scenario where Howard could be in pole position to be the Steelers’ starter.
Whether or not that’s a good idea remains to be seen. Maybe Howard can be a solid starter, but he needs to show something in an actual NFL game to prove that. With any luck, he’ll stay healthy and at least get some preseason action this year.
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