Will Howard received a lot of praise Tuesday from Omar Khan. If Aaron Rodgers doesn’t return, it sounds like Howard will get a chance to be the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting quarterback in 2026. However, Alabama’s Ty Simpson has been brought up as a potential target for the Steelers in the first round of the draft. Analyst Louis Riddick thinks he’d be a much better option for Pittsburgh than Howard.
“I like Will Howard,” Riddick said recently on ESPN’s NFL Live. “I don’t like Will Howard as much as Ty Simpson. I don’t even think they’re in the same stratosphere as far as their ability to throw the football. Based upon how the latter half of his season went, which wasn’t all on him, the guy is banged up, the offensive line is very inconsistent, the running game was non-existent, and the wide receiver corps is up and down from week to week.
“Then, he turns it around in the playoffs against Oklahoma and brings his team back from a 17-point deficit. He’s tailor-made for Mike McCarthy’s system, and Mike has coached some good quarterbacks. I don’t think he’s a reach at 21, and I do think he’s gonna go before that.”
Howard is the subject of a lot of excitement among Steelers fans, but he was a sixth-round pick last April. Meanwhile, Simpson is getting first-round buzz, and Riddick isn’t the only one who thinks he could come off the board before the Steelers pick at 21.
That speaks to the gap between Simpson and Howard as prospects. While Simpson isn’t flawless, there are reasons why he’s largely viewed as the second-best quarterback in the draft.
One of the biggest knocks against Simpson is that he was only a one-year starter in college. However, he showed a lot of promise — specifically as he threw 21 touchdowns and only one interception in Alabama’s first nine games last year. He looked like a legitimate first-round talent.
However, as Riddick says, Simpson’s play fell off after that. While it wasn’t all his fault, with injuries and an illness hurting him, it makes Simpson’s already small sample size even tougher to evaluate.
Meanwhile, Howard started for multiple years in college, and he had more than double the number of pass attempts as Simpson. Still, he fell all the way to the sixth round. Sometimes, NFL evaluators are wrong, but it isn’t often that franchise quarterbacks are drafted that late.
If the Steelers ultimately select Simpson in the first round, he’ll likely get a shot to earn the starting job right away. No matter how much the team likes Howard, spending a first-round pick on a quarterback is a serious investment. That would hurt Howard’s chances at being the long-term option in Pittsburgh.
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