Today, I wanted to continue learning about the 2026 NFL Draft class for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Up next is Penn State QB Drew Allar, selected in the third round of this April’s draft. The goal of the article is to assess his success from a route-type perspective, including individual-season data, along with his final three seasons in total from a stats perspective.
First, here is a yearly breakdown of passing stats by route type. Included in the data are completions/attempts, yards, touchdowns, interceptions, and adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A). All stats are from Sports Info Solutions (SIS), and the table is sorted by most attempts over the three-year span:
Lots of valuable info to unpack. For starters, broad takeaways include Allar’s final 2025 season being underwhelming and shortened (six games played), with specific context of stronger play in 2023 and 2024 overall.
Allar’s top three targeted routes since 2023 were screens, outs, and curls. Nothing earth-shattering there, with those routes commonly used by many quarterbacks.
Fourth most common were digs, an intermediate in-breaker to the middle of the field. Unfortunately, the quality was lacking, including the worst completion rate so far, with no touchdowns and three interceptions (all in 2024, his final full season). Like the frequency, and perhaps throwing to fellow rookie Germie Bernard, who was successful on the route type, could help moving forward.
Rounding out the top five is flat routes, another high-percentage pass, generally speaking. This was Allar’s second-highest completion rate of the top five route types thrown (only to screens), and his highest TD total of five so far, along with no interceptions.
Slants were sixth in frequency, also featuring no interceptions, along with four touchdowns. Considering Steelers WR is known as a slant king, this could bode well when/if Allar sees the field.
The remaining route types had fewer than 50 attempts over three years. So low sample sizes otherwise, and lacking some route variety that he’ll likely need in the NFL. Some notables by season do stand out, though.
Looking at the ANY/A numbers in Allar’s final 2025 season, we see that go/fly, deep cross, and post were low sample, but boomed in results, including four TDs and no interceptions. That makes sense given his arm strength and plays on his highlight reels.
Post routes were particularly healthy results in the other two seasons I examined, especially 2024, with six touchdowns and no interceptions. Allar had one other route type in 2024 with six TDs and no interceptions – the seam route. This was also quite effective in 2023, albeit quantity over quality, with all three completions going for touchdowns. That would surely be welcomed if he’s able to translate it to the NFL.
I could go on, but let’s go ahead and move to the overall data from 2023-2025. The same stats remain (with completion rate added), but compiled with the goal of being more digestible, including conditional formatting for quicker takeaways:
Top 5 Attempts: screen, out, curl, dig, flat.
Top 5 Completions: screen, curl, out, flat, slant.
Top 5 Completion Rates (min. 50 attempts): screen, flat, curl, slant, out.
Top 6 Yardage (min. 500): screen, out, curl, broken play, dig, post.
Most Touchdowns: post (nine), seam (nine), fade (seven), flat (five), deep cross (five).
Least Interceptions (min. 50 attempts): flat (none), slant (none), out (none), screen (none), curl (one).
Top 5 ANY/A: post (20.8), deep cross (17.2), seam (14.5), corner (13.4), beneath (12.6).
This breakdown really zeros in on the most successful route concepts for Allar across the majority of his college career.
Now for the flipside. There were several route concepts that he simply didn’t throw or wasn’t asked to execute. Virtually half of the list had fewer than 25 attempts over Allar’s last three seasons: check & release, wheel, go/fly, corner, beneath, double move deep, whip, fade/back shoulder, angle, over ball, jet sweep pass, quick, and jerk.
Bottom 5 Attempts: jerk, quick, jet sweep pass, over ball, angle, fade/back shoulder.
Bottom 5 Completions: jerk, quick, fade/back shoulder, over ball, double move deep.
Worst Completion Rates (50-percent or lower): fade/back shoulder, double move deep, go/fly, fade, comeback, over ball, wheel, deep cross, dig.
Least Yardage (less than 100): quick, jerk, jet sweep pass, fade/back shoulder, over ball, angle, double move deep, whip.
Routes with no TDs: curl, dig, comeback, swing, double move deep, whip, over ball, jet sweep pass, jerk, quick.
Route types with INTs: dig (three), go/fly (two), fade/back shoulder (two), curl (one), broken play (one), fade (one), post (one), check & release (one), wheel (one).
Bottom 5 ANY/A: fade/back shoulder (-12.4), quick (-1.0), jet sweep pass (3.3), swing (4.5), check & release (4.5).
While the NFL is a different animal, hope you enjoyed the detailed study of what transpired during the majority of Allar’s college career. I can’t wait to see how it pans out.
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