Drew Allar
Drew Allar
Should Drew Allar start the Steelers’ final preseason game?
If the Steelers are only going to play their young quarterbacks this week, should Drew Allar start the first half this time? Through two weeks so far, he has only played in the second half of games. While that’s ordinarily not unreasonable for a player you don’t expect to play this year, the reality is different.
The Steelers are using this time to evaluate Allar as the potential future franchise quarterback. But they are trying to evaluate him while playing with Doug Nester and Lance Mason instead of Troy Fautanu and Pat Freiermuth. It’s Joaquin Davis and Jakobie Keeney-James failing to come up with catches rather than Germie Bernard or Roman Wilson. Granted, nobody has played with DK Metcalf and Michael Pittman Jr. yet, and it doesn’t seem they will.
But if the Steelers really want to evaluate Drew Allar, why not give him the best opportunity to present himself? The upshot of that is that Will Howard sees a lower quality of snaps, which is another problem. If they are still weighing who their backup should be, that puts Howard at a major disadvantage. Indeed, it makes it harder for him to even make the roster, period.
There were certainly times during the Steelers’ last preseason game when we missed the opportunity to see what Allar could do because of the quality of the players he was playing with. In those instances, it is reasonable to assume a more talented player would have made the play or not made a costly mistake.
But there is only so much preseason time to go around, and there is a season to prepare for. You can’t entirely devote your snaps to developing your potential future quarterback, especially when you have other questions to answer. Even if they are decided on Mason Rudolph being the backup, they still have to decide whether Will Howard deserves a spot on the 53-man roster or whether they want to risk going into next season with just Drew Allar.
Howard, though, is in need of a bounce-back performance after throwing two interceptions. But turnovers ended otherwise promising drives, and there is a legitimate case to make about assigning blame for those plays. So how do you balance giving him a chance to redeem himself with maximizing your opportunity to evaluate Allar?
The Steelers have a long road ahead of them under Mike McCarthy, along with his cadre of quarterbacks.With seven consecutive postseason losses and no wins in nearly a decade, they are under fire for their repeated playoff failures. While we have seen many changes, none could dream of topping Mike Tomlin resigning.
We’re already out of training camp, with free agency and the draft already reshaping rosters. The Steelers, of course, are used to early offseason mode as a team thatloses by the middle of January all the time. Enjoy the ride, even the turbulence, because it’s the only way we know how to travel anymore.