Will Howard fractured a bone in his hand during the first week of August and hasn’t fully practiced since, missing his entire rookie preseason. According to Mike Tomlin, he is about to return as a full participant.
“He’s had some positive reviews meeting with the hand specialist,” Tomlin said via TribLive’s Chris Adamski on X. “We’ve increased his level of activity. We’ve altered the brace that you mentioned. And so he’s moving in the right direction in terms of full participation very soon.”
With the 53-man roster cutdown coming tomorrow afternoon, there has been a lot of speculation on what the Steelers will do with Howard. The growing consensus was that he would be an IR/Designated to Return candidate, effectively shutting him down for the first month of the season while protecting him from getting poached by other teams.
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac said that’s the plan as recently as this morning. He strongly suggested the Steelers would stash Howard on IR with Skylar Thompson making the initial 53-man roster, and even suggested Howard could spend the entire season on IR.
Tomlin’s words make that seem improbable at this point. Intrigue is now at an all-time high for what they choose to do with Howard and the initial 53-man roster. It seems entirely possible they will keep him as the third quarterback and cut Thompson outright despite his stellar preseason.
Prior to his injury, Howard was drawing positive reports from training camp. He was gearing up to likely play a ton in the preseason. Instead, most of those reps went to Thompson and Logan Woodside instead. The timing of the injury couldn’t have been worse, but he avoided surgery and only needed about three weeks to recover.
Perhaps the Steelers could find a trade partner for Thompson instead of cutting him outright. The Las Vegas Raiders have a big need at backup QB after Aidan O’Connell’s injury. As well as Thompson did in the preseason, it was always an uphill battle for him to make the roster. Don’t expect him to stick around with Howard back.
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