Steelers Saw A Proven Trait When Their Young QB Will Howard Hit Rock Bottom

The Pittsburgh Steelers did not become interested in Will Howard because everything went right at Ohio State. Assistant General Manager Andy Weidl remembers the opposite. Pittsburgh's evaluation sharpened after Howard and the Buckeyes walked off the field following a 13-10 loss to Michigan, with championship expectations suddenly wobbling. His response to that afternoon became part of the attraction, and Weidl believes the same trait has followed him into the NFL.

Howard's final college regular-season game was ugly enough to linger. Ohio State entered ranked No. 2 and lost at home to Michigan for a fourth straight defeat in the rivalry. Howard completed 19 of 33 passes for 175 yards and a touchdown as the Buckeyes missed the Big Ten Championship Game.

The expanded College Football Playoff gave Ohio State another life, but Howard still had to absorb the most painful loss on the schedule and immediately prepare for a four-game postseason run with the pressure around the program turned all the way up. Pittsburgh was watching how he handled that part as much as any throw.

During a recent media availability, Weidl explained why Howard's response remained memorable from the 2025 draft process.

“I think Will, just how he handled, you know, he picked himself off the mat after the Ohio State-Michigan game… He played his best football at the most important time of the year in the playoffs. He elevated his team. He elevated his play. The moment was never too big. He was composed. He was poised, much like you saw the other night in the two-minute drill where he executed that to perfection,” Weidl said.

Howard turned the playoff into the best stretch of his college career. He completed 75.2% of his passes for 1,150 yards, eight touchdowns and two interceptions across wins over Tennessee, Oregon, Texas and Notre Dame. Ohio State won the national championship, and Howard earned offensive MVP honors in both the Cotton Bowl semifinal and the title game.

That run helped make him Pittsburgh's sixth-round selection at No. 185 overall in 2025. The Steelers were not drafting a flawless prospect, but they had already seen him experience the kind of public failure that can make a quarterback shrink or sharpen. Howard's response was essentially to play four of the biggest games of his life immediately afterward.

His rookie NFL season delivered a different test. A hand injury erased Howard's 2025 preseason and kept him on injured reserve for the first nine games, leaving a developmental quarterback without the game reps he badly needed. He remained involved mentally, but he entered this summer having never taken an NFL preseason snap.

Pittsburgh had already seen early veteran traits from Howard before this preseason, particularly his command and poise. The missing evidence was whether those qualities would survive when another team's defense was involved and a rough stretch could not simply be reset on the practice field.

The Green Bay Packers finally supplied that test. Howard completed seven of nine passes for 86 yards in Pittsburgh's 28-9 win, then closed the first half by leading an eight-play, 80-yard touchdown drive in the two-minute offense. He completed all four of his passes on that possession for 70 yards.

Head Coach Mike McCarthy later praised Howard for playing through the “peaks and valleys” of the night and specifically highlighted his composure during that two-minute work. The performance did not resemble the stakes of the College Football Playoff, but Weidl was not comparing trophies. He was comparing the reaction when the evening stopped following the cleanest possible script.

That quality is particularly useful for a backup quarterback. Howard may eventually enter a regular-season game cold, work behind a reshuffled offensive line or inherit an offense after something has already gone wrong. The job description rarely promises ideal conditions, which makes the ability to prevent one bad play from becoming three considerably more valuable than it sounds.

Howard is still battling Mason Rudolph for position behind Aaron Rodgers, while rookie Drew Allar is developing in the same crowded room. One strong preseason outing does not erase Rudolph's experience or settle Howard's future, but it gives Pittsburgh current evidence that a trait it valued on draft weekend survived a year with almost no game action.

Steelers Are Seeing The Same Quarterback After Adversity

Quarterback development is often discussed like a collection of mechanical repairs. McCarthy can change Howard's footwork, sharpen a drop and clean up timing, but a coaching staff cannot install composure with a wrench. Pittsburgh had to decide whether that part already existed before spending a draft pick on him.

The Michigan loss gave the Steelers an unusually useful answer. Howard took the worst result of Ohio State's season and followed it with four playoff wins, eventually ending the year with a national championship instead of allowing the rivalry loss to become his final image.

Green Bay offered a much smaller test, but the response looked familiar. Howard had uneven moments, stayed settled and finished his night with the situational drive Pittsburgh has drilled throughout camp. For a player trying to convince the Steelers he can be trusted behind Rodgers, remaining functional when the script gets messy may carry more weight than one spectacular throw.

Weidl saw Howard get off the mat before Pittsburgh drafted him. His preseason debut offered the first NFL hint that getting back up may simply be part of the package.

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