Batch: Steelers Are To Blame For Will Howard's First Interception Against Jets

The Pittsburgh Steelers did not get the evaluation they hoped for in their 17-0 loss to the New York Jets. In particular, the offense had issues all over the place, and while that does include the quarterback position, it's hard to truly judge the young gunslingers. Will Howard was the one that everyone had a microscope on, since it's unclear whether he will make the roster or not with conflicting reports coming out about him. He finished the game completing 10 of 15 passes for 74 yards and two interceptions. 

There has been a lot of discourse among fans and the media about who was at fault for Howard's interceptions. While it looks like he messed up at first, wide receiver Roman Wilson has taken a lot of heat for supposedly running poor routes and allowing the defenders to undercut him on each of those plays. Either way, it's not a good look for this young offense.

There may be a completely different reason for what happened in that game. While making an appearance on 93.7 The Fan, former Steelers quarterback and current analyst Charlie Batch explained what happened on the first interception that Howard threw.

"The first [interception] in the red zone, that was just a beautiful coverage and disguise by the Jets," Batch said. "And because you're not game-planning, I could easily see why Will made that mistake, and the Jets did a really good job of taking the safety out of the middle to take the crossing route, and actually, the nickel guy fell back out to have the deep third. That was beautiful coverage there for something that they haven't game-planned, so I can understand how that mistake occurred."

Head Coach Mike McCarthy previously said that the Steelers were going to play very vanilla on offense in the preseason, especially since the whole theme of training camp was to work on the fundamentals. He was looking for technique and development more than results, so there was no real need to do a scouting report on the Jets, it seemed like. 

New York, on the other hand, did not play vanilla defense in this game. They had no problem working with exotic coverages and disguises to try and throw off Pittsburgh's young passers, and it clearly worked. Howard and McCarthy were not expecting the Jets to open up the playbook defensively and put these things on film, and now the former sixth-round pick is seen as a bad draft pick for his performance. 

Odds are that the Steelers will remain vanilla in their upcoming preseason game against the Buffalo Bills, so it would not be shocking to see Buffalo have their way with Pittsburgh's offense the same way that New York did. The gameplan does not matter much in this case, as McCarthy only cares about how everyone is developing mechanically. The mental game will come later.

Steelers Fans May Now Have Their Answer To Why Rudolph Didn't Play

After the preseason opener, McCarthy declared that he had seen everything that he needed to see out of Mason Rudolph, so he didn't want to play him anymore. Now that it's clear as to what the head coach is looking for, it's easy to tell that this decision came from his evaluation of how the veteran backup is progressing in his quarterback school.

If that's the case, then Rudolph likely passed with flying colors. If his mechanics needed more work or were just outright bad, it wouldn't make sense for McCarthy to sit him on the bench, especially given his patience at the quarterback position. The plan would most likely be to play Rudolph and see if he's learned from his mistakes from preseason Week 1 if he did poorly. It's safe to say that he did everything he was supposed to in the preseason opener.

What do you think about the Steelers going vanilla and not game-planning, seemingly baiting Howard into throwing his first interception against the Jets? Let us know on X at @Steelers_ChrisB.

#SteelerNation