Don’t expect the Steelers to just push Mason Rudolph out the door, Charlie Batch says. It may be Will Howard on the losing end. Despite Mike McCarthy’s fervent praise of the second-year quarterback, Batch is convinced there’s a greater obstacle, and a necessary choice. Thanks to the limitations of the CBA, he believes you can only “develop” one quarterback. And McCarthy drafted Drew Allar, not Howard.
Speaking on 93.7 The Fan on Thursday, Batch certainly seemed reasonably confident that Mason Rudolph will ultimately be the beneficiary of how the Steelers’ quarterbacks room shakes out. “You would have to look to see which one of your two young quarterbacks are clearly ahead and maybe there’s an opportunity to put one of those on the practice squad, keeping your veteran guy, Mason Rudolph”, he said.
He went so far as to argue that both Drew Allar and Will Howard “would have to play lights out” to convince the Steelers to move on from Mason Rudolph. And he’s not even sure there will be enough time for two young quarterbacks to do that. In Howard’s case, he already missed most of his on-field rookie season work, too.
“You truly don’t have an evaluation, and then everything that he learned is essentially out the door because you now have a new system”, he said of Howard. Batch argued that the newer CBA rules also favor veteran quarterbacks due to the limited practice time. “That’s why Mason in this particular situation has the advantage, because he has the experience”.
Of course, even if Batch’s argument is sound, it doesn’t mean the Steelers will keep Mason Rudolph over Will Howard. There are plenty of ways to go about this, including keeping four quarterbacks. That is probably unlikely, but Pittsburgh has retained two young quarterbacks over a tenured veteran backup before.
While McCarthy has cited the CBA as a challenge, he also believes firmly that he has a working method that will allow him to develop and evaluate both Drew Allar and Will Howard this offseason. But that still doesn’t resolve exactly where Howard stands in the grand scheme of things.
It’s safe to wager that Drew Allar will be on the 53-man roster, I would say. The Steelers didn’t invest their highest of three third-round picks on him just to provide some competition. He’s here because Mike McCarthy believes he can be a future starter. Sure, he’s said similar things about Will Howard, but actions speak louder than words, surely.
At other times when teams have four quarterbacks, unless injury solves the dilemma for them, a trade is often involved. For example, last year, the Browns settled their depth chart by trading Kenny Pickett. Even the Steelers kinda sorta did this in 2019 when they traded Joshua Dobbs. They knew that they had Devlin Hodges waiting in the wings as a potential third quarterback when they made that move. Had they not known they could bring in Hodges, perhaps they never pull the trigger on that trade. And how confident could the Steelers be that Will Howard would make it to the practice squad?