Welcome to the Steelers, Will Howard

we have 3 guys that played in that big 12.

 

I'm aware; I only said 'majority.'

I'm not trying to cast dispersions on Howard's achievements. Now that he's a Steeler I'm certainly pulling for him. I'm just trying to keep things in perspective when it comes to projecting how he transitions to the pro level.

 

With Smith calling the plays, I'm not sure that it matters who is under center. That being said, if Howard looks even decent in camp and preseason, I would like to see him start.

 

If Howard is going to alter his throwing motion to get more zip behind his passes (raise his ceiling as a QB), then I don't want to see him start until he has finished rebuilding his technique.
Until a new motion becomes second nature, game situations will cause him to revert to his instincts, reinforcing previous bad habits instead of leading to new ones.

(Like how Cam didn't start until his 3rd year... although hopefully only a year or less for Howard. And how the team should have red-shirted Artie Burns to work on his fundamentals, instead of starting him as a rookie.)

 

I want the kid to sit on bench for a year and learn. To many of these young QBs get ruined by starting to soon. AR and MR can do their thing. Bad habits develop when it's all moving too fast and they are just trying to survive. We have all seen it happen over and over again. No hurries with this young buck.

 

Several scouting reports talk about his 'mechanics' needing more work. If he takes the Jordan Love route to the NFL he might end up being a starter someday.

 

let arth do his thing. i'm not sure that mason can't still be helped by arth as well. i think both can be good fits for arth and smith in this system. i don't think this will be built to wow anybody but a ball control, keep the other QB on the bench, get points at the end of drives, (3 or 6) and play defensive team.

 

In other words.... YAAAAWWWN.

Kidding.... sorta. My problem with this kind of offense is that while it can beat teams in the regular season, it's been proven to not work well in the post season.

 

i never said it was ideal, just how it's been built so far. until they have an opportunity to get better QB play and get the young and new players up to speed, this is where you almost have to start. our O-Line is very young. we don't have a patrick mahomes to build around or an OC that is a builder of a high powered passing game. nor was there a mahomes or hurts available. even the chiefs are built to run the ball, protect and play defense. so was philly. so were the ravens. so was buffalo. it's not as different as you might think of those playoff teams.

 

As others have pointed out, the boring strategy works well if the team can get an early lead, and keep the pressure up on the other team. Falling behind in the 1st quarter makes it a harder strategy.

My pet theory (which can easily be wrong) is that Tomlin is a good coach that can get the team to overperform during the regular season (usually 1 or 2 more wins preseason predictions), but in the process it seems to leave the team injured and worn-out by the end of the season. If the team can find a way to win a few more blow-outs during the regular season (instead of always grinding close games), that will give the starters more rest and the back-ups more experience. I think that is what will lead to more success in the playoffs.

In the 2005 SB season, the team was a bit fortunate to make it into the playoffs as the last wild-card team with a 11-5 record. But in 8 of their wins, they won by 13+ points (including their final 4 regular season games). The team had more energy than most years going into the playoffs, and were very healthy. (I think that 20 out of 22 starters from opening day were in good health for the SB.)

 

Their problem hasn't just been a young OL, it's been bad player development and bad talent evaluation. Let's see if any of these guys stick beyond their rookie contracts.

ESPN’s John Clayton wrote about the “Theory of 150”, explaining that if the combined age of your starting offensive line exceeds 150 years, you should expect a decline in performance. A combined age of 150 years means the average age of your linemen is 30 years, and as a group, that may be too old:

If a team lets its starting offensive line exceed the total age of 150 years for five starters, the clock is ticking on its remaining success. Three teams hit that mark over a three-year period — the Bears, Washington Redskins and Dallas Cowboys. The New York Giants hit the 150 mark a couple years ago and, even though they won a Super Bowl, they had concerns along the offensive line.

For fun, I looked up the starting OL in 2020 for the Steelers; total age = 144 .. and of course, the following year the entire OL was remade.

 

Well, yes. But that is true for most QB prospects that played on a really good team. Burrow threw to Jefferson and Chase in college. Don't think they were head and shoulders better than every defense they played against? What I tend to look for is the caliber of defenses they play against, and Howard's schedule saw a better caliber of defense than just about anyone in college football.

Whether or not it translates is anyone's guess, but he won't fail because he played a bunch of nobody's on defense prior to his time in the NFL.

 

ours is 14. 9 of those are from 1 guy.

 

I didn't mean to imply they didn't face some tough competition - my initial response was to someone stating Howard's playing with top talent around him at Ohio State was an advantage because he'll be playing with it around him in the pros. I was just pointing out that the level of talent opposite him would be increasing significantly as well.

Burrow is a good example in that regard. With the current NIL atmosphere there are a lot blue-chippers that get soaked up by the bigger universities, and form powerhouses. So when I'm watching film on guys like them I'm not thinking about how good their team is, just how good they are - what physical traits give them an advantage, is there have to develop more, what intangibles are they flashing , mechanics, etc.

And I know you didn't mean Burrow as a direct comparison to Howard, but it's a good example - I saw a lot more with him that stood out on a team equally as strong. Does that mean Howard can't make it in the NFL? No. But it was why I didn't consider him a good option until the fourth (that also had to do with other positional talent on the board as well).

 

Of course, college defenses are garbage compared to the pros. In level of talent and depth of scheme.

Yes, that is a good thing to look at. The wild card of course is how a player develops. Who thought Brock Purdy would develop into a 50+ million dollar a year QB? Tom Brady into the best ever? Dak Prescott, Kirk Cousins, Russell Wilson, Tony Romo, etc. There's more to a player than the physical traits, and especially so at QB. It is hard to tell who is going to continue to get better (heck, even the people who get paid millions to do so have a harder time with QB). None of us will be able to tell until the player gets a shot on the field.

Definitely not lol yeah, I think Stevie Wonder saw more in Burrow than Howard. His senior season at LSU might've been the best QB season in college of all time... it was super impressive. Howard is very far from as sure a thing Burrow felt coming out.

 

I'm not sure about sluggish, but he was a skinny player who performed poorly at the combine. That said, Brady is the ultimate outlier. You can use him to justify almost any take on a fringe quarterback prospect. That doesn't mean it is a good idea to put much faith in one.

 

Burrow is a tough comp for anybody. Sure, his LSU team was loaded, but it was very easy to see that Burrow was special during that final season in college. He was putting up video game numbers against everyone, no matter how good the opponent. They couldn't stop him. The eye test was even more impressive than the numbers and the numbers were insane. He completed 76.3 percent of his passes for 60 touchdowns and only six interceptions. He averaged 378.1 passing yards per game and 10.8 per attempt. Just nuts.

 

Rudolph will turn 30 before the season starts. He has been in the league since 2018. People need to stop talking about him having upside.

Howard needs work, especially his mechanics. Hopefully, he won't have to play as a rookie.

 

His tape also has quite a few poor throws. Part of the issue with his mechanics is inconsistency. Just because you don't like the view others have of him doesn't make them lazy. Struggling with reading disguised coverages isn't a binary thing. It isn't a matter of the guy being great or terrible. There are levels. I believe the scouting reports are referring to him being worse than most NFL-bound college quarterbacks. Sure, he can work on these things. He seems to have the right attitude, which indicates that he will put in the work, but the guy was a Day 3 pick for good reasons.