made themselves invaluable<\/a> to Roethlisberger as they helped prepare him to be the starter each and every week. As a sixth-round pick, Howard will undoubtedly have to pay his dues and go through that process.<\/p>\nHoward will most likely end up being the third-string QB this season if Aaron Rodgers eventually signs. Say the 42-year-old gets injured, and Mason Rudolph performs poorly for three or four games like he did with the Tennessee Titans last season. Or maybe both Rodgers and Rudolph get hurt.<\/p>\n
That stuff can\u2019t be controlled, but he will only get a real opportunity if he pays his dues and works his way through the Steelers\u2019 system as Roethlisberger advises.<\/p>\n
How long did it take for Brock Purdy to get his opportunity as a seventh-round pick? What about Tom Brady as a sixth-round pick? To a lesser degree, look at Dak Prescott and Russell Wilson in the middle rounds. When opportunity presents itself, all he can do is be ready.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll naturally unfold itself if you\u2019re out here preparing yourself and you\u2019re not trying to undermine the starter and cut his legs out,\u201d Roethlisberger said. \u201c\u2026All of a sudden, you\u2019re performing a little better in practice, and it\u2019s like, okay, now go ahead and get your shot with the ones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Roethlisberger\u2019s advice boils down to being a good teammate, respecting the process, and preparing yourself as if you will eventually be the starter. Roethlisberger may not have had to do much of that himself, but he saw other quarterbacks make lengthy careers for themselves by following this formula.<\/p>\n
With all signs pointing to the Steelers drafting a quarterback in the first round of next year\u2019s draft, Howard might not get many opportunities to prove himself. All he can do is control what he can control. If he has talent and he displays excellent leadership, the rest will work itself out.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ben Roethlisberger saw enough people come and go throughout his time with the Pittsburgh Steelers to know a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10996,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[80,6594,6595,7,6,520,57,2360,426,691,2183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10995","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-steelers","8":"tag-2025-nfl-draft","9":"tag-ben-roethlisberger","10":"tag-footbahlin-with-ben-roethlisberger","11":"tag-football","12":"tag-nfl","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","15":"tag-pittsburghsteelers","16":"tag-steelers","17":"tag-trending","18":"tag-will-howard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114423898167283482","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10996"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}