{"id":952081,"date":"2026-07-22T03:39:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T03:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/952081\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T03:39:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T03:39:14","slug":"roethlisberger-smartest-move-for-steelers-qb-room-is-keeping-howard-allar-over-rudolph","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/952081\/","title":{"rendered":"Roethlisberger: ‘Smartest Move’ For Steelers’ QB Room Is Keeping Howard, Allar Over Rudolph"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pittsburgh Steelers training camp is almost here, and the team has several questions that it will need to answer. Arguably the top of their to-do list is figuring out their quarterback situation. Aaron Rodgers is the starter, but it\u2019s unclear what the rest of that room will look like. The Steelers have four quarterbacks on their roster, with Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, and Drew Allar behind Rodgers. It\u2019s unlikely that all four will make<\/a> the team\u2019s 53-man roster, but Ben Roethlisberger thinks that sticking with Howard and Allar over Rudolph is the right call.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to have two young guys because one of those could be your potential quarterback of the next 5-10 years,\u201d Roethlisberger said Tuesday on his Footbahlin\u2019 podcast.<\/a> \u201cPotentially, I\u2019m not saying either one is or isn\u2019t a franchise guy. But could be. I think the smart thing is to keep those two guys because I think Aaron [Rodgers] says he\u2019s done after this year\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that\u2019s the smartest move because if you dealt one of them and kept Mason [Rudolph] and Player A, whoever it may be, you\u2019re putting a lot of eggs in that one basket. Now, if you have two young guys, they\u2019re only a year apart, very similar in styles, now you\u2019re like, \u2018We can put half our eggs in this basket, half in this basket, see how they do, let them compete.’\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not bad logic. Rudolph is a fine backup, and the Steelers know they can win games with him. He helped them make the playoffs in 2023, and his lone start last year wasn\u2019t too bad. Rudolph completed 24 of his 31 pass attempts for 171 yards, one touchdown, and one interception in a loss to the Chicago Bears.<\/p>\n

However, there\u2019s some serious risk with<\/a> keeping Howard and Allar over Rudolph. Rodgers is 42 years old, and his body has a lot of wear and tear. There\u2019s a real chance that he could miss time in 2026.<\/p>\n

If that\u2019s the case, the Steelers could be replacing him with an unknown in Howard or Allar. Neither of them has even played in a preseason game yet. Allar is a third-round rookie and needs time to work on his mechanics. Meanwhile, Howard was a sixth-round pick last year, and a training camp injury kept him off the field. There\u2019s no telling what level either of them will be at this year.<\/p>\n

It could backfire, but it wouldn\u2019t be the first time that the Steelers kept two young backups to sit behind their veteran starter. They did something similar in 2018. The Steelers desperately need a long-term answer under center, and that\u2019s not Rudolph. However, it could be Howard or Allar. That possibility might be enough to outweigh the risk of not having a veteran behind Rodgers.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Steelers training camp is almost here, and the team has several questions that it will need to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":952082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[6594,1800,6595,7,560,6,520,57,2360,426,691,2183],"class_list":["post-952081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-ben-roethlisberger","tag-drew-allar","tag-footbahlin-with-ben-roethlisberger","tag-football","tag-mason-rudolph","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-trending","tag-will-howard"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116961552837223519","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952081","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=952081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/952081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/952082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=952081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=952081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=952081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}