The moment the Steelers selected Penn State’s Drew Allar in the 2026 NFL Draft, it became inevitable: We were in for an offseason of quarterback discourse.
A few weeks later, Pittsburgh made the long-awaited signing of Aaron Rodgers, leaving the team with four roster-able quarterbacks in the league that tends to only keep three after cutdown day.
How do you see it playing out?
Which quarterbacks will make the Steelers’ final roster?
There’s still a lot of the offseason to play out, but here are my initial thoughts:
Rodgers and Allar (despite what Chris Simms
might think) are the two locks to make the final roster as the starter and a recent top-100 pick, respectively. The battle largely comes down to Will Howard, a 2025 sixth-rounder who couldn’t even make a preseason appearance last year due to injury, and Mason Rudolph, a journeyman backup who has gone 1-5 in his last two seasons of starts.
Rudolph is the proven commodity, with 1,484 NFL offensive snaps under his belt at this point. He even helped push the Steelers to a playoff berth with a 3-0 record as a starter at the end of the 2023 season. But against the Bears in 2025, all his limitations — pocket awareness, deep accuracy, processing speed — were on display in a 171-yard, one touchdown, one interception performance.
It remains to be seen how Howard’s game translates to the NFL level. He profiled as a plus game manager at Ohio State who could hopefully be an above-average QB2/spot starter in the pros. Long term, it’s reasonable to hope he can be a Rudolph replacement of sorts.
Yes, Howard was just a sixth-round pick, but he was widely seen as more of a mid-round talent who slipped down NFL boards due to the segmented value of quarterbacks in the draft.
And while it certainly doesn’t mean much, Howard leapfrogged Rudolph on the Steelers’ depth chart to open OTAs on Monday. It’s not worth reading into, but it is more of a vote of confidence in the second-year passer than the alternative.
Ultimately, I see the Steelers’ 53-man roster quarterback room being Rodgers/Howard/Allar to open the 2026 season. Howard is younger, cheaper, and possibly has a bit more upside than Rudolph at this point in their respective careers, and the Ohio State product still seems to come with the steady floor that marks a good backup.
With a veteran quarterback already in the room in Rodgers, as well as a quarterback-focused head coach in Mike McCarthy, Rudolph’s experience isn’t quite as valuable to the room as it may seem at face value, and he could even provide some trade value. While I expect Pittsburgh to only keep three quarterbacks on the roster during the regular season, it wouldn’t be surprising if the team initially keeps four after cutdown day as it tries to work out a trade.
But even if Rudolph does outplay Howard or Allar in the preseason, what is his value as a player for the Steelers in 2026? If Rodgers goes down with an injury, the team knows the season — which already has slim odds at a playoff run — becomes more about the future than the present. If Allar still isn’t ready in that scenario, the team might as well see what it has in Howard, a sixth-rounder who might not get many NFL starting opportunities otherwise. There’s just not much of a reason to give Rudolph starting reps in 2026.
There’s also some precedent for the team dropping Rudolph. While it wasn’t under Mike McCarthy, Pittsburgh decided to keep rookie third-rounder Mason Rudolph and second-year fourth-rounder Joshua Dobbs over longtime backup Landry Jones ahead of the 2018 NFL season. Why? The Steelers already had a veteran starter in Ben Roethlisberger, and Rudolph/Dobbs offered a better mix of potential, recent investment, and football IQ.
We might see a similar story play out ahead of the 2026 NFL season.
How do you think the Steelers quarterback situation turns out this offseason? Join the BTSC community and let us know in the comments!
