The Steelers didn’t get much to feel good about in Friday night’s 17-0 loss to the New York Jets, but the biggest takeaway may have been the simplest one: Will Howard and Drew Allar are no longer sitting in the same bucket.
Howard came into the night with momentum after a promising debut against the Green Bay Packers. The former National Champion had looked composed in that first outing, and even a finger injury on his right hand only delayed his chance to build on it. When he finally got on the field, the sixth-round pick showed poise, moved well, and kept mistakes to a minimum.
This time, that version of Howard never showed up.
Pittsburgh leaned on him to help put points on the board in the first half, and instead the offense went nowhere. The most costly moment came with Howard’s first interception of the night, a redzone turnover that wiped out a chance to turn the drive into seven points. It was a sharp drop from the previous week, when he completed 77.8% of his passes and threw for 86 yards without the same kind of damage.
Friday’s line was far rougher: 66% completions, 74 passing yards, and two interceptions. That kind of night put Pittsburgh in a hole early, and it made the contrast with the other quarterback even harder to miss.
Drew Allar entered with a different kind of pressure. The third-round pick took over facing a seven-point second-half deficit and not much momentum to work with.
That’s the kind of spot where a young quarterback can drift, play safe, and wait for the game to end. Allar did the opposite.
He kept competing, stayed aggressive, and tried to drag the Steelers back into it.
His arm talent and mobility both showed up, especially on a 38-yard strike to tight end Lake McRee that pushed Pittsburgh into the red zone. Mike McCarthy’s aggressive fourth-down call ended that threat without points, but Allar still flashed the pocket awareness and athleticism that stood out in a way Howard’s outing did not.
The rookie didn’t rescue Pittsburgh from the shutout, but he did give the Steelers something to separate from their earlier quarterback look. He finished with 110 yards and no turnovers, even if the night wasn’t clean across the board. His completion percentage dropped to 47.8%, down from 76.9% in Week 1, and he was sacked three times.
The numbers don’t tell the whole story, though. Pittsburgh had more going wrong than just the quarterbacks, and the offensive line was a major part of the problem.
Without protection, nobody under center is going to look comfortable for long. But quarterbacks still have to answer the challenge in front of them, and one of the clearest differences on Friday was turnover management.
That’s where Allar held the edge over Howard.
For a Steelers team that didn’t produce many positives in its second preseason game, that distinction mattered. What had looked like a shared quarterback conversation now looks more like a competition with real separation. After Friday night, Allar appears to have gained ground in a battle that had been pretty quiet until now.
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