Jon Gruden’s QB School returns the spotlight on Steelers’ Will Howard, this time via an elite comparison

The story of how NFL quarterbacks are evaluated often lives in small, repeated images: the ball placement, the stride length, the way a runner threatens defenses even when the play is supposed to be a dropback. In that vein, former NFL coach Jon Gruden has continued to publicly highlight Steelers quarterback Will Howard, and he has now gone further than earlier comparisons by likening Howard’s skill set to a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, according to a Yahoo Sports report published July 16, 2026.

Howard’s connection to Gruden began long before Pittsburgh’s training camp planning cycle fully settled. The report describes that Howard appeared on Gruden’s QB School ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft, where Gruden shared his assessment of Howard’s traits. In that earlier conversation, Gruden reportedly compared Howard to Buffalo Bills quarterback Josh Allen, focusing on size and running ability as key pieces of the profile.

Gruden’s latest comments, as characterized by Yahoo Sports, extend that theme of “builder” quarterbacks, the kind of passers who can also create by forcing defenders to account for speed and physicality. The report states that over a year later, Gruden made another comparison, this time to a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, suggesting that he views Howard’s development as aligned with players who have reached the highest postseason success.

For the Steelers, the relevance is straightforward even without overreaching on specifics: Pittsburgh has long valued quarterbacks who can operate through traffic and keep plays alive when the pocket breaks. Comparisons like these matter not because they predict a stat line on their own, but because they offer a lens for how a prominent former coach frames traits that translate to the NFL. In Howard’s case, the recurring emphasis in the reporting is the ability to combine quarterback decision-making with the threat of movement.

The timing also matters. Gruden’s continued public praise comes during a period when quarterback competition and roster identity are still taking shape, with coaches and scouts trying to separate “potential” from “repeatable” traits. Even if fans see the comparisons as motivational sound bites, staff evaluation typically looks for consistency under pressure, a willingness to improvise within structure, and the physical tools to extend plays without collapsing reads.

That said, the comparison itself comes with a caveat. A player can resemble an NFL star in broad categories like stature and mobility, yet NFL outcomes depend on numerous factors that comparisons do not capture. Those include the supporting cast, offensive scheme fit, the speed at which reads can be processed, and how a quarterback handles the variance of weekly game plans.

What to watch next is less about the rhetoric and more about whether Howard’s game-to-game production and decision-making reflect the traits Gruden has pointed to. If Pittsburgh’s offense builds around a quarterback who can threaten defenses with both his arm and his legs, the Steelers’ first priority will be ensuring that movement supports the passing attack rather than replacing it. The longer the season goes, the more the team’s quarterback evaluation will be tested in the most practical way, against different coverages, different blitz timings, and different late-game scenarios.

Ultimately, the reported chain of comparisons, from Josh Allen to a Super Bowl-winning quarterback, paints Howard as a prospect whose identity is tied to more than throwing mechanics. For Pittsburgh, that framing serves as a reminder of what the franchise expects from its quarterback room: toughness, play extension, and the ability to keep the offense alive when the play design has been disrupted by the defense.