Steelers QBs Will Howard and Drew Allar praise the simple work after Thursday night starts

The Steelers’ quarterbacks drew the kind of attention teams usually want from young passers early in camp and preseason work: confident reads, purposeful footwork, and a willingness to build on what worked rather than chase the highlight in the moment. In a feature posted on Aug. 19, Will Howard and Drew Allar looked back on Thursday night and emphasized a shared theme, being “brilliant in the basics,” and using those clean stretches as a launching point for the bigger plays.

Howard’s assessment centered on timing and execution, not just outcomes. The report notes that late in the first half, Howard did not take snaps under center, and he did not treat that as a reason to drift away from the plan. Instead, he told himself it was time to reach for an explosive play, reflecting the way quarterbacks learn to reset between series and correct the mental track as the game changes.

Allar’s take, as presented by the team, carried the same mindset. The key difference was how he characterized the opportunity. With “strong starts” in hand, he and Howard were both portrayed as excited to keep developing their rhythm, especially as reps stack and the offense gets more familiar. That includes staying disciplined about the small things, routes and spacing, timing windows, and the posture a quarterback uses to deliver throws on time.

For Pittsburgh, the larger value of the night is not only how two quarterbacks looked, but what their responses suggest about process. In the NFL, early-season differentiation at quarterback is rarely decided by one dramatic moment. It is usually decided by who can repeat the basics on a play-by-play basis, then add to them when the defense gives a real opening. The Steelers feature ties the two quarterbacks’ thinking directly to that philosophy, treating explosive plays as a product of the fundamentals rather than something separate from them.

The “strong starts” language matters in a competition that is always more complicated than the headlines. Howard and Allar are being positioned, at least within the team’s messaging, as young leaders who can absorb a game script and adjust on the fly. Their focus on fundamentals and mental resets implies that the coaching staff is testing how quickly they can move from good beginnings into consistent middle-to-late execution, when defenses start to look for tendencies and quarterbacks feel the pressure to make something happen.

Looking ahead, the next layer to watch is whether that confidence translates into more under-center rhythm when it is available, and whether both quarterbacks can turn early efficiency into late-series separation. In practical terms, it would show up in how often the offense sustains drives after the first few successful plays, and how cleanly the quarterbacks turn “it’s time for an explosive play” from a mindset into repeatable production.