Steelers Now
Super Bowl-winning head coach Jon Gruden is very bullish on Pittsburgh Steelers rookie quarterback Will Howard. Despite not playing a snap in the league yet, Gruden thinks the former Ohio State Buckeye is a future star in the NFL.
“I love Will Howard. I’m thankful that he is up. I’m shocked that he’s gonna be on the bench much longer,” Gruden said on 93.7 The Fan. “I just think he has everything that you’re looking for. We won a Super Bowl with Brad Johnson. He’s got that prototype size I like. He’s 6-4, he’s 225, 230. He’s built like a horse. I mean, he’s a big guy [who] can run the ball. You can run the quarterback power plays and all these quarterback draws that everybody likes to run. He can keep it on the zone read. He’s an accurate passer.”
Gruden said he told Steelers general manager Omar Khan that he got an absolute steal in Howard.
“He won big at Kansas State when they won the Big 12,” Gruden said. “He won the national title. He has that wow factor. He has a photographic memory. He’s a great communicator. I will be shocked if he is not one hell of an NFL QB. I told a couple of my friends in Pittsburgh, I told Omar Khan that I can’t believe you got this guy in the sixth round.”
The Steelers reinstated Howard from the injured reserve list on Wednesday.
Howard had returned to practice on Oct. 23, meaning the team had to reinstate him from injured reserve this week, or he would be forced to spend the entire season on the IR list.
The team’s sixth-round pick out of Ohio State in the 2025 NFL Draft, Howard suffered a broken right pinky finger in training camp, an injury that forced him to miss the entire preseason.
He was placed on the injured reserve list on Aug. 28. The Steelers could have placed Howard on the injured reserve list before the final cut-down date, but that would have either had to end his 2025 season before it ever got started, or use one of the team’s eight slots to return a player from the injured reserve list.
Howard will now try to make the most out of practice reps over the final eight weeks of the season, in order to set himself up for a potentially larger role in 2026.
“Will has handled the injury as a professional, just as we would expect him to. Really appreciative of our athletic training staff, our strength and conditioning staff. They’ve done a fantastic job working with Will,” quarterbacks coach Tom Arth said. “I think he’s in great shape right now. He’s been in as good a shape as he’s been since he’s been a Pittsburgh Steeler.”
A native of West Chester, Pennsylvania, Howard played college football at Kansas State before transferring to Ohio State in 2024, when he threw for 4,010 yards, 35 touchdowns and 10 interceptions while leading the Buckeyes...
