Steelers Crushing Will Howard's Future?

Howard fractured his pinky on a center-quarterback exchange during practice in early August, keeping him out of action for the entire preseason. After Skylar Thompson saw an increase in his reps and impressed throughout Pittsburgh's exhibition slate, the team placed Howard on injured reserve with a designation to return to begin the year.

There's been some thought that the Steelers could leave Howard on IR for the entire campaign as a means of essentially stashing him and having him recover at his own rate without the pressure of potentially appearing in games while keeping a healthy quarterback room with three veterans in Aaron Rodgers , Mason Rudolph and Thompson.

Pittsburgh is well within its rights to keep Howard on IR, and he'd still be able to participate in meetings and be around the practice facility without actually stepping onto the field. Having a veteran with prior, albeit brief, experience as a starter in the league in Thompson is a luxury, but potentially impeding Howard's development may not be the best course of action for the organization.

Kaboly added that he feels the Steelers should've learned from how they handled Mason Rudolph during his rookie year in 2018 and that they shouldn't repeat that same process with Howard.

"You would think that they would have learned that from how they went about it with Mason Rudolph in 2018," Kaboly wrote. "They never set up Rudolph for success in his rookie year and then threw him to the wolves when [Ben] Roethlisberger got injured the next year."

A third-round pick out of Oklahoma State who was viewed as the Steelers' potential long-term signal caller, Rudolph served as the team's QB3 after losing the backup job to 2017 fourth-round pick Joshua Dobbs before starting eight games in 2019 once Roethlisberger went down with an elbow injury during Week 2.

Howard's in a bit of a different situation since he's injured, but he stated that he was back to throwing last week during an appearance on "The Pat McAfee Show", meaning he isn't too far off from a return.

If he is healthy enough to fully make his way back after turning some heads throughout the offseason, the Steelers will have some tough roster decisions to make when it comes to activating Howard or keeping him on IR while continuing to hold onto Thompson.