{"id":617161,"date":"2026-02-26T09:11:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/617161\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T09:11:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T09:11:09","slug":"riddick-will-howard-isnt-in-same-stratosphere-as-alabama-qb-ty-simpson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/617161\/","title":{"rendered":"Riddick: Will Howard Isn’t In ‘Same Stratosphere’ As Alabama QB Ty Simpson"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Howard received a lot of praise Tuesday from<\/a> Omar Khan. If Aaron Rodgers doesn\u2019t return, it sounds like Howard will get a chance to be the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 starting quarterback in 2026. However, Alabama\u2019s Ty Simpson has been brought up as a potential target for the Steelers in the first round of the draft. Analyst Louis Riddick thinks he\u2019d be a much better option for Pittsburgh than Howard.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like Will Howard,\u201d Riddick said recently on ESPN\u2019s NFL Live.<\/a> \u201cI don\u2019t like Will Howard as much as Ty Simpson. I don\u2019t even think they\u2019re in the same stratosphere as far as their ability to throw the football. Based upon how the latter half of his season went, which wasn\u2019t all on him, the guy is banged up, the offensive line is very inconsistent, the running game was non-existent, and the wide receiver corps is up and down from week to week.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen, he turns it around in the playoffs against Oklahoma and brings his team back from a 17-point deficit. He\u2019s tailor-made for Mike McCarthy\u2019s system, and Mike has coached some good quarterbacks. I don\u2019t think he\u2019s a reach at 21, and I do think he\u2019s gonna go before that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard is the subject of a lot of excitement among Steelers fans, but he was a sixth-round pick last April. Meanwhile, Simpson is getting first-round buzz, and Riddick isn\u2019t the only one who thinks he could come off the board before the Steelers pick at 21.<\/p>\n

That speaks to the gap between<\/a> Simpson and Howard as prospects. While Simpson isn\u2019t flawless, there are reasons why he\u2019s largely viewed as the second-best quarterback in the draft.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest knocks against Simpson is that he was only a one-year starter in college. However, he showed a lot of promise \u2014 specifically as he threw 21 touchdowns and only one interception in Alabama\u2019s first nine games last year. He looked like a legitimate first-round talent.<\/p>\n

However, as Riddick says, Simpson\u2019s play fell off after that. While it wasn\u2019t all his fault, with injuries and an illness hurting him, it makes Simpson\u2019s already small sample size even tougher to evaluate.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Howard started for multiple years in college, and he had more than double the number of pass attempts as Simpson. Still, he fell all the way to the sixth round. Sometimes, NFL evaluators are wrong, but it isn\u2019t often that franchise quarterbacks are drafted that late.<\/p>\n

If the Steelers ultimately select Simpson in the first round, he\u2019ll likely get a shot to earn the starting job right away. No matter how much the team likes Howard, spending a first-round pick on a quarterback is a serious investment. That would hurt Howard\u2019s chances at being the long-term option in Pittsburgh.<\/a><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Howard received a lot of praise Tuesday from Omar Khan. If Aaron Rodgers doesn\u2019t return, it sounds…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":617162,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[39],"tags":[256530,1232,264462,1545,62,20980,67,132,68,7954],"class_list":["post-617161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-louis-riddick","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-live","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports","tag-ty-simpson","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-will-howard"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116136161226832412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=617161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/617161\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/617162"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=617161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=617161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=617161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}