Will Howard Expectations

The fan discourse around Will Howard since the draft, especially this past week, has been driving me up a wall. I'm failing to understand why he is being tabbed as the future of the franchise and why certain parts of the fan base are obsessed with him. It seems like many are putting crazy, or at least incredibly unrealistic, expectations on him.

Will Howard is already 24. He's started 43 games above the high school level. He's got all of the experience you could want AND he won a national title. But even with these impressive characteristics for a QB, he still went in the 6th round behind 7 other QB prospects. That includes Shedeur Sanders, who everyone loves to dunk on. The NFL preferred the likes of Shedeur and Dillon Gabriel over Will Howard. That should tell you something. "But Brady was a 6th round pick! Purdy was Mr. Irrelevant!" The fact that these are the only two QBs that can be used as examples of late round franchise QBs in the modern era should also tell you something. Plus, do you really trust this team and this staff to unearth that rare of a hidden gem?

Beyond just the overall draft spot, I think people need to remember that Howard wasn't exactly lighting up college football either. Sure, he won a national title with the Buckeyes but look at his supporting cast, they're WR U. Tim Tebow, Cardale Jones, Stetson Bennett, etc. won national titles too, that didn't make them franchise QBs. And before he even went to Ohio State, he was benched in favor of a true freshman at Kansas State. In his 4 years playing in Manhattan he had a completion percentage over 60% once and threw for over 2,000 yards just once. And that's against Big 12 defenses.

I could go on but my point here is that anyone expecting this kid to be the next Big Ben is fooling themselves and just putting unrealistic expectations on the him. People need to stop basing these opinions on appearances and more on actual gameplay. I don't care that he's a big white guy that says the right things. I don't care that Jon Gruden loved him on his QB camp show (he loves every QB he CHOOSES to profile). I care about his ability to play football at the QB position and he has shown that his ability is bang average. And that's not a bad thing! Career backup is the best realistic scenario for players like Howard.

So let's pump the brakes, come back down to earth, and hope that Howard does enough to prove he can be a capable backup. Because anything else would be outside of the norm and right now, he has just as good of a chance of being off the roster next season as he does starting a football game for the Pittsburgh Steelers.