Allar shines in preseason debut
Phil Simms talks to Chris Simms and Connor Rogers about Drew Allar's preseason debut for the Pittsburgh Steelers, as the former Penn State quarterback threw two touchdowns and rushed for another.
Video Transcript
All right, so let's, let's start there.
Let's hit, let's hit the Steelers and just a little bit of that Drew Aller- Yeah and what we saw yesterday.
I mean, I, I, I We were watching it together a little.
I know you left.
I watched more this morning too.
I know you did as well.
What jumped out to you about him?
I Listen, all the quarterbacks I thought played well for Pittsburgh, and that says something about what's been going on.
This'll be interesting to follow this.
Yeah.
But, so Mike McCarthy, the, the one thing, you can say whatever you want about his coaching, but man, he can put up yards and points and things like that.
So it, it's, The Pittsburgh Steelers fans and a lot of people got to be, really happy about the fact that quarterbacks, they looked like they knew what they were doing, they took advantage of it, and Drew Aller did make some special throws in, in the game.
So that's gotta make them feel good too, that they, they're going forward with these quarterbacks.
Yeah.
You got four of them.
Right.
Three of them are gonna be there.
I don't know who the out, the Odd Man Out is, but, we'll see that soon, of course.
Yeah, no, I, I'm with you.
Aller, I think the thing that jumped out to me is, one, he, he Out of everybody that played in that game, maybe rather other than Jordan Love, Aller's arm pops, right?
When he throws it, and I know he didn't throw a lot of deep balls down the field, but when he does throw some of those balls over the middle, I mean it, it explodes out of his hand.
And- It did.
Right?
It did, right.
And, and then the other thing too, Dad, I know you and I were, and even you, Connor, I mean, the mechanics were all over the place in college.
He was like an athlete playing quarterback more often than- I mean, he did the karaoke drill- Yeah sometimes dropping back.
I was like, "What the hell is going on here?"
Yeah.
Yeah.
But to your point, Dad, I mean, McCarthy got them straight, and he mechanically, and had his body in the right positions last night, and I thought that was a, a big step for him.
Well, it was definitely better than I saw when he was at Penn State.
I just saw lots of things as a quarterback, what he did, how he threw and all that.
I thought, "Wow, these are problems."
Yeah.
But, so he erased a lot of them last night just seeing it in a real game.
He's a handy throw- handsy thrower.
So you know, the short pass is that, but that's a good thing.
Yeah.
And I, you know what I think?
I think he sat there and he watches Aaron Rodgers every day and go, "Man, how does he throw it so hard?
All he does is just..." Yeah, yeah.
You know?
And he kind of copied it.
That's what I thought.
I- The long run, the long throw and catch that got him down inside the two-yard line, that was one.
He had a couple other ones- Yeah where he threw it hard, had great control, and it And I'm not saying he looked like Aaron Rodgers, but it, it had some of those similarities, no doubt.
I, I hear you there.
Yeah, I, I thought the same thing.
He even threw the little deep out to the left, he threw a touch- Yeah ball, and he kind of, like, he Somebody was in pressure, and he kind of had to throw the old, like, "I came out and moved to the left, and then I had to throw it and kind of get my feet off and fade away."
And I went, "Damn, that's just, that's, that's copying Aaron Rodgers and what you see in practice every day."
Yeah.
Even rolling left and making the throw for the touchdown was really good too.
So yeah, hey, look, first outing, everything, pretty simple stuff it looked like, all that.
So now he's got my attention.
So well, it wouldn't matter anyway, I'm gonna watch every throw he does this whole preseason- Yeah and evaluate it once it's over.
Yeah.
Well, the exciting thing I think is, like you said, there, there's potential with Aller, right?
He, he, he can throw the ball and look like a professional starting quarterback in the pocket.
Um- Right?
There's upside.
There's upside.
Where we know- Right Mason Rudolph is their backup- Yeah and Will Howard is probably a developmental backup.
Phil, but that brings me Bringing those guys up, like, four quarterbacks in a camp.
And we know Aaron Rodgers doesn't want to play in the preseason, so that doesn't matter.
But how do you handle that in this era where there's such limited time over summer?
Well, you, you play faster and, you know, like I, a lot of these teams do now, in training camp.
But yeah, Aaron Rodgers is probably not taking a big number of snaps.
You know, he's, he's slowly gonna work himself into what he needs to do when the season starts.
But yeah, well, they did a great job last night.
I thought all the quarterbacks had a chance to, get something done, and overall I think every one of them played well, so.
They did.
That's, that's, that says something.
And you know, the other thing with Drew Aller, just to go the last thing- Yeah is I thought he moved around better than he did at Penn State.
Totally.
He didn't look like that I'm a big Penn State quarterback.
Yeah.
You know, he looked I like the look, so.
Yes, yeah.
I was hard on him coming out in the draft, got tired of hearing everybody go, "Oh my God, he's got the strongest arm," and all this stuff.
And, so you know, I'm Good for him.
I'm happy for him.
Yeah.
And, I'll take If he has a If he turns out to be the opposite of what I thought, then great for him.
Yeah, it's awesome.
That's right.
Prove us wrong.
Crap all over us.
Yeah.
I, I, I root for the human.
That's right.
And I root for the human, and the human, the human is easy to root for.
And, and, and we know he went through some tough things at Penn State where I'd go, "Man, that was, like, the worst quarterback conducive environment in football."
And you know- Yeah he got all the blame all the time.
But real quick before we go to the Giants, Will Howard, man, he does have a great feel for the game.
He was great in the pocket, right?
I don't know if he's got anything wowing physically, right?
The ball comes, he throws it where he wants to, but you're not like it was like Drew Aller when it came out of his hand and went- Yeah "Ooh, wow, that's got some RPMs on it."
The big thing is, can he make them feel comfortable enough about being the backup to where it makes them be able to move on from Mason Rudolph?
That's the question.
Or is it just, hey, like we saw, Mason Rudolph's a machine.
He's played a lot of football.
He knows how to play quarterback.
Yeah.
And does that make Will Howard the, the odd man out where he's on another team when this is all said and done?
