Explaining Mike McCarthy's QB School Plan | Steelers Morning Rush
Welcome to Steelers Morning Rush, our new daily short-form podcast with Alan Saunders, giving a longer perspective on a single news topic surrounding the Pittsburgh Steelers or the National Football League.Today, it's Mike McCarthy's quarterback school, what it means and what it doesn't mean for the team's development of young quarterbacks Will Howard and Drew Allar.Alan breaks it down: #steelers #herewego #nflCONNECT WITH STEELERS NOW:Steelers Now: https://steelersnow.comSN on Twitter: https://twitter.com/pghsteelersnowSN on FB: https://facebook.com/steelersnowSN on Insta: https://www.instagram.com/pghsteelersnow/
Video Transcript
Hey, folks, good morning and welcome to another episode of Steelers Morning Rush.
I'm Alan Saunders.
It is Thursday, May 28th.
The Pittsburgh Steelers have OTA practice number four at UPMC Rooney Complex right here on the south side.
I'll be here with Ed Thompson, Brandon Howe, the whole gang.
full coverage today from this, more, from OTAs with me and Smitty on Afternoon Drive, just about the normal time, 6:00.
I will see you there.
and then hopefully we get a lot out of this OTA because it's the only session of the second week that is fully open to the media.
We'll have a little bit of, video clips from practice on Friday, and then we're into mini camp the following week.
OTA is wrapping with a third week as we get into, the middle of June, and then we're off until training camp.
So trying to pound, as much content, out of this, period as we can.
Today I want to talk about Mike McCarthy's quarterback school, the concept of it, and a misconception that I think, I, I think people have.
So Mike McCarthy's talked a lot about this quarterback school that he developed back in the early 2000s as this training program for quarterbacks.
This very intense training program for quarterbacks.
Tom Arth, who, and, and if you didn't know, Steelers quarterbacks coach, came up as a backup quarterback in the Green Bay Packer system.
And he was talking about how they reported for quarterback school in February, and they would be lifting weights and, and doing all this stuff that was mandatory back then.
And of course, now you're not allowed to do that with the new CBA.
There are restrictions on how much mandatory work you can give these guys, and the phases of the off-season conditioning program and all that, and how this program's had to change.
But most people that I see talking about this quarterback school in the context of the current Pittsburgh Steelers is, "Oh, the Steelers think they can develop Drew Aller and Will Howard into starting quarterbacks."
And that's the misconception.
the idea that the Steelers wouldn't be doing all this, they wouldn't be putting in all this effort to develop these players, th- they wouldn't be talking about these players in this kind of way if they didn't think they could be starting quarterbacks, well, that's just wrong because the entire time Mike McCarthy has been the s- a head coach in the NFL, he has had an established starting quarterback, and the one time that he didn't, he inherited a number one draft pick who basically he had to devel- Like Aaron Rodgers is the only guy who Mike McCarthy has ever developed into a starting quarterback.
And he was a first round pick who was drafted with every intention on every assumption that he would become a starting quarterback.
It's not like he developed something unexpectedly.
Yet he did this, he installed this entire program, the entire th- like this whole thing was never once built to find a starting quarterback.
He always already had one.
It was about making the starting quarterback you have better and developing backup quarterbacks.
And many of the backup quarterbacks that he had over the years did well when they played as backup quarterbacks, but none of them ever became a starting quarterback.
Craig Nall and Cooper Rush and everybody in between, it's not like he ever even developed a backup that later became someone's starter.
This whole thing is just to develop backup quarterbacks, and I know people don't wanna think that because a lot of people have sort of emotionally wrapped themselves up in the future being one of those two guys.
But this sort of logical fallacy that like, "Oh, well, the Steelers wouldn't draft these guys, they wouldn't go through all the work of developing these guys, they wouldn't be talking about how much they're developing these guys if they didn't think they could be future franchise quarterbacks," is just very flawed because Mike McCarthy has been doing this forever, and this is the first time he's ever needed a future franchise quarterback in his entire coaching career.
It wasn't developed for that.
He's never done that.
And so the likelihood is if you draft a guy in the sixth round, he's probably nothing, and if you draft a guy in the third round, there's a less than a coin flip chance he's a good backup, and that they will probably still need to go use a first round pick at the quarterback position down the road.
Looks like a very good class next year.
While at the same time being open to allowing themselves to be surprised, and maybe they do hit one of these lottery tickets.
But the idea that this effort they're expending is somehow tied to a greater than their draft position belief in the individuals is just not the case.
Mike McCarthy was spending all this time developing Tom Arth, who never became anything of a quarterback at the NFL level.
It's not about that.
It's just about his process and, and that, that this is what he believes in doing.
But it doesn't mean that he thinks these guys are great just because he's going through long efforts to try to make them better.
that's just what he's always done.
So glad I, was able to clear that up.
The last thing I want to talk about is Ben Roethlisberger, had some comments on his podcast this week about Drew Aller, and saying like it's very concerning that the Steelers are starting Drew Aller with the things that he started people when he was doing like youth football camps.
Like, "Hey, the f- three step drop footwork, like this is, this is the problem."
And, it is concerning, Ben, I agree.
it is also a very common problemIt's one of the reasons why the success rate on these quarterbacks is what it is, where you have a guy who's a third round pick who does not really know how to do one of the most basic tasks that an NFL quarterback will be asked to do because he's never done it.
And when you look around the NFL, it's the big reason why most of these young quarterbacks are not succeeding.
Why guys like Kirk Cousins are still able to find gainful employment.
Joe Flacco.
Why do teams want to keep these guys around?
It's not because anybody enjoys having Aaron Rodgers for sure.
Nobody enjoys having a 40 year old quarterback.
Nobody wants that.
It's that most of the colleges are doing an extremely poor job of developing young quarterbacks.
And most of them are not very good.
The success rate on quarterbacks in the draft is not going up.
Despite all of the more information we have, the better video, the better technology, all of this stuff that we have about the NFL team is are pouring billions of dollars in to trying to figure out who the next best quarterback is.
We still are not any better at picking it out.
Why?
Because as the NFL gets better and better and better at identifying which which are the best prospects, the colleges are getting worse at developing quarterbacks.
And these guys are coming into the league less prepared than ever.
So it makes something like what Mike McCarthy is doing make all that much more sense in that now more than ever, there are going to be players who will actually be better NFL quarterbacks than they were college quarterbacks because the games have become so different that the skill sets don't translate the way they used to necessarily.
And so.
Do I think that means that, oh, well, then the Steelers got one?
No, but I think when you add all this up and you have this this high level of uncertainty when it comes to quarterback development and quarterback projection, you have some lottery tickets.
Certainly you have a coach whose reputation is a longtime developer of quarterbacks and he has this system that he thinks will help develop quarterbacks.
It's where it's a still a low percentage chance, but it's a low percentage chance worth doing.
It's why you draft a Drew Aller in the third round, even though he has these problems and you don't need him.
They probably won't play him this year.
Like that was a shot in the dark at the future kind of a draft pick.
And but.
There's no sure things even in the first round.
And so.
It all makes sense if you are looking at things through the lenses of most of these guys are bad.
And it takes a lot of luck and a lot of attempts to land a good quarterback.
And they're starting with a couple of long shots.
That's OK. All right.
That's all I got for this morning.
More after practice meets me the afternoon drive just about six here on the YouTube channel audio platforms.
Leave some questions.
I'm sure we'll get to some of them today and tomorrow.
Until next time.
Thanks for listening.
Thanks for watching and enjoy.
