Drew Allar's Steelers preseason debut went about as well as a rookie quarterback's first live NFL reps can go: two touchdown passes, one touchdown run, and a 28-9 win over the Green Bay Packers on Thursday night in the preseason opener for both clubs. Three touchdowns in an August game against backups is not a job offer. In Pittsburgh, though, it is a headline, and the people who watched it did not need to be told what they saw.
The quarterback position in that building has been an open wound for a while now. Not a crisis, exactly. Pittsburgh does not do crisis. More like a long, patient search conducted in public, one August at a time, with a fan base that memorizes every preseason completion and then apologizes for caring so much. Thursday night gave them something to hold.
What did Drew Allar do in the Steelers' preseason opener?
The box score line is the simple part: two through the air, one with his legs, in a game Pittsburgh controlled to the tune of 28-9. The part that travels further is the word coming out of the Steelers' side afterward about both of their young arms. Poised. That was the descriptor attached to Allar and to Will Howard, who also got work in the win.
Poised is a coach's word and coaches use it carefully. It is not "electric" and it is not "special." It means the operation looked clean, the clock in his head worked, and nobody had to hold their breath on third down. For a rookie's first night in an NFL stadium with a live pass rush, that is the compliment that actually matters. The touchdowns are what you show your friends. The poise is what gets you a second series in Week 2.
Green Bay, for its part, put up nine points and did not get much traction. Preseason openers are a bad place to draw conclusions about a real football team, and the Packers have earned the benefit of the doubt in August more than most.
Thursday night's preseason scoreboard
| Game | Final |
|---|---|
| Steelers vs Packers | 28-9 |
| Cardinals vs Raiders | 27-14 |
| Titans vs 49ers | 19-13 |
| Bengals vs Lions | 16-14 |
| Colts vs Patriots | 13-13 |
Context matters here, because Allar was not the only rookie under the lights. The No. 1 overall pick, Fernando Mendoza, threw a touchdown pass in his debut for Las Vegas in a 27-14 loss to Arizona. Cam Ward struggled across three drives for Tennessee against San Francisco's backups in a 19-13 Titans win. Anthony Richardson ran for a score in Indianapolis' 13-13 tie with New England. Houston's Marlin Klein played 11 snaps and made a catch, and his head coach made a point of praising him for it. That is the beauty of the first Thursday in August. Everybody's story starts at zero and the sample size is a rounding error.
Why this matters in Pittsburgh
checked the almanac: the last time this franchise drafted a quarterback and had the whole city holding its breath, ben roethlisberger went in the first round in 2004, took over in week 2 when tommy maddox got hurt, and won every regular season start he made as a rookie. that is the ghost every young steelers quarterback walks past on the way to the practice field. it is not fair. it is also not going anywhere.
Allar does not have to be that. Nobody does. What he has to be is the guy whose second preseason game looks like a step up from his first, whose training camp installs stick, and who does not flinch the first time a real starting defense disguises coverage on him. That is the honest bar in the middle of August, and he cleared the first rung of it in front of a home crowd that has been waiting to feel good about a quarterback again.
What comes next for him is more reps, harder looks, and a longer leash from the coaching staff if the poise holds. Preseason careers are built one series at a time, and the second one usually tells you more than the first. I'll be watching how much of the game plan Pittsburgh trusts him with in their next preseason outing, and whether the ball keeps coming out on time when the pocket gets uglier. That is where rookie quarterbacks either grow or get found out.
