LATROBE – The throw sailed. Not by much, a hair of a miss, the kind of mechanical error that barely registers when you have thrown thousands of passes in college. Pat Freiermuth was watching. “I would’ve picked that off, bro,” the veteran tight end told the rookie, with the unmistakable authority of a man who has played seasons in this league.
That is how Drew Allar’s NFL career began: on a padless Wednesday morning at Saint Vincent College, under Pennsylvania summer heat, with a reminder that the distance between Beaver Stadium and Latrobe is measured in more than miles.
What happened next is why Pittsburgh has reason to pay attention. Allar missed that first throw. He did not miss after that. By the end of team drills, Yahoo Sports noted that Allar had produced the two best passes of any quarterback on the field: a seam shot to Max Hurleman in seven-on-sevens that split coverage with a velocity his college tape had always suggested he could deliver, and a 15-yard touchdown strike to Robert Tonyan that closed out practice with a firmness that told you something, even on Day 1, even without pads.
This is the question Pittsburgh has been quietly circling. Aaron Rodgers enters 2026 as the acknowledged starter and the acknowledged final act, a man who has said there is no debate about retirement at season’s end. The franchise has not won a playoff game since 2016. Mike McCarthy is the new head coach, replacing Mike Tomlin after 19 seasons. The team has added real weapons around the quarterback position. And a 22-year-old rookie from Penn State, selected 76th overall in April’s draft, is spending his summer trying to compress years of professional development into whatever time Rodgers leaves him.
In McCarthy’s first practice as Steelers head coach, the franchise’s 60th consecutive summer in Latrobe, the morning was technically about managing a 42-year-old starter’s workload. It ended up being about whether the player who might inherit everything has the mechanics to one day deserve it.
Rodgers confirmed his retirement plans in May, removing the ambiguity that had surrounded his return to Pittsburgh. He is 42 years old. McCarthy, who built the MVP years with him in Green Bay, is being precise about the rep count. “Aaron’s 42 years old,” McCarthy said at camp. “We’re going to be smart with a rep count.” Half the first-week snaps go to Rodgers. The other half are divided among Mason Rudolph, Will Howard, and Allar, with McCarthy telling reporters the remaining reps would be distributed to develop depth behind the veteran starter.
That math works for August. What the Steelers are actually doing is buying development time, trying to answer whether Allar can close the gap between where he is and where he needs to be before Rodgers walks away from the game for good.
The college numbers support the investment. In 45 games at Penn State, Allar completed 63.2% of his passes for 7,402 yards with 61 touchdowns against 13 interceptions. In McCarthy’s offense, though, the job demands fundamentals Allar has been actively relearning. Under-center footwork, drop-back mechanics, the technical foundation of a professional scheme that differs from what college systems allow quarterbacks to get away with. “The footwork is a little different than what I’m used to,” Allar said. “Just getting cleaner with under-center drops and drop-back footwork.” He added that he already feels considerably more comfortable than a month ago, which is what you want from a player who signed his four-year, $7.1 million rookie contract four days before camp opened.
The accelerant in that development is the man running the first-team offense forty yards away. Rodgers returned to Steelers OTAs this spring and has since made himself unusually available to the rookie, treating the mentorship as something he is responsible for rather than simply adjacent to. “Aaron’s done a great job of just being very open with me, answering all my questions,” Allar said. “Any little thing I can pick up to help me process faster and be more accurate, I’m all in for it.” The arrangement carries a formal quality: the heir studying the king, extracting the architecture of a decision-making process that took Rodgers two decades to construct.
What makes it urgent is the timeline. If Rodgers is done after January, Allar needs to be closer to ready than most third-round rookie quarterbacks ever manage after one year in the league. Russell Wilson’s departure from the Steelers and subsequent retirement left the franchise with a window it could not previously plan around. The Rodgers signing gave Pittsburgh a known endpoint. Now McCarthy’s job involves not just winning with Rodgers but building enough of a foundation that Allar can recognize what he inherits.
The rest of camp carried its own weight. The Steelers opened without cornerback Joey Porter Jr., placed on the active/physically unable to perform list after something flared in a pre-practice mobility workout. McCarthy said the team would take it day by day without committing to a timeline. Left tackle Broderick Jones was present but managing the residue of offseason neck surgery. At right tackle, first-round rookie Max Iheanachor took early reps alongside veteran Dyan Cook, with McCarthy noting that positional versatility will determine who occupies the sixth and seventh offensive line spots.
The additions around the quarterback position are real. Receiver Michael Pittman Jr., a two-time 1,000-yard target acquired via trade, gives Rodgers a possession weapon the offense has needed. Rico Dowdle at running back and second-round receiver Germie Bernard add dimensions to an attack that needs them. On paper, this is as equipped as Pittsburgh has been in years.
Whether it translates to the postseason is the question this franchise has failed to answer since 2016. What nobody in Latrobe can say yet is whether two throws in a padless July practice tell Pittsburgh anything meaningful about Drew Allar’s ceiling, or about what the Steelers are walking into when the man teaching him is done.
Pat Freiermuth probably has a theory. He is keeping it to himself for now.
