NFL · 2 hours ago

“I’d have six quarterbacks in the building if it worked” Steelers Mike McCarthy

Bo Marchionte

Host · Writer

McCarthy Cannot Have Enough Quarterbacks

Four quarterbacks are supposed to create a problem.

That distinction matters as the Steelers approach the final cut to 53 and one of the more interesting decisions on the roster comes into focus. Aaron Rodgers, Mason Rudolph, Will Howard and Drew Allar remain in the building.

Four quarterbacks.

Four different stages of a career. And only so many snaps to distribute once September arrives.

The conventional argument is easy enough: somebody gets squeezed.

McCarthy doesn’t buy it.

Asked if keeping four quarterbacks could hinder the development of the younger players because of limited practice repetitions, McCarthy didn’t merely dismiss the premise. He flipped it.

“I don’t think it’ll hinder it at all,” McCarthy said. “We’ve talked extensively about the importance of the whole quarterback room, and if you have four quarterbacks in that room, especially the quality that we have currently, I think it only enhances what the regular season would look like.”

Then came the line that probably reveals more about McCarthy’s quarterback philosophy than any depth chart could.

“I’d have six quarterbacks in the building if it worked.”

Six.

This isn’t a coach begrudgingly trying to find a fourth parking spot in the quarterback room. McCarthy would knock down a wall and add two more lockers.

There is some football logic buried beneath the exaggeration.

The NFL regular season creates a lousy laboratory for quarterback development.

Starting quarterbacks consume the overwhelming majority of meaningful practice repetitions. The backup has to remain prepared. Young developmental quarterbacks can quickly become spectators with helmets.

McCarthy’s solution is to manufacture work outside those traditional boundaries.

“I think maybe you refer to reps in practice, but yes, I mean we’re not on time restraints once the season starts, thank God,” McCarthy said. “So, we can be able to do more before practice, after practice, so our quarterback school component can kick up some.”

There it is again.

Quarterback school.

That has become an important phrase around McCarthy’s first Steelers team because his approach isn’t entirely dependent upon the number of 11-on-11 snaps available during practice. The classroom, individual periods, pre-practice work and post-practice work become extensions of the developmental process.

A young quarterback doesn’t necessarily need 20 team snaps Wednesday afternoon to improve Wednesday.

He needs work with a purpose.

A bad decision from practice can be taken back onto an empty field afterward and reconstructed without stealing a single snap from Rodgers or Rudolph.

That’s the part of the four-quarterback conversation that gets lost when everything is reduced to division.

There are only X number of snaps, therefore four quarterbacks must divide X four ways.

McCarthy Thinks Four is Better

McCarthy isn’t dividing the pie.

He’s making the damn pie bigger.

Rodgers brings more than two decades of NFL quarterback knowledge into the room. Rudolph brings years of NFL preparation and starting experience. Howard and Allar are young quarterbacks still building the thousands of tiny repetitions that eventually become instinct.

McCarthy apparently sees value in putting all of that information in one room rather than worrying that somebody won’t receive enough turns during a Tuesday practice.

“I think that would be very, very healthy for the overall quarterback room with four quarterbacks,” McCarthy said.

That doesn’t guarantee Pittsburgh keeps four.

Roster mathematics remain roster mathematics. Every fourth quarterback costs McCarthy a player somewhere else perhaps an extra defensive back, linebacker, offensive lineman or special-teams contributor. August has a way of turning philosophical preferences into uncomfortable transactions.

But McCarthy just provided an important window into how he’ll evaluate that decision.

The question isn’t simply whether Pittsburgh can find enough snaps for four quarterbacks.

It’s whether McCarthy believes having four makes every quarterback in the room better.

Judging by his answer, four isn’t overcrowded.

It’s two short.

Or is it?

We will find out the truth when the Steelers cut down to the 53-man roster on August 30^th.