Brian Batko

Um, I mean, enough for me on paper and like a logical sensible way, but I'd be lying if I didn't say the, you know,

Bleeding heart, you know, sentimental side of me is not a little disappointed that Andrew McCutcheon won't be part of it, most likely.

Now, I guess if they find a way to still incorporate him, you know, that would bring up a whole other can of worms of, is this...

good use of resources and roster construction and team building.

But, man, if that was the end and we didn't know that was the end and you didn't get really a chance to soak it up, that's kind of unfortunate.

Well, I think...

What I keep coming back to when I think of Will Howard is if you subscribe to the notion that how you do anything is how you do everything, it's really easy to believe in Will Howard because he was – because of the injury and being relegated to IR –

As far as his role in the organization, he was like the kid in the mailroom for most of the year.

He was doing every little task that they gave to him, just trying to soak up information.

Any crumb of an assignment that he got, he was probably overdoing how much they asked him to do.

They were calling him Coach Will Smith.

And Arthur Smith said he was like another quality control guy for them.

And, you know, it was he was tasked with doing certain little, you know, hey, if you can get all the info on this team on third downs or fourth downs or something like that.

And I remember by the end of the season, I wrote about his kind of his latest mission or objective was get Adam Thielen up to speed.

And it wasn't just Will Howard, but, you know, he and Mason Rudolph were spending, you know, ample and extra amount of time with Thielen there.

to get him integrated into the playbook that late in the game.

So I think it's those intangibles, those qualities that endeared him to the Steelers.

I think they've endeared him to the fan base already.

And, you know, you need more than that to succeed as an NFL quarterback or an NFL player at any position.

But it's not like you're starting from nothing.