Drew Allar may only be at the beginning of his NFL journey, but the rookie quarterback already sounds fully committed to embracing Mike McCarthy’s vision for his development with the Pittsburgh Steelers.
During rookie minicamp, one of the biggest talking points surrounding Allar was the work being done on his footwork and mechanics, areas many evaluators considered critical to unlocking his full potential at the professional level.
Now, after spending several days working directly with McCarthy, the young quarterback admitted the experience has already changed the way he sees the position and accelerated his understanding of what the Steelers expect from him moving forward.
Drew Allar already buying into Mike McCarthy’s quarterback philosophy
Drew Allar spoke glowingly about the opportunity to spend one-on-one time with Mike McCarthy, whose long history developing NFL quarterbacks remains one of Pittsburgh’s biggest selling points internally. That’s why it was a very productive minicamp for the prospect of Penn State.
“I do think so, just because I was able to ask a ton of questions. Any time you can talk to Coach McCarthy one-on-one, especially when it’s about quarterback play and fundamentals, I feel like I’ve grown a lot. I really just understand his philosophy a lot more the last two days.”
For the team, that relationship could become extremely important over the next several years. Even as Aaron Rodgers continues dominating headlines around the franchise, the Steelers are quietly investing major time into developing younger quarterbacks behind the scenes.
Steelers focused on rebuilding Drew Allar from the ground up
Drew Allar also addressed the mechanical adjustments being made to his footwork, an area McCarthy previously acknowledged would require refinement at the NFL level.
“It’s really just about tweaking things. There are a lot of different philosophies. Every coach probably teaches footwork a little bit different and with Coach McCarthy, he has his beliefs. They’ve shown they work very well with who he has been around. It’s about me buying into that and getting it as consistent as possible. With all the QBs he’s worked with, they’ve had a tremendous amount of success. But I have to start from the ground up.”
