The last time the Pittsburgh Steelers fans started chanting aggressively from the stands, it led to Mike Tomlin stepping down as head coach. Stepping into those big shoes, Mike McCarthy will surely not want something like that to happen. That scenario can rear its ugly head again, but this time, the target may not be the coach — but the quarterback. Voices of discontent may creep out if Aaron Rodgers, who’s heading into the final year of his NFL career, fails to perform in the 2026 season, according to ESPN’s Mina Kimes.

“My prediction is, in December, maybe around Thanksgiving, we’re going to hear this in the stands, ‘Howard! Howard! Howard!'” Kimes said on The Bill Barnell Show. “The Steelers in November to December, go Eagles, Broncos, Texans…And I think that’s when Rodgers… I think that the fans are gonna be really unhappy with the offensive output in those games. This is based on me doing a live pod in Pittsburgh, and we surveyed the crowd, and they were all begging for Will Howard.”

In November 2025, the Steelers played the Indianapolis Colts, the Los Angeles Chargers, the Cincinnati Bengals, the Chicago Bears, and the Buffalo Bills. They ended the month losing three of those five games, including a hefty 26-7 defeat to the Bills in the Week 13 matchup. The fans at Acrisure Stadium started chanting: “Fire Tomlin.” Less than a month later, Tomlin stepped down from his position.

This year, the Steelers will play the Bengals, Philadelphia Eagles, and the Denver Broncos in November, followed by the Houston Texans, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Baltimore Ravens in the first three weeks of December after their bye week. It won’t be wrong to say that Pittsburgh has a tough stretch after its Week 9 bye. So, in a what-if world, if Aaron Rodgers fails to run the offense efficiently, Mina Kimes believes fans could demand Will Howard to start.

There’s no denying the Steelers were eager to welcome Aaron Rodgers to play one more season. At 42, he is the oldest active player in the NFL, but he did show notable durability last season. Despite suffering prominent injuries in his career — including a torn Achilles, which forced him to miss the entire 2023 season with the New York Jets — he only missed one game in the 2025-26 campaign with Pittsburgh, which may have factored into this new deal. The front office also seems to be relying on his experience and intelligence to run the offense in hopes of a playoff push, instead of grooming an up-and-coming talent. Rodger’s veteran guile may also help avoid a complete and immediate rebuild, a fact also helped by his relationship with new coach Mike McCarthy.

However, there are still a couple of reasons aside from Rodgers’ potential decline that Pittsburgh may have to bench him in favor of Will Howard. For instance, Howard has a fan following in Pittsburgh, as Kimes also acknowledged. Secondly, the quarterback is now entering the second season of his NFL career. And with Rodgers entering the final year of his stint, the Steelers would surely like to develop Howard for the future. Last but not least, the young signal-caller has earned praise from the coaching staff.

“I think he’s definitely a real prospect as a starting quarterback,” McCarthy said on Mad Dog Sports Radio. “I think there’s a lot of growth.”

Howard spent five years in college, including four at Kansas State and one at Ohio State, before the Steelers drafted him. The quarterback has a 29-14 record as a starter, throwing for nearly 10,000 yards and 83 touchdowns in college. The Steelers, meanwhile, have revolved around multiple quarterbacks over the past few years, with Rodgers currently running the offense. Whether Will Howard will get the starting nod in the forthcoming season remains to be seen.

Aaron Rodgers addresses Mike McCarthy’s offense

It took time, but Aaron Rodgers will have his last dance under Mike McCarthy’s guidance in Pittsburgh. But while it’s true that McCarthy’s offense has changed since the last time Rodgers played under him in Green Bay, the 42-year-old quarterback is ready to embrace it heading into the 2026 season.

“It’s just the next generations of the West Coast offense,” Rodgers said of McCarthy’s offense, per NFL.com. “It went kind of Bill Walsh to kind of what Mike was doing with Paul Hackett, and then it’s kind of grown from there. From a real fundamental level, it’s all about the quarterback’s timing.”

The last time McCarthy ran an NFL offense, Dak Prescott was his quarterback in Dallas. So it’s safe to say that even though there’s familiarity between the head coach and the quarterback, the duo still needs to work on the offensive schemes this year. For Rodgers, meanwhile, there’s still a benefit; he’ll have Michael Pittman Jr. and DK Metcalf in the wide receiver room.