Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — The third week of Pittsburgh Steelers OTAs at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex was missing most of the team’s most-well-known players.
That was largely by design. The Steelers switched up their schedule this year under Mike McCarthy, putting the mandatory minicamp in between the first two weeks of voluntary OTAs and the final one.
The implication was clear. With almost a completely new coaching staff, it was important for the Steelers to get their veteran players together at voluntary OTAs. Veteran players aren’t likely to show up for all 10. And it doesn’t do much good for the Steelers if say, Aaron Rodgers comes one week, and then Michael Pittman comes the next. It’s important for those players to not just come and get instruction from the new coaching staff, but also to do it together, to build chemistry and cohesiveness.
So the plan was for the first to weeks to be a fairly representative squad, have everyone in town for minicamp, and then the third week to largely be a showcase and opportunity for the team’s younger players.
I’d known that was the plan, but it was still a bit jarring to see the Steelers’ first-team offense take the field, with the most-veteran player on the unit being third-year center Zach Frazier.
Certainly, the Steelers have plenty of veteran presences on their offense. Rodgers, chiefly. But Pittman, DK Metcalf, Pat Freiermuth and Rico Dowdle are all also long-tenured NFL players with a variety of experience.
But it’s not that hard to see what’s happening when it comes to the future of the Pittsburgh offense. This is a team that is going to be led by its offensive line, and while there are certainly several candidates to become one of the team’s leaders from the offensive line, the center position has some leadership qualities built into it.
Frazier is the one that is responsible for getting the checks right and making sure everyone is on the same page about what adjustments they’re making at the line of scrimmage. Last year, he was correcting Rodgers on those things while the veteran was getting used to the Steelers offense, so it’s clear he doesn’t have a problem speaking up.
When the Steelers were a dominant offense in the latter part of the 2010s, Ben Roethlisberger, Le’Veon Bell and Antonio Brown were the stars, but guys like David DeCastro, Maurkice Pouncey, Alejandro Villanueva and Ramon Foster were the leaders.
Frazier isn’t necessarily the most naturally outgoing guy. But he was a leader at West Virginia, and you can see him developing into the same thing here in Pittsburgh.
*“*I think going into my third year, I feel comfortable,” Frazier said to Steelers Now. “I feel confident in my play style, so yeah, definitely.”
Like I said, not necessarily the world’s biggest ra-ra talker. But watching practice this week, especially without the vets around, it was pretty clear that Frazier was the guy that was making things happen for the Steelers offense.
That’s...
