One minor change to the Pittsburgh Steelers scouting staff for this season. According to the team website, they’ve hired Dennis MacInnis as a scouting intern.
MacInnis, according to his LinkedIn profile, was most recently the Assistant Director of Player Personnel for his alma mater, Oregon. He had an internship there as an undergrad, working with quarterbacks. As he describes it, one of his tasks was to “create weekly opponent scouting report presentations for the offensive coaching staff and athletes.”
It’s the second hire they’ve made with someone who seemed to have a close relationship to quarterbacks. The Steelers hired Matt Symmes from South Carolina, who spent plenty of time with their signal callers, and though he won’t be the team’s QB coach, Randy Fichtner mentioned him as someone who will help out in that room. Symmes, however, is on the coaching side with MacInnis is on the scouting end.
In 2017, MacInnis served a training camp internship with the Buffalo Bills. He previously had an internship with CLE Engineering in 2015. The Steelers have added several former Bills’ front office members the last two seasons. In May, they hired Kelvin Fisher as a scout, a former Steelers’ scout who went to Buffalo. Last year, they hired Dan Liburd as a S&C intern after he was let go by the Bills. Liburd lasted just one year with the Steelers.
According to the team site, Denzel Martin is no longer listed as a scouting intern and only as a coaching assistant. Coming over from Missouri, he was hired by the Steelers in 2016 and it appears he’s working his way up the ladder. Scouting intern to coaching assistant seems to be the way to work up the ladder in the organization; former employee Steve Meyer took a similar path in recent years. As of this summer, he’s no longer listed with the team.
Pittsburgh has added a slew of new coaching assistants this year. In addition to moving Martin and hiring Symmes, they also brought in Blaine Stewart, the son of former WVU coach Bill Stewart.
