With longtime area scout Mark Gorscak officially announcing that he’s stepping away from the Pittsburgh Steelers and NFL, it seems like the organization has quickly found his replacement.
According to 93.7 The Fan’s Colin Dunlap, the team is hiring Philadelphia Eagles area scout Jim Ward.
It’s unclear what role Ward will have with the team but it’s logical he’ll remain an area scout with Pittsburgh. According to his Eagles bio, Ward became Philadelphia’s Midwest area scout in 2020 after covering the Northeast regions in 2018 and 2019. Ward was originally hired as a Midwest scout in 2017.
A local native, Ward grew up in the area, attending Steel Valley High School, as Dunlap noted, and playing DT for Slippery Rock. He signed with the San Diego Chargers as an UDFA in 1994 before briefly playing in the CFL and AFL throughout the mid- to late-90s.
His Eagles bio mentions that he still lives in the Pittsburgh area, residing in Jefferson Hills, so he won’t even have to relocate for his new job. Of course, there’s an obvious connection to Andy Weidl, who left the Eagles last season to become the Steelers’ Assistant GM. Ward would become the second member of the team’s front office to join Pittsburgh since Weidl’s hire. Weidl’s brother Casey was hired as a scouting coordinator after being let go by Philadelphia last summer.
Gorscak worked in the Steelers’ building for 28 years. He spent much of that time as a Southern area scout but in 2022, the team seemed to transition him to cover the Midwest. Instead of down south, we spotted Gorscak this year at places like Purdue, Illinois, and Michigan State. So it makes sense Ward will now cover the Gorscak’s territory. It’s worth mentioning Ward also earned a degree in sports analytics at Carnegie Mellon in 2021 so perhaps he can offer some insight to that ever-growing world of scouting and evaluating, too.
