There are still a handful of questions the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to have to unravel the answers to over the course of training camp, even in the starting lineup—who is the left tackle, for instance? Others are perhaps not quite as pressing, at least not immediately, but could be a big deal down the line.
One of those questions is who the backup center will be. Of the reserve linemen, they don’t currently have an experienced player who is a natural center, but they do have some center-capable players. 2021 third-round pick Kendrick Green, who started at center as a rookie, worked there throughout the spring with the second team, but that’s not who Ray Fittipaldo believes will be the backup center come the regular season.
“I think it’s Herbig”, he told a fan in a recent chat session at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s website, adding that Green and 2023 rookie seventh-round pick Spencer Anderson could potentially wind up on the practice squad. Yet he also said something else worth noting about Herbig this offseason.
“Nick Herbig can play center. He just didn’t practice there this spring because they wanted to give Kendrick Green reps”, he said. This speaks to two things, one being their interest in giving Green every opportunity to earn a role, the other being that they’re not pressing about Herbig being the backup center right now.
Will that change come training camp? Because of it’s not Green, who is it going to be? Anderson? Ryan McCollum? The best options are actually their starting guards, Isaac Seumalo and particularly James Daniels, the latter of whom was a college center and started his NFL career there. Teams shy away from using starters as the top backup at other positions, but Daniels has been named as an option already, even if it might be a last-resort option.
A couple weeks back, offensive line coach Pat Meyer said the Steelers had “a bunch of guys” who could play center, naming Green, Daniels, and Herbig specifically. Of the three, however, Herbig is the least experienced at the position.
That is true at least of in-game experience. He has 49 snaps played at center during the regular season over the course of his career, though he has also played 237 snaps at the position during preseason games as well, and of course time logged in training camps.
It’s worth pointing out that, having played most of his career with the Philadelphia Eagles, he was working behind Jason Kelce, one of the greatest centers of the era and also an ironman in terms of durability. He hasn’t missed a game since 2014. The only time since then he’s logged under 1000 total offensive snaps or under 95 percent of the snap share was in 2021, when Herbig logged almost all of his regular-season snaps at the position.
Yet how good could, or should, the Steelers feel about his ability to play the position when he has minimal competitive tape playing it? They mostly have preseason tape to work from. I would imagine they intend to pit him against Green in training camp to figure out who the backup is going to be. And if it’s not Green, then he’s likely not going to be on the 53-man roster.
