The Pittsburgh Steelers are waiving OL Ryan McCollum, per Aaron Wilson of KPRC2 in Houston. McCollum was competing for the Steelers’ backup center job, but he didn’t stand out during training camp or the preseason and will be waived.
He spent most of 2022 on Pittsburgh’s practice squad, and there’s a chance he will circle back after the Steelers assess where they are after final cuts are made. With Nate Herbig looking to have the inside track to the backup center job and Kendrick Green having more experience in Pittsburgh’s system, McCollum would’ve had to really show something this offseason/preseason but wasn’t able to do so. He recorded just a 53.5 Pro Football Focus grade in 106 snaps, 43 of which came at center. He also had 33 snaps at left guard and 30 at right guard. He was pretty evenly graded between his pass and run blocking, with a 52.2 pass blocking grade and 53.3 run blocking grade.
McCollum entered the NFL in 2021 with the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent out of Texas A&M. To He has logged 100 NFL snaps at the center position and those came as a rookie in 2021 with the Detroit Lions. Those snaps came in four total games in which he started just one of them. While McCollum did log 847 total snaps at center in college, he was essentially just a one-year starter at Texas A&M at that position.
The former Aggie will now look for a new home either on a team’s active roster or on a practice squad, either with Pittsburgh or potentially another team that could use interior offensive line depth.
