The Pittsburgh Steelers parted with two veteran former mid-round draft choices with significant starting experience along the offensive line late last month, sending them on their way to other destinations via trade. In doing so, they made room for two players who had never been on a 53-man roster before—including one who still isn’t sure why.
Dylan Cook went undrafted out of Montana in 2022, signing with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Though he was waived, he did spend most of the season on the practice squad—surely at the behest of his position coaches, whom he told Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette were very pleased with him.
“It’s beyond me”, he said when asked why he did not make the team a year ago in Tampa. “I think it’s beyond the O-line coaches, too. They both were pretty distraught when they had to tell me they were letting me go. They both said it was above them. To this day, I haven’t thought about it. Since I signed here, it was just moving forward”.
It’s water under the bridge now that he has successfully made the Steelers’ roster, though there is a very good chance he is going to spend all or most of the season as a healthy scratch, being the ninth lineman and the reserve with the least amount of position flexibility.
After all, it wasn’t so long ago that he was a quarterback, playing the position for two years at Montana State University-Northern before transferring to Montana and making the transition to the offensive line in 2018. He started 23 of 27 games over the course of the next three seasons, including all 11 in which he played in 2021.
The Buccaneers rostered 10 offensive linemen, initially, through that was so they could move Ryan Jensen to the Reserve/Injured List while remaining eligible to be designated for return. Among those who were retained ahead of him was former Steelers undrafted free agent Fred Johnson. Brandon Walton made the jump from Tampa’s practice squad in 2021 to the 53.
Now Cook has made that jump, only in a different city. It remains to be seen where that leads, as at least for the time being it seems as though the Steelers have good depth, particularly at his primary position of tackle.
Already retaining multi-year starters in Dan Moore Jr. and Chukwuma Okorafor, the team added Broderick Jones in the first round, who is going to take over at left tackle at some point. fellow reserves Nate Herbig and Spencer Anderson are also capable of playing tackle in a pinch or better. While Anderson has five-position flexibility, he played the most snaps in college at tackle.
Will Cook proves his former position coaches right –as well as his current ones? The Steelers do have a track record of developing undrafted offensive line talent, whether their own or otherwise. That list of players includes Alejandro Villanueva, Matt Feiler, Chris Hubbard, B.J. Finney, Ramon Foster, Doug Legursky, and J.C. Hassenauer, just over the past 15 years. Not to mention seventh-round pick Kelvin Beaachum.
