Physically, Myles Jack was away from football for months. Mentally, he was never that far. Speaking to reporters during his Tuesday press conference, Mike Tomlin said Jack’s passion for the game kept him ready not only when the Steelers signed him to the practice squad but when they called upon him in Saturday’s win over the Cincinnati Bengals. Tomlin was asked how Jack was able to flip the switch back on after potentially not thinking about the game for months.
“You hit it on the head when you said, not really thinking about football,” Tomlin said courtesy of the Steelers’ YouTube channel. “I just don’t think that’s in his DNA. He’s a football lover. He might’ve been pushing toward retirement but probably because of lack of opportunity.”
Cut by the Steelers in March, Jack languished in free agency for months. The Philadelphia Eagles came calling in the summer and he briefly spent time with the team before hanging up his cleats midway through camp. Though he pursued other adventures, becoming a pilot, owning a hockey team, he jumped at the chance to get back into the NFL and return to Pittsburgh.
“It didn’t take him long to ponder the opportunity when we reached out to him, for example,” Tomlin said. “He’s a football lover and so I’d imagine he was waiting for the call.”
He answered the call on Nov. 20. After signing with the team’s practice squad, he used the last month to get back into football shape. Prior to the Bengals game, the Steelers elevated him to the Active/Inactive roster as they spun the dial some more in trying to figure out their inside linebacker rotation, a grouping devastated by injuries. The plan was likely to use him in a minor or emergency role, Jack logging only three defensive snaps until starter Elandon Roberts suffered a pec injury attempting a tackle early in the second quarter. Jack went from backup to replacement, wearing the green dot and finishing the rest of the game in place of Roberts.
Jack didn’t just step in; he stepped up. He finished the game with six tackles, two QB hits, one sack, and nearly picked off a tipped pass. Tomlin credited Jack for the quick turnaround “off the couch.”
‘Can’t say enough about some of the guys that stepped up on defense specifically,” Tomlin opened by saying. “Pat Peterson, Eric Rowe, Myles Jack…we didn’t have them on practice squad as developing players. We had them on the practice squad as capable players. Guys that we could call upon and give us varsity-like work and effort.”
With Roberts already ruled out for Sunday’s Seattle Seahawks game, Jack is poised to start again. A reversal of last season that began with him the starter and ended with Jack receiving only part-time reps. The seventh-year veteran is going the other way as he tries to reverse the Steelers’ fortunes, the team just missing out on the playoffs a year ago.
