Now 31 years old, ILB Tyler Matakevich has spent as much time in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills as he has with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Drafted to the Steel City in the seventh round back in 2016 out of Temple, he has made a career for himself as a special teams ace.
While this will not be the first time he has played the Steelers since signing with the Bills in 2020, it will be by far the biggest stage. He has played against Pittsburgh every single year since leaving, but all in the regular season. Now it’s the single-elimination portion of the year during the playoffs. He’s ready.
“I’m so excited, man. I’m so jacked up”, he said on the Zach Gelb Show recently about facing his former team this weekend in the first round of the playoffs. “They gave me this opportunity to be able to play in this league. They drafted me, seventh round. Never forget it, like it was yesterday”.
“Just forever grateful and appreciative of the Rooneys and Mike [Tomlin] and Kevin Colbert, who was there at the time, Danny Smith, all those guys for really giving me this opportunity to just show the world what I can do. It’s definitely gonna be a special day for me”.
While he has only logged 283 defensive snaps in his NFL career, Matakevich has played more than 2,500 on special teams, including 1,356 over the past four years for the Bills. That’s how he’s put up the majority of his 132 career tackles, Matakevich annually one of the more distinguished special teams players in the league even if he could never make a Pro Bowl over the New England Patriots’ Matthew Slater.
A veritable tackling machine in college for Temple, where he racked up very nearly 500 over the course of a four-year career, Matakevich always knew that his path would include special teams at its core. And he’s made good money doing it, including over $12 million during his four seasons in Buffalo. His current contract does void after this season.
There was a time when he was a bit of a fan favorite for Steelers fans, although there were some moans and groans when he had to take the field on defense due to injuries. His only failing was his lack of athleticism; perhaps in a bygone era, he would have been a more prototypical Buck.
This weekend, he gets to reunite once again with Danny Smith, the special teams coordinator in the NFL during his four seasons in Pittsburgh. I have no doubt they’ll catch up before or after the game. Smith probably remembers everybody who has ever made a tackle for him.
And his teachings helped earn Matakevich a long and prosperous career. Frankly, he was the second-most successful player out of that 2016 draft class for the Steelers outside of DT Javon Hargrave. The only other player still in the league is first-round CB Artie Burns, and, well…
