The Pittsburgh Steelers have two centers in the Hall of Fame and may very well have three in the future. Canton has already immortalized Mike Webster and Dermontti Dawson, and Maurkice Pouncey could join them. Unfortunately, the Steelers are still trying to adequately replace the latter, hopefully before he’s eligible for enshrinement.
“There’s a standard here”, general manager Omar Khan told WPXI’s Jenna Harner for WPXI, of the center position. “I got spoiled. I was around Maurkice Pouncey and Jeff Hartings. That was my time here. Obviously, Dermontti Dawson. There were plenty of great centers here. There’s a high standard, so we owe it to ourselves to look at everything to try to find the next great Steelers center”.
The Steelers swung and missed on their first two attempts. The year Pouncey retired in 2021, they drafted Kendrick Green in the third round. Undersized and new to the center position, he struggled significantly as a rookie starter. He had already lost his starting job by 2022, and last year, they traded him away.
The man who replaced him in the starting lineup is Mason Cole. The Steelers just released him last month two years into a three-year, $15.75 million contract. He played adequately during the 2022 season but regressed last year, most notably struggling to snap cleanly.
Pouncey certainly had the occasional erratic snap, including one with particularly bad timing. I don’t think anybody familiar with the center position would rank him as one of history’s most accurate snappers. But he made up for it in every other area.
A 2010 first-round draft pick, Pouncey started every game of his career over an 11-year span. He missed very nearly the entirety of two seasons due to injury but made the Pro Bowl every other year. He also earned five All-Pro nods.
The Steelers had Hartings before him but in between they suffered through Sean Mahan and Justin Hartwig. But prior to that they had a decades-long unbroken line of excellence. Dawson started at guard as a rookie next to Webster, who sat behind Ray Mansfield his first two seasons. From the mid-1960s to Hartings through 2006, they never had to worry about center.
Some of the Steelers’ best offensive lines anchored around the center position. Webster dominated with quickness, strength, and technique while Dawson helped revolutionize the position with his athleticism. Pouncey continued that tradition, which the Steelers tried to replicate on a smaller scale with Green.
While Khan floats out Nate Herbig’s name, he knows they don’t have “the next great Steelers center” on the roster. But are they aiming that high this offseason, and if so, through what means?
The bigger names on the free agency market, like Connor Williams and Lloyd Cushenberry III, won’t be cheap. I think their interest in Oregon prospect Jackson Powers-Johnson is obvious. They reportedly intend to bring in Zach Frazier for a pre-draft visit as well.
