As the weeks tick by and we get closer to the draft, the more I think the Pittsburgh Steelers’ next center is Zach Frazier. That’s chiefly because he is the best center with a reasonable chance of being within their range in Round Two. You can get on Graham Barton being long gone, and Jackson Powers-Johnson may wind up in the first round.
Frazier is likely to last until the second round, even if he doesn’t make it until their 51st-overall selection. But given the need, you can easily imagine them making a trade up to get him. Perhaps swapping their third-round picks for a second and a fourth. They did the opposite in 2009, and drafted Keenan Lewis, Mike Wallace, and Kraig Urbik in the third round.
The Steelers finally held Frazier for a pre-draft visit on Friday, seemingly saving the centers for last. But if we’re talking about just pure playing style, you can argue that he fits the Pittsburgh bill the best. Offensive line trainer Duke Manyweather seems to think so.
“There’s a very strong center group”, he told Brian Batko earlier this week on the Chipped Ham and Football podcast. “Zach Frazier’s got ‘Steelers’ written all over him”, even adding that he “kind of reminds you of a Mike Webster type”.
The “Mike Webster type” isn’t a bad one to emulate at all. Selected in the fifth round of the 1974 NFL Draft, he entered the starting lineup in 1976 and proceeded to have a Hall of Fame career. Though he succeeded Ray Mansfield, most recognize him as the team’s first great center. He’s the reason everybody thinks the Steelers always need to have an elite center—including the Steelers.
Before Webster retired, the Steelers drafted his eventual replacement, Dermontti Dawson. Dawson started five games at guard as a rookie before taking over at center the following year. And when he retired, Pittsburgh filled his shoes with Jeff Hartings. They experienced a period of delay until getting Maurkice Pouncey, however, and now they’re in another, perhaps ending with Frazier.
Can the West Virginia product be the Steelers’ next great center? Is there a generational talent in this draft class? Honestly, I’m not really reading people making such claims about any of these centers. While they argue the top is strong and there’s some depth, they don’t rank with Creed Humphrey or Tyler Linderbaum among recent prospects.
Whoever the Steelers draft, whether Frazier or someone else, they’ll play in between Isaac Seumalo and James Daniels. That’s a nice little perk to benefit from playing in between two experienced and intelligent guards. Pittsburgh had that in Ramon Foster and David DeCastro not long ago, but they needed free agency to replenish themselves.
They tried that at center, too, with Mason Cole, but that experiment failed. As did the drafting of Kendrick Green a year earlier. They reportedly are set on Zach Frazier, Jackson Powers-Johnson, or Graham Barton this year. Will any of them stick around for the next decade? One can hope, but do little else.
