The Pittsburgh Steelers shopped for bargains when they signed Mason Cole as a free agent in 2022. A former third-round draft pick, he spent roughly half his career as a backup prior to his arrival. And the Steelers immediately plugged him in at center, a favorable alternative to Kendrick Green.
While he improved the position considerably by way of comparison, Cole went in the wrong direction. He played worse in 2023 than he did last year, and the Steelers accordingly released him this offseason. Offensive line trainer Duke Manyweather admits he’s not surprised. Manyweather, who trains some current and former Steelers linemen, never saw that type of player in him—though he argued the criticism of his snapping was overblown.
“The fact of the matter is there are a lot of excellent and great and dynamic centers that have had bad snaps”, he told Brian Batko on the Chipped Ham and Football podcast. “Now, Mason Cole, I wouldn’t put him in the category of a good or great center”.
“He was a guy that [it was] very interesting that the Steelers signed him and saw starting potential”, he added. “I never saw that out of him. I thought he was a career backup, so to me, he was always a stopgap guy. So when he had struggles, it didn’t surprise me. I knew that’s who he was. I saw a lot of the tape that he had in Minnesota and then also Arizona, so it was no shock to me”.
Cole started during his rookie season for the Arizona Cardinals in 2018, but that was due to injury. Indeed, much of his starting opportunities his first four years were due to injury or other forms of unavailability.
In Pittsburgh, however, he started all 34 games over a two-year period. He earned $11 million for his troubles, and to be fair, he played decently in 2022. He also did so while dealing with injuries for much of the year, so credit to him for that.
But his play last season degraded to the point that the Steelers needed to make a change. Now, it’s not impossible that they end up re-signing him. It seems clear they anticipated a more affordable center market than they encountered. Early on, they kicked the tires on Mitch Morse, but he proved too expensive for their liking.
The Steelers are seemingly hoping to replace Mason Cole with a rookie, perhaps as early as the first round. Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette recently predicted that they draft Graham Barton as a center. They may well do exactly that, but they have other needs that may represent better value with the 20th pick.
As for the snaps, Manyweather went on a bit of a rant in defending not just Cole but centers generally. He accused fans of only seeing the bad snaps, for starters. “The degree of difficulty when you have a guy over you, when the game is on the line, when it’s noisy, you’re going to have bad snaps”, he said. “You factor in that sometimes your hand gets dinged up and things of that nature, you’re going to have bad snaps”.
Still, Cole had a disproportionate share of bad snaps last season. Simply comparing it to his own body of work the previous year tells you that much. But at least he didn’t botch a snap on the first play of a playoff game and allow a touchdown.
