The Pittsburgh Steelers’ rookies are all in town working together for the first time at the rookie minicamp this weekend, and they received their placements in the locker room. Where the coaching staff chooses to place the rookies is sometimes notable as they attempt to assimilate them into the culture and help them connect with veteran players on the team they can learn from.
“I’m right next to Isaac [Seumalo]. I apologized to him ’cause I’m gonna be bothering him a whole bunch,” Fautanu said via the Steelers’ website of having his locker next to Seumalo. “When you got a guy like that, nine-year vet that’s been around the league for so long, you want to pick his brain. So he’s got a lot coming…He’s a man of few words, so I learned that very quickly. So I didn’t want to bother him too much on my first day. I don’t wanna have a bad first impression.”
Seumalo joined the Steelers last offseason via free agency and held down the left guard position for the entirety of the 2023 season. Fautanu played mostly left tackle in college but seemed to be getting reps on the right side during the first day of minicamp. He won’t necessarily be next to Seumalo on the field, but there is still plenty to learn from him as a person and a player in the locker room and in the OL meetings.
When Seumalo joined the team, future Hall of Fame center Jason Kelce talked about how big of a steal the Steelers got with him.
“I think he’s probably the smartest player I’ve ever been around,” Kelce said via NFL.com.
That is a huge asset for an offensive line room that just added three new rookies to the mix. It also got two new players last year in Broderick Jones and Spencer Anderson. The line is continuing to trend younger, so having guys like Seumalo and James Daniels at the guard spots ensures that the rookies will have a veteran presence next to them, regardless of which side they line up.
Fautanu and Seumalo also share a common heritage, both being of Polynesian descent.
“Maybe that’s why they put me next to him in the locker room,” Fuatanu said. “But man, just knowing that he was brought up on kind of the same morals and values that I was, makes it a little bit easier to kind of talk to him…I know they’re all willing to help.”
Stability and continuity along the offensive line is something that has been lacking over the last several seasons. Ever since the changing of the guard began back in 2019, the Steelers have struggled to maintain continuity both with their personnel and their coaching staff. Now Pat Meyer enters his third season as the OL coach, and they have a pair of veteran guards to help provide a stable environment for these rookies to develop. The sooner they can get things together, the sooner the offense can round back into form after a multi-year slump.
