Jeff Hartings had to succeed Dermontti Dawson when he signed as a free agent with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not that he is forgotten, but perhaps history would remember him better if he had an easier act to follow. That’s not a fact that eludes Hartings, and indeed, he had some reservations about coming here to fill Dawson’s shoes.
“It absolutely went through my head”, he told Rob King during an exclusive interview for the team’s website. Not only did Hartings have to replace Dawson—he also had to learn the center position. But he had a strong incentive to come to Pittsburgh. “I don’t know how this is gonna come across—money talks”.
Hartings signed a six-year, $24.2 million contract with the Steelers in 2001.
At $4.033 million in a year with a $67.4 million salary cap, that translates to $15.28 million in 2024 terms. As a reminder, Patrick Queen signed a three-year, $41 million contract this offseason for a $16.67 million average. That puts into perspective the significance of Hartings’ signing more than two decades ago. But coming here was also significant for him.
“There wasn’t necessarily a lot of options out there that I felt were really good franchises, teams that were gonna give me an opportunity to win”, Hartings said. “Because you’re not gonna play forever, and Super Bowls were absolutely my goal. It was a tremendous blessing”.
But he also recalled the phone call asking him to take a free-agent visit to Pittsburgh. “I’m not sure I’m super excited about moving to center”, he said. And then he started watching Dermontti Dawson tape in earnest, and that’s when it really hit him.
“Then I sat down and watched film of who I was gonna replace, and I was like…”, Hartings said of Dawson. “After about a week, I was like, ‘I can’t do those things, so I better just focus on what I can do’. He was an amazing man and an amazing football player”.
Dawson had a Hall of Fame career, partly because of his role in revolutionizing the position. Almost nobody brought a comparable level of athleticism at the time that he cemented his reputation in the NFL. Hartings didn’t have that type of game, but he served the Steelers very well as their center for six years. He helped lead them to the Super Bowl in 2005, fulfilling that long-held desire to hoist the Lombardi.
Sadly, Dermontti Dawson never had the opportunity to experience the same during his 13-year career, all with the Steelers. His predecessor, Mike Webster, also in the Hall of Fame, helped the team win four. Then they somehow won with Justin Hartwig in 2008, but never with Maurkice Pouncey.
Pittsburgh hopes to have found its “next great Steelers center” in rookie second-rounder Zach Frazier. And Jeff Hartings’ name very much belongs in that same discussion with Webster, Dawson, and Pouncey. Some also include Ray Mansfield, who held off Webster for a couple of years and was the starter for their first two Super Bowl victories.
