For a seventh-round pick, Louisville S Gerod Holliman brought an interesting resume to the NFL. With gaudy interception numbers in college, he looked like a potential Pittsburgh Steelers steal late in the 2015 NFL Draft. Instead, he was gone nearly as quickly as he came, released at the end of his first camp with the team.
Now, Holliman is sharing his side of the story. In an interview with the 31 Vision Podcast, Holliman believes he wasn’t given a chance to play. In fact, he says his coach admitted “mismanagement” as he was being cut by the team.
“Unfortunately, that time there was mismanaged by the defensive backs coach,” Holliman told host Johnluis Hernandez. “He never really gave me a chance. I never even started one preseason game. I pretty much, the playing time I had was equivalent to the first half of a game if I was a starter. That’s how bad it was.”
Holliman’s rookie year was nearly a decade ago and his situation is worth a refresher. A free safety at Louisville, he racked up big interception numbers in college. A one-year starter, he picked off a whopping 14 passes in 2014, returning one for a touchdown, and was a unanimous All-American selection.
Since 1976, that remains the most by a player in a single season. In D-I history, it ties the all-time record, and you’d have to dip into the D-III level to find anyone who has ever had more. In 2000, Bethel College’s Ben Matthews picked off 15 of them (fun fact, he was on the same All-American team as future Steeler R.J. Bowers).
Typically, that kind of production vaults you to the top of the draft board. Not Holliman. After initially being viewed as a first-round pick, he was one of the last players selected and believes his college coaches didn’t put in a good word for him.
“It was mind-blowing,” Holliman said of falling to the seventh round. “The coaches were saying he’s not a team player. This is coming from the scouts. They’re telling my agent, my agent’s telling me. They say he’s not a team player and all this bad stuff.”
Holliman couldn’t understand where those reports were coming from, claiming his Louisville coach asked him to return to school instead of declaring.
Potential off-field issues aside, Holliman’s production was overshadowed by other problems. He put on a poor Pro Day workout, running a 4.62 40-yard dash with 27-inch vertical and 9’1″ broad jump, numbers that don’t indicate a rangy safety. A hamstring injury may have impacted things, but it wasn’t just testing that didn’t get him drafted early. On tape, Holliman was a woeful tackler with far too many misses, something we pointed out at the time.
“Some have speculated his shoulder injury led to his shoddy tackling, but regardless of the reason, the dude doesn’t tackle,” we wrote in our 2015 scouting report. “There are technique issues. Attempts are too high and it leads to him having trouble of bringing the runner down….If I’m Mike Tomlin, this is a guy who isn’t even on my draft board.”
We were hardly the only ones. NFL.com’s Lance Zierlein was even more critical.
“Atrocious tackler. Would rather hit than tackle. Doesn’t wrap up and gives limited effort. Had 44 total tackles with 20 missed and/or broken tackles, which was the worst ratio for an FBS starter. Slow to break down in space and lacks balance and base when tackling. Doesn’t always play at full speed or with max effort. Gives half-hearted attempt as high-to-low blitzer.”
But the Steelers took the chance. From there, Holliman says the team didn’t give him another.
“I came in as a draft pick and I was fifth-team on the depth chart. Behind guys who were smaller, shorter, slower. But they used them at nickel and corner. You put your nickel and corner in front of me at safety…they were getting all the reps.”
In fairness and context, his reps were limited. According to our charting, just 53 preseason snaps across five games, the Steelers playing in the Hall of Fame Game that season. But that’s life as a late round draft pick failing to show anything that would get him moved up the depth chart. The NFL’s harsh reality that regardless of college resume, the pros are a different world.
Our notes at the time showed Holliman did not impress. The players he was behind didn’t have his interception numbers but were fierce special teamers who played hard. Ross Ventrone, Jordan Dangerfield, even Shamarko Thomas, Ian Wild, and Alden Darby brought physicality and intensity Holliman simply didn’t.
It was a tough group to crack, but camp injuries to Ventrone, Mike Mitchell and Robert Golden gave Holliman the chance to play. My tweets that summer show him often playing third-team safety. Not fifth-team.
Still, he was unhappy with his playing time and the message he got from coaches as he was being let go.
“The only thing the coach could tell me at the end of the day was ‘he’s sorry,'” Holliman said. “Sorry for mismanaging my playing time and stuff like that. I definitely don’t want to hear this. Because this is my life you’re playing with. You mismanaged the playing time. Bro, I’m your draft pick.”
The Steelers’ DBs Coach that year was Carnell Lake, a former star for the team in the 1990s. It was also DC Keith Butler’s first year in that position, replacing Dick LeBeau. Though by then, Mike Tomlin had firmly put his stamp on the defense.
After being cut outright by the Steelers, Holliman spent most of the regular season as a free agent. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed him in December and Holliman says he was going to receive a Reserve/Futures deal for the following offseason. That is, until head coach Lovie Smith was fired and replaced by Dirk Koetter.
“Once he got fired, the offensive coordinator became the head coach and he released everybody. I never even got the chance to do an exit interview. We never even talked. He never explained you [were] cutting me. Nothing. Never did anything wrong, no nothing.”
That isn’t completely accurate. Holliman did sign a Futures deal with the team two days before Smith’s dismissal. And he spent the next few months on the 53-man roster before being released ahead of rookie minicamp. That didn’t give Holliman any reps to prove himself to the new coaching staff, but he at least spent a couple months on the roster of the new regime.
From there, Holliman never found his way back into the pros. He bounced around a handful of indoor football teams before being released by the Bismarck Bucks in June of 2022. After taking a non-football job and not being drafted by his former Louisville coaches once the XFL returned, Holliman knew his football days were over. These days, he’s going back to school to finish his degree, a commendable choice.
We always try to give players grace. It’s not easy going from college star, leaving school early in the hope and belief of becoming a highly-drafted prospect who can thrive on Sundays and make a great living. Handling failure is difficult and there’s no question he didn’t get the chances other did.
But football isn’t fair and he’s in the same boat as hundreds of other players each year. The bottom line is the deficiencies in his game were never going to lend itself to a successful pro career. Based off his interview, Holliman spent all the time blaming others instead of pointing the finger at himself.
Check out the entire interview below.
