Former Pittsburgh Steelers RT Zach Banner “made it”, winning a starting job, his future ahead of him. Cruel fate had other plans, however, as he tore his ACL in his first game as a starter in 2020. He has hardly played more than a handful of snaps since then—hasn’t been in the league for years.
But Banner has been working all that time, he insists, still pushing for his comeback. He just launched a podcast and went into the work, both physically and mentality, that goes into his journey. Now 31 years old and with 307 snaps under his belt, he surely knows his odds are long. But they are non-existent if you don’t even try.
“With time and age, you’re making fine wine. Every week, the phone doesn’t ring,” Zach Banner said, admitting that it has been a struggle to deal with the silence. “That heartbreak, how do we push through? That’s been probably my biggest growth, in keeping that routine.”
A former fourth-round pick of the Indianapolis Colts, Zach Banner didn’t make his first roster. The Colts released him, but he latched on with the Cleveland Browns, playing a handful of snaps. In August 2018, the Steelers, needing depth, picked him up and developed him.
Banner spent the 2019 season as a popular tackle-eligible, then won the starting right tackle job in 2020. He started the season opener that year but exited the game on the back of a cart. He never fully recovered, suffering setbacks and inflammation in his knee, and the Steelers ultimately released him before the new league year in 2022.
But he has continued to work in the hopes of landing his next opportunity. “I’ve been ready”, he said on his podcast. “My knee’s healthy”. In his second episode, Banner talked about dedicating himself to his regimen, something that was not always easy for him.
“I think my discipline in how I take care of my body and how I prepare, I’m hitting it on all cylinders,” Banner said. “We talk about whether it’s weights, or we talk about going to the field. Are we working on my craft? Are we working on my kick set? How many kick sets do I need to do to be able to get off the line and block T.J. Watt every single time? That’s the end goal, but what does it take to get there? You can’t just wake up and say, ‘I’m gonna fucking do it’. It’s like sparring before a fight.”
The problem is nobody expects much fight out of a 31-year-old never-quite-was. Zach Banner did earn a starting job with the Steelers, but he never had the opportunity to prove himself. It’s one thing to win a job and another thing entirely to hold it.
It may well be that far too much time has passed for Banner to have a chance at resurrecting his career. Surely he knows that, but he is only looking for a chance. Teams are always in need of bodies, and an offseason contract costs teams next to nothing. Could he find a spot on a 90-man roster this offseason? And should he fail again, is he open to the UFL?
