Down the stretch of the 2024 season, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ young offensive line had some major struggles in pass protection and in the run game, which played a factor in the Steelers losing five straight games to close the season in frustrating fashion.
Despite those struggles down the stretch, center Zach Frazier, who was one of the better centers in all of football as a rookie, believes that the young group is only going to get better and continue to form a good, young core along the offensive line.
In a one-on-one interview with Steelers.com’s Missi Matthews, Frazier spoke about the young group of linemen the Steelers have.
“Yeah, I feel like we have a really good, young core and I feel like we’re gonna build together and grow together and just continue to get better over the next couple years,” Frazier told Matthews, according to video via Steelers.com.
That core group of young offensive linemen includes not only Frazier, but fellow 2024 draft picks Troy Fautanu and Mason McCormick, along with 2023 first-round pick Broderick Jones and 2023 seventh-round pick Spencer Anderson. Rounding out that group, at least for now, is veteran guard Isaac Seumalo, with Dan Moore Jr. and James Daniels slated for free agency and unlikely to be back.
The Steelers have invested heavily in the position group in recent years, both in free agency and in the draft. So far, some pieces have panned out, like Frazier and Seumalo. Others have struggled, like Jones. McCormick and Fautanu are still works in progress who have flashed. Growth isn’t linear and the offensive line’s struggles late in the season were concerning.
But with all of the linemen being around the same age and getting experience together along the way, it increases the chances of it all working out in the end, much like the Steelers’ offensive line did during the mid-2010s as it turned into a dominant group that had the Steelers consistently among the league’s best.
There’s no guarantee that this group reaches the height that the Steelers’ offensive line of Alejandro Villanueva, Ramon Foster, Maurkice Pouncey, David DeCastro and Marcus Gilbert reached, but the Steelers are certainly trying by investing heavily in the group once again.
With another full offseason of work together and another year under position coach Pat Meyer, maybe the group can take another step forward, helping whoever is under center at quarterback and in the backfield at running back have success in 2025 as the Steelers try and get back to being contenders.
