After earning recognition as rookie, Steelers C Zach Frazier strives for leadership role

As a Pittsburgh Steelers center, Zach Frazier has some massive shoes to fill. Fourteen months after joining the team, the hype train has left the station, suggesting Frazier is a worthy heir to a franchise position that has gone six decades with an almost endless run of All-Pros and Hall-of-Famers.

Frazier, a second-year player from West Virginia, isn’t one to get too overconfident in the wake of 2024 NFL all-rookie honors or seeing his name on “breakout player” lists for 2025.

Frazier said if he ever wanted to humble himself, all he would have to do is watch film of himself from last season.

“It definitely wasn’t pretty at times,” Frazier said of his play over 16 starts (including playoffs) as a rookie. “But that’s a good thing (because) we got it cleaned up, and I think we still have a lot of room to clean up even more and keep improving.”

Named to the Pro Football Writers of America and Pro Football Focus all-rookie teams and recognized as the Steelers’ rookie of the year for last season, Frazier graded out as the fourth-best center in the game by PFF criteria. At least one national outlet predicted a “breakout” season.

Steelers coach Mike Tomlin frequently points out that he expects significant jump in play for his players from their rookie season to Year 2. Frazier already is observing the effects of that.

“I didn’t know what to expect (as a rookie),” Frazier said after a minicamp session last month. “I didn’t know what practices were like. I still didn’t have a good grasp of the playbook.

“So now it feels a lot better, so it’s nice. Last year at this point, it was unknown. But now you kind of know what to expect. … It’s just more comfort.”

The center feeling comfort is important to an offense because he’s the de facto “quarterback of the offensive line.” Ironic, in the sense that Fraizer during minicamp began working with a fourth different first-team quarterback (Justin Fields, Russell Wilson, Mason Rudolph, Aaron Rodgers) during his then-just 10 months as the Steelers’ first-team center.

“Zach is doing an absolutely great job at setting the table,” left tackle Broderick Jones remarked, “and making sure that we’re all on the same page.”

It should come as no surprise Frazier has proven adept at developing into a leadership role so early in his pro career. After all, Frazier made 46 starts in college and will be 24 years old before this regular season begins.

It also helps that Frazier that only one of the projected starters on the offensive line will be older than 24 (veteran left guard Isaac Seumalo).

“I thought Zach played well (last season) for a first-year guy,” Steelers offensive line coach Pat Meyer said. “He got thrown right in there and had to make all the calls, the adjustments up front. He had help from Isaac and (since departed veteran guard James Daniels) early on in some of that. But he’s got to just continue to learn, continue to become a vocal leader.

“He’s a really good leader (but needs to) just become a little bit more vocal in doing some things like that. But he’s a football guy. He … loves ball and loves the game. He’s going to do anything to win, and that’s the type of guys that we want.”

For the Steelers to win a lot during this upcoming season, they will need the offense to be good. For the offense to be good, the offensive line will have to be good, and for the offensive line to be good, it will need the player at the literal center of it to be good.

For an interior offensive lineman taken on Day 2 of the draft, Frazier was quite the decorated rookie. But he wasn’t good enough to satisfy his own lofty expectations for himself.

“It’s just cleaning up the mistakes and just trying to polish my game,” Frazier said. “That’s the main thing for me. I like to focus on what I can clean up and how I can be better as a football player.

“Getting thrown in the fire (last year), I think it helped me out. I just kind of learned how to learn as I was starting in there. So that definitely helped out. In the beginning of the year, it wasn’t as clean. And then as we got to the end of the year, I cleaned up a lot of stuff. So I think it’s just reps, especially for young guys, just getting those reps. And the more you can learn from it, the better you get.”