LAS VEGAS — The Pittsburgh Steelers finished their Week 4 game against the Indianapolis Colts with five of their top 10 offensive linemen out of action due to injury. While the team got left guard Isaac Seumalo back for Week 5, on Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders, they suffered another major injury blow on the offensive line. Center Zach Frazier left the game against the Raiders in the third quarter and did not return, and that left the team’s center duties up to journeyman interior offensive lineman Ryan McCollum.
McCollum, 26, first entered the NFL as an undrafted free agent out of Texas A&M in 2021. As a rookie with the Detroit Lions that year, he played in 13 games and even made one start on offense, all at center. It wasn’t the best football in the world, but for an undrafted rookie, just getting that much playing time seemed to suggest that McCollum might have a significant NFL future.
That didn’t come to pass. The following year, he re-signed with the Lions, but was placed on waivers on Aug. 15. The Pittsburgh Steelers claimed him on waivers, but cut him 15 days later. When he cleared waivers that time, he signed to the Steelers practice squad.
Essentially, he’s been there ever since. McCollum spent all of the 2022 season on the Steelers practice squad, was re-signed for 2023, waived at the end of training camp, an then spent all of the 2023 season on the practice squad.
He re-upped for 2024 once again, and entering training camp third on the depth chart at center behind veteran Nate Herbig and Frazier, the team’s second-round rookie. McCollum learned to play guard to make himself more versatile, appearing there in the 2023 and 2024 preseasons.
But the opportunities just weren’t coming. That is, until this season’s rash of injuries along the offensive line. Herbig was lost for the season to a training camp rotator cuff injury. That opened the door for McCollum to start the season on the 53-man roster this year.
There was a possibility that the Steelers might have gotten Spencer Anderson or Mason McCormick enough playing time at center to move there, but both of them ended up starting at guard after injuries to James Daniels and Seumalo.
So when Frazier went down on Sunday, it was finally McCollum’s turn.
“It was good,” quarterback Justin Fields said. “I got a lot of reps with Ryan in training camp. So it was pretty normal for me. Just had to make sure I was getting a few snaps from him before he came in. But it was smooth for the most part.”
Hundreds of entire NFL careers have come and gone since the last time McCollum took to the field for an NFL regular season game. The closest he came to playing time since 2021 was one snap as a jumbo tight end against the Colts.
You might remember that as a shotgun run on fourth down, where Fields was stopped short of the line of gain, thanks in part to a missed block by McCollum.
“I needed to redeem myself,” McCollum said.
So far, so good on that front. The Steelers offensive line has been a MASH unit all season, but they keeping finding reliable players when they call for the next man up, and McCollum has been no different in that regard so far.