Frazier a steal in second round

The Pittsburgh Steelers selected former West Virginia University offensive lineman Zach Frazier, right, with their second-round draft pick. (Photo courtesy of BlueGoldNews.com)

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Let us, for a moment, understand West Virginia’s All-American center Zach Frazier was drafted to become the Pittsburgh Steelers starting center from the minute he first walks on the practice field.

Yes, he was a second-round draft choice, but he was no ordinary second-round draft choice. He was as special a player as advertised when some were putting him in the first round of some mock drafts and he was probably the key component to the rebuilding job the Steelers felt they had to make on their offensive line.

They gambled a bit by waiting until the second round to grab him, something that general manager Omar Khan admitted on a WDVE morning show interview.

“The reality is we’re going through it exactly like everybody else is,” Khan said. “You don’t know who the people ahead of you are picking. Obviously, it’s well-documented that (Frazier was) a guy that we were targeting. We did have conversations about moving up but obviously that didn’t happen.”

And so there were more than a few anxious moments.

“I think it was Washington that was on the clock before us, and we were pretty much on pins and needles waiting to see who they would pick. Zach was still there and I can’t tell you how excited I am that he was there and we were able to pick him. He’s a Steeler.”

They were reaching back for the glory days of the Super Bowl championship teams and to even think you might accomplish that you must have an exceptional player at center.

The Steelers’ history is rich at the position, with none greater than the late Mike Webster, who to some could be ranked as the greatest center of all-time as he anchored Chuck Noll’s offensive line in the 1970s and 1980s. He played his way into nine Pro Bowls, was the center on four Super Bowl championship teams and was enshrined into the Hall of Fame in Canton.

He was the blue collar that fit the offense and the city it represented.

He was the middle man not only in the offensive line, but in a triumvirate of great Steeler centers, coming along after Ray Mansfield, who held the position for 180 games, and before Dermontti Dawson, who changed the way the position was played as he played in seven Pro Bowls — six of them consecutively — and was named the NFL’s All-Decade team for the 1990s.

Whatever, the shoes Frazier will be issued at training camp will be hard to fill no matter what size they are.

The best way to understand the importance of Frazier succeeding for the Steelers may best be understood by the philosophy put by the Hall of Fame coach Paul Brown.

When Brown started the Cleveland Browns in the old All-America Football League, two championships before Frank “Gunner” Gatski out of Farmington came to become his starting center via Marshall.

His first year there the Browns went 15-0 and Gatski was there for the Browns dominating early years in the NFL as he played his way into the Hall of Fame.

The importance of a center never was lost on Brown, and when he started the Cincinnati Bengals in 1968, his first draft choice was Bob Johnson, an All-American center out of Tennessee.

“You start out in football with first things first,” Brown told reporters on draft day. “Taking Johnson as center to work with (quarterback) John Stofa, who we already have (through the NFL expansion draft) is like building down the middle on a baseball team. He’s like getting a good catcher in baseball to work with a standout pitcher.”

That is the route the Steelers are taking with Frazier, who like Johnson, wore No. 54 at West Virginia. They have brought in the veteran quarterback Russell Wilson, who may even remind Frazier of working in front of Garrett Greene.

The idea behind making sure you make the right choice at center in building a team is that centers normally have long careers and are the leaders and glue that hold an offense together. They must be intelligent, durable and have the mentality of a leader.

When Brown drafted Johnson, he said, “This ensures us he’ll be in professional football for a long time.”

In those regards, Frazier seems to mimic Johnson, who went on to have an 11-year career with the Bengals.

The times were different then, of course, as evidenced by the fact that by the time the day after the draft Johnson’s father went out and purchased season tickets for his family at Bengal games. They cost him $54 each … and now you know why they call them “the good old days.”

Like Frazier, Johnson was as good in the classroom as he was on the field, graduating with honors with a degree in engineering at Tennessee.

It seems to be the perfect fit for both the Steelers and for Frazier and history says that he will become a fixture with a team hungry to regain its place in the NFL hierarchy and to continue to play before a fan base, if it’s possible, as rabid as are the Mountaineer fans themselves.