{"id":71601,"date":"2025-07-18T03:24:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-18T03:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71601\/"},"modified":"2025-07-18T03:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-18T03:24:09","slug":"two-steelers-make-gurus-list-of-best-offensive-linemen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/71601\/","title":{"rendered":"Two Steelers Make Guru’s List Of Best Offensive Linemen"},"content":{"rendered":"

One old and one new, two Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 starting offensive linemen have cracked offensive line expert Brandon Thorn\u2019s list of the best linemen in football. In his Trench Warfare Substack,<\/a> Thorn ranked the top offensive lineman at each of the five starting spots. Guard Isaac Seumalo came in as the tenth-best left guard while center Zach Frazier took third place at center.<\/p>\n

Thorn noted Seumalo remains a steady presence along the interior.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeumalo suffered a pec injury during practice before the season that kept him out of the first four games before he returned for the remaining 13 weeks as his usual self. Seumalo is the quintessential crafty veteran guard who does everything at a solid level. His calling card is play speed. Using good quickness and snappy decision-making, he manipulates space and leverage well while consistently operating on time (sorting games, working combinations, etc.). This helps circumvent his average size, length, and raw power, allowing him to function when physically outmatched by dying slowly in his anchor and using positional leverage to seal off rush lanes.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Thorn notes, Seumalo\u2019s 2024 campaign was paused by a pec injury suffered<\/a> days before the team\u2019s Week One opener against the Atlanta Falcons. He avoided injured reserve but still missed the first month, and even once he returned, he didn\u2019t seem fully healthy. Still, his play was inoffensive, and he was the team\u2019s second-best offensive lineman behind Frazier.<\/p>\n

Healthy, he enters 2025 as one of the team\u2019s best and most established linemen. This season is also a contract year, and his future with the team is in doubt. Turning 32 in October and knowing the high cost of the guard market, it seems unlikely the Steelers will re-sign him. With little in the way of an internal replacement, finding a starting left guard could be on the offseason docket.<\/p>\n

Seumalo\u2019s ranking dipped slightly compared to a year ago, falling from eighth to tenth. The question will be how much longer he can remain on the list before his age catches up.<\/p>\n

Frazier figures to be a mainstay for years to come. Despite playing just one season and missing two games as a rookie, Thorn already regards him as a top-three center in the \u201cvery good\u201d camp alongside names like the Baltimore Ravens\u2019 Tyler Linderbaum and Philadelphia Eagles\u2019 Cam Jurgens.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrazier put on a show as a rookie last season with elite-level play strength<\/a>\u00a0and a \u2018feel\u2019 for\u00a0angles<\/a>\u00a0and leverage far beyond his years. This put him in constant positions of\u00a0balance<\/a>\u00a0and strength that allowed him to\u00a0impose his will<\/a> at a level rarely seen from a rookie. His performance and the physical presence he provides in both the run and pass game were good enough for me to feel more than comfortable slotting him in this high. Frazier has some granular areas of his game that are typically present with rookies, primarily in pass protection, such as not turning early on slides, crossing his mid-line with his hands, and letting loopers cross his face.<\/p>\n

Overall, Frazier\u2019s strengths are obvious, and his tape was remarkably clean against top competition, making it easy to project 2024 as his floor moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drafted in the second round, Frazier has been the biggest return on investment of the Steelers\u2019 recent offensive line upgrades. Grabbing the starting job once Nate Herbig was injured during training camp, Frazier never looked back. Strong and stout as a run blocker, his aggression and finish meshed with the philosophy of the Steelers\u2019 offense. His extracurriculars against the Baltimore Ravens<\/a> made the game feel like the rivalry it\u2019s supposed to be, helping lead Pittsburgh to a win in the first meeting. Despite an ankle injury that hindered him in the latter half of the season, Frazier played well. It didn\u2019t net him a Pro Bowl, but he figures to be in contention for the accolade in 2025.<\/p>\n

Only the Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 Creed Humphrey and New Orleans Saints\u2019 Erik McCoy finished ahead of Frazier. Humphrey figures to remain in the top spot, but Frazier could take the silver medal by next year\u2019s list.<\/p>\n

Ideally, a couple more Steelers\u2019 linemen make Thorn\u2019s 2026 list. Left tackle Broderick Jones is entering a make-or-break third season. Right tackle Troy Fautanu is talented but has appeared in one NFL game, while right guard Mason McCormick is poised to start wire-to-wire for the first time. If two of those three names can make the top ten at their position, the Steelers will feel good about the state of their offensive line and, by extension, the offense as a unit.<\/p>\n

Again, check out Thorn\u2019s complete rankings here.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One old and one new, two Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 starting offensive linemen have cracked offensive line expert Brandon Thorn\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":71602,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[50068,50069,1232,1545,62,939,67,132,68,50070],"class_list":{"0":"post-71601","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-brandon-thorn","9":"tag-isaac-seumalo","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-pittsburgh-steelers","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-trending","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-zach-frazier"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114872101335806658","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}