This offseason, the Steelers had a vision for the future of their offense. Pittsburgh hit the reset button by shipping out anyone they felt was behaving more like a hostage — namely Kenny Pickett and Diontae Johnson — than a volunteer, revamped their quarterback room, and committed significant resources towards their offense of line in the draft.
With the team taking Troy Fautanu and Zach Frazier with their first two picks, fourth-rounder Mason McCormick was a bit of an afterthought for most fans. That’s nothing McCormick isn’t used to. A zero-star recruit coming out of high school, McCormick attended South Dakota State where he started 57 straight games and won back-to-back national titles in 2022 and 2023.
While the Jackrabbits are a powerhouse in the FCS, it’s not a program with a huge national spotlight. McCormick shined during the pre-draft process regardless, especially at the NFL Combine where he earned “elite” grades in agility, explosiveness and speed according to RAS. If there was any knock on his profile, it was his collegiate level of competition and technique flaws with his footwork and lower half.
When Pittsburgh selected him at pick 119, they likely envisioned him as a raw athletic prospect they could develop during 2024 and potentially move into the lineup in 2025 if James Daniels were to leave in free agency or if the team decided to move on from Isaac Seumalo. You know what they say about best-laid plans. Injuries have ravaged Pittsburgh’s offensive line. Daniels, who was quietly the Steelers' best lineman during the first three weeks, has been lost for the season. Seumalo is only just returning to the field after suffering a pectoral injury on August 28.
McCormick saw his first action in Week 3 against the Chargers and last week overtook Spencer Anderson on the depth chart to get his first start. If he plays well the rest of the way, he could enter next season as the starter. So how has he looked so far?
Let’s begin with some bad reps and then flush them down with the positives.
Let's start with the negatives. These first two come from his first real action. McCormick (66) reports as eligible for both of these, in a heavy formation I honestly hope Arthur Smith starts reconsidering. These are 2 welcome to the NFL moments, first from Mack, then Morgan Fox pic.twitter.com/16LWwFugoS
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
Against Los Angeles, McCormick got the majority of his reps in a heavy personnel package that features two tight ends and a sixth offensive lineman who reports as eligible. The logic behind the formation should be fairly obvious: get eight of your biggest guys on the line and clear some room for your back. I have some gripes with this formation — and the decision to ask Najee to stretch the field horizontally — but we’ll touch again on that later.
We’ll start with the toss right in the red zone. This play’s failure isn’t all on McCormick, but he certainly doesn’t help. Khalil Mack is a tough assignment for an experienced vet, and he makes light work of McCormick. You can see at the point of contact Mack is already well underneath McCormick’s pads, which causes him to topple off balance when Mack schucks him with a rip move. This puts him directly into Najee’s path and forces Harris to try to bounce it even further outside where corner Kristian Fulton is waiting.
My other qualm lies with this design. While I don’t know what their blocking assignments are supposed to be, it sure looks like the design leaves that outside corner free to disrupt the play. Both Washington and Freiermuth are looking to climb to the second level. Friermuth, despite being farthest outside, darts to his left to pick up a linebacker and Washington offers some chip help on Mack before climbing and blocking the safety. Again, I don’t know their assignments, but I would have liked to see Freiermuth pick up the defender furthest outside and have Washington engage the linebacker rather than the safety. Mack might have blown the play up regardless, but I believe it would have given the running back a better chance.
In the second clip above, McCormick is once again reporting as an eligible receiver while functioning as a sixth offensive lineman. This time, it’s Morgan Fox who takes advantage of the rookie getting a little high in his pads. He and Washington struggle to displace their defenders and Najee gets dancey in the backfield and the play is dead in the water.
Just to hammer the pad level point home, here was another rep — this time at left guard against the Colts — where McCormick’s pad level is the culprit in a failed run. He isn’t able to generate any power or push and the lane never opens up for Harris.
On the plus side, those two runs put McCormick in a position he will not be asked to fill moving forward, so we can essentially toss them out. If there is one area McCormick can focus on, it's his pad level. Sometimes he gets too high and surrenders leverage like on this run. pic.twitter.com/4Y8N7kZRYq
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
Those reps weren’t pretty for McCormick and show that he’s still a young player finding his way in the league. But his tape isn’t all bad. In fact, I’d say I came away rather impressed with what he’s done in limited action so far.
Mostly, however, I've come away encouraged by his tape. For most of his snaps, McCormick has done his job at worst, and excelled at best. Unfortunately, the same can't always be said of his teammates. 83 is brutal to watch on tape. McCormick and Moore win their double here tho pic.twitter.com/ePwl5IpzCV
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
In this rep, McCormick and Dan Moore Jr. are tasked with doubling the defensive tackle, and they successfully drive him downfield to provide the cutback lane for this counter run. Darnell Washington pulls and successfully executes his block on the defensive end. This should open a big lane, right?
Sadly, Connor Heyward continues to be a mess and has me doing my best Lucille Bluth impression every time he takes the field. Najee doesn’t necessarily help, as it looks like he jump-stopped into the defender rather than driving his legs through him. What should have been an explosive run instead ends with a minimal gain.
Play doesn't succeed here, but McCormick does his job.
Don't love the design here tbh. Play is so condensed you can see all PIT 11 on this angle. Invites IND to put 9 near the LOS. Steelers trying to get 6 vs 5, but 83 and 62 whiff and 74 takes too long to pull pic.twitter.com/bwJPcvrXG1
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
The trend of McCormick doing his job but failures elsewhere killing the play continues. Here is again where I will gripe with Smith’s usage of heavy personnel. The Steelers are going for it on fourth-and-1. With McCormick now playing guard, Smith sends in backup center Ryan McCollum to fill in the sixth lineman role.
With MyCole Pruitt still out with injury, Heyward once again is used in the TE/FB-hybrid role and lines up in the backfield. The play call is a designed run for Fields, with Spencer Anderson pulling from right guard. Again, I don’t know the blocking assignments, but I question the usage of Heyward here. At the snap, he runs to the far left, outside of Washington and his assignment. I don’t get this. Not only does he fail to get a hand on a defender, but it has little impact on helping where the run is designed to go. The Steelers just need one yard, stretching it to the outside unnecessarily wouldn’t have made much sense for Fields. Instead, I would have preferred to send the back as a lead blocker through the C-gap between Moore and McCollum.
The timing seems off with the rest of the play as well. McCollum lets the defensive end through with only a gentle pat, likely because the pulling Anderson is supposed to pick him up, as this appears to be a “trap” or “wham” run design. However, the defender penetrates quickly. Anderson gets his man on the ground, but the defender has already forced Fields to hesitate getting upfield to sidestep him. While that’s happening, McCollum fails to get a hand on his defender until he’s already lost and the linebacker blows up the play to force the turnover on downs. I like the play call, but I don’t love putting McCollum in that spot. Costs the Steelers here.
McCormick, for his part, gets his hands on two defenders. First, he helps Moore with his man and then he delivers a hard hit to the linebacker screaming through the A-gap. Good rep from the rookie.
I know I’ve been rather negative, to this point, but I promise the clips aren’t all critiques on the Steelers’ rushing attack. Let’s look at arguably the two best runs on the day.
On two of the better runs of the day, McCormick showing he can be effective in the run game. First play – blocks and passes off the DT then picks up the LB to give CPat a lane. Second play – escorts 97 out of the play. pic.twitter.com/aQxGpmtKTd
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
On the first play, Pittsburgh executes a gap run and McCormick is key to making the play work. He initially blocks the lineman in front of him but passes him off to the pulling Anderson. His job is to then get out in front of the running back and pick up the linebacker filling the gap, which he does perfectly. Patterson uses some nifty moves to set up his blocks and weave through the messy running lane for a solid gain.
In the second clip, McCormick is tasked with taking the defensive end out of the play. He gets underneath his man and escorts him away from the action.
As we noted before, McCormick can struggle at times with his pad level. However, there is reason to believe he can work on that. Here low man wins and he fends off an attempted club move from Davis to hold up in pass pro pic.twitter.com/WiHvzztxJ5
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
McCormick’s faired well in pass protection from the guard position so far as well. I’ve harped on his pad level, but on this play he shows he can hold his own against a defender with 20-plus pounds on him. Raekwon Davis tries to hit a club move on McCormick, but with good pad level, the rookie holds his ground and helps provide a clean pocket for Fields. The Colts don’t have the fiercest pass rush, especially with all their injuries, but it’s still good to see McCormick put plays like this on tape. Most of his pass protection looked like this on the night.
Lastly, the screen game has long been a challenge in Pittsburgh. McCormick, along with Frazier and Fautanu, could be part of the new guard that changes that. He does a great job here and Najee turns it into a 32-yard gain.
McCormick may not be the smoothest mover, but he does profile as a guy that could be useful in the screen game. Screens have been tough in PIT for awhile now, but if they can unlock these plays, watch out. I credit Naj for setting 44 up, but McCormick picks up a key block pic.twitter.com/2I6QOVaUnJ
— Ryan Parish (@RyanParishmedia) October 5, 2024
McCormick is far from an All-Pro at this stage in his development, but I do think it speaks volumes he has already leapfrogged Anderson on the depth chart — something I previously called for. The former 0-star recruit will have the rest of the season to audition for the starting role in 2025. Helping the Steelers gash the Cowboys on the ground in primetime would be a great way to start.
And that’s a wrap on this week’s Film Room. Like what you read or have a comment or correction? Leave me a comment below! Also, feel free to pitch things you’d like to see moving forward. Here we go Steelers, here we go!
