{"id":196343,"date":"2026-05-19T05:35:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:35:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/196343\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T05:35:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T05:35:46","slug":"pittsburghs-offensive-line-has-a-new-veteran-leader-its-not-a-player","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/196343\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh’s Offensive Line Has A New Veteran Leader. It’s Not A Player."},"content":{"rendered":"

Isaac Seumalo was the elder statesman of the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 offensive line, the veteran among a group of rookies and second-year players. With Seumalo leaving in free agency<\/a> for the Arizona Cardinals, there\u2019s a leadership void. It\u2019s being filled not by a Steelers player, but by one of the team\u2019s new coaches \u2013 assistant line coach Jahri Evans.<\/p>\n

\u201cJahri has kind of been that role for us,\u201d OT Troy Fautanu told reporters via the team website<\/a> following Monday\u2019s first OTAs session. \u201cWith all the games that he\u2019s played. I asked him last week, I asked how many starts did he have in the NFL? He said 180-something. And I was like, that\u2019s crazy. He\u2019s got a lot of insight, and I feel like he\u2019s kind of taken that role.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mike McCarthy hired Evans as the team\u2019s new assistant offensive line coach. Complementing veteran offensive line James Campen, Evans isn\u2019t far removed from his own stellar playing days. Making 183 starts from 2006-2017, Evans was named to six Pro Bowls and four All-Pros and fell just shy of the Hall of Fame<\/a> this past class. He spent his final season playing for McCarthy in Green Bay.<\/p>\n

He quickly broke into coaching, spending the last four seasons as an assistant in New Orleans before being tabbed by McCarthy to work in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a unique dynamic. Evans is a young coach who doesn\u2019t turn 43 until August. He knows what the modern-day NFL is like and can relate to his players. His excellent resume creates instant credibility in the room. Though unusual for a coach to be called the player\u2019s leader, Fautanu doesn\u2019t think it\u2019s much different than last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIsaac was damn near a coach to us,\u201d Fautanu said. \u201cWhatever he said was pretty much, he was like a third offensive line coach.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fautanu admitted he\u2019s often a quiet voice in the room, but speaks up when the moment needs it. Leadership is often natural; you have it, or you don\u2019t, but the room will continue growing throughout the year. It\u2019s hard for any young lineman in the room right now to lead, given their inexperience in the league and in a new offense with new coaches.<\/p>\n

As the group settles in throughout the summer and into the fall, leaders will emerge. Maybe Zach Frazier as the anchor in the middle. Maybe Spencer Anderson, the most tenured starter of the first group during Monday\u2019s practice. Or maybe Fautanu, billed as a wise-beyond-his-years player out of Washington, who seemed unbothered by everything the NFL has thrown at him. Injuries, position changes, new coaches, he\u2019s embraced it all. Just like a good leader does.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isaac Seumalo was the elder statesman of the Pittsburgh Steelers\u2019 offensive line, the veteran among a group of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49166,73,75,74,1833,54839],"class_list":["post-196343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-jahri-evans","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-troy-fautanu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}