PITTSBURGH (AP) — Zach Frazier began his first season with the Pittsburgh Steelers with a problem he'd rarely encountered on the football field up to that point.
The rookie center found himself stuck inside his head a little too much.
“At first I had to kind of really think through things,” Frazier said.
Taking in and synthesizing the sheer tonnage of information he absorbed during those initial months as a pro was a daunting task, at least during the early days of training camp.
Fast forward five months, and things have slowed down considerably for the second-round pick. While Frazier was always expected to become the starter at some point this season, an injury to Nate Herbig on the eve of the regular season sped up the process.
What felt like a somewhat frenetic transition internally never really looked like it externally.
Save for an ankle injury that forced him to miss two games — and led to him somewhat sheepishly puttering around the locker room with a scooter elevating his right leg — Frazier has looked every bit the worthy successor at a position that has been one of strength through the years for the Steelers, from Hall of Famers Mike Webster and Dermontti Dawson to future gold jacket candidate Maurkice Pouncey.
Frazier, who grew up in Fairmont, West Virginia, about 90 miles south of Acrisure Stadium, didn't need to be educated on the history. He was well-versed in it by the time the Steelers selected him with the 51st overall pick in late April.
Still, he didn't try to get too ahead of himself. That's simply not how the 23-year-old goes about his business.
“I don’t really like looking ahead,” he said, mostly he feels “you can kind of get off track" if you don't pay attention to what's going on right in front of you.
Early in the season he leaned heavily on veterans Isaac Seumalo and James Daniels for guidance only to have both of them go down with injuries. Seumalo missed a month with a partially torn pectoral and Daniels was lost for the year in September after tearing an Achilles tendon.
Throw in first-round pick Troy Fautanu being limited to a single start because of a season-ending knee injury, and Frazier found himself as the anchor of a line that seemed to be in constant flux. Those issues have faded as the season has worn on thanks to the rapid maturity of Frazier and fellow rookie Mason McCormick.
“It was kind of crazy,” Frazier said. “In the beginning of the year, everyone was dropping with injuries. Unfortunately, it’s just, you know, next man up. ... I had to come in. Mason had to step up. And then I feel like we’ve kind of found a groove."
Still, there's plenty of fine-tuning to be done ahead of the playoffs. While the Steelers (10-6) locked up a postseason spot weeks ago, they're also in the middle of a three-game slide heading into a visit from Cincinnati (8-8) on Saturday.
In a way, Frazier's midseason break because of the ankle injury may be paying dividends at New Year's. He's relatively fresh 14 games in, though as he spoke on Tuesday, most of the fingers on his right hand were covered in copious amounts of tape.
And while he only missed two games, it felt much longer for a player who was a fixture in the lineup at West Virginia save for the bowl game after his senior season, which he missed because of a broken leg suffered in the regular-season finale, in which he memorably crawled off the field.
“That was tough on me,” he said. “It's definitely not a good feeling, being out and not being able to go. But then, you know, once I got back in against Washington, started clicking again."
The clicks have been intermittent of late. Zoom out, however, and the future of the offensive line could be bright.
Tackle Broderick Jones is finishing up a second year in which he's improved week by week. Fautanu will be back in 2025. McCormick has flashed a nasty streak that suits him well, with Frazier in the middle of it all. They have endured the tribulations of their rookie seasons side by side and that could pay off down the road.
“It’s just nice to have those guys and, you know, go through together with them," Frazier said.
NOTES: RB Jaylen Warren (ribs) and Russell Wilson (resting) were limited on Tuesday. ... LB Cole Holcomb, who hasn't played since Week 9 of the 2023 season because of a knee injury, returned to practice on Tuesday but remains on injured reserve.
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FILE - Pittsburgh Steelers center Zach Frazier (54) snaps the ball to quarterback Russell Wilson (3) during the first half of an NFL football game against the Baltimore Ravens, Sunday, Nov. 17, 2024, in Pittsburgh. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden has rejected the nearly $15 billion proposed deal for Nippon Steel of Japan to purchase Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel — affirming his earlier vow to block the acquisition of Steeltown USA’s most storied steel company.
“We need major U.S. companies representing the major share of US steelmaking capacity to keep leading the fight on behalf of America’s national interests,” Biden said in a Friday morning statement.
His decision comes after the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS, failed to reach consensus on the possible national security risks of the deal last month, and sent a long-awaited report on the merger to Biden. He had 15 days to reach a final decision.
The committee, chaired by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and made up of other Cabinet members, can recommend that the president block a transaction, and federal law gives the president that power.
A U.S. official familiar with the matter, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press last month that some federal agencies represented on the panel were skeptical that allowing a Japanese company to buy an American-owned steelmaker would create national security risks.
The decision comes just weeks before the Democratic president is set to leave office and could damage relations between the U.S. and Japan, which is America’s biggest ally in Asia. Japan is also the largest foreign holder of U.S. debt.
Biden previously came out against the deal last March — and was backed by the United Steelworkers, concerned over whether the company would honor existing labor agreements or slash jobs, as well as over the firm’s financial transparency.
“It is important that we maintain strong American steel companies powered by American steel workers,” Biden said in a March statement, while he was still seeking reelection to the presidency before dropping out of the race. “U.S. Steel has been an iconic American steel company for more than a century, and it is vital for it to remain an American steel company that is domestically owned and operated.”
President-elect Donald Trump has also opposed the acquisition and vowed in December on his Truth Social platform to block the deal and to use tax incentives and tariffs to grow the company.
On Friday, Steelworkers President David McCall said the union is grateful for Biden's move to block the sale and called it the “right move for our members and our national security.”
McCall had long questioned Nippon Steel's status as an honest broker for U.S. national trade interests and reiterated that Friday, saying in a statement that “Nippon has proven itself to be a serial trade cheater."
“Allowing it to purchase U.S. Steel would have offered it the opportunity to further destabilize our trade system from within and in the process, compromise our ability to meet our own national security and critical infrastructure needs,” McCall said.
McCall insisted that U.S. Steel has the financial wherewithal to make the company strong and resilient.
For its part, Nippon Steel had said it is best positioned to help American steel compete in an industry dominated by the Chinese and to invest billions in United Steelworkers-represented facilities, including the company's aging blast furnaces.
It pledged to protect U.S. Steel in trade matters, and promised not to import steel slabs that would compete with the blast furnaces.
Nippon Steel announced in December 2023 that it planned to buy the steel producer for $14.9 billion in cash and debt, and committed to keep the U.S. Steel name and Pittsburgh headquarters. Despite that, its proposal raised concerns about what the transaction could mean for unionized workers, supply chains and U.S. national security.
The announcement came during a tide of renewed political support for rebuilding America’s manufacturing sector and followed a long stretch of protectionist U.S. tariffs that analysts say have helped reinvigorate domestic steel.
Nippon Steel waged a public relations campaign to win over supporters, even offering $5,000 in closing bonuses to U.S. Steel employees, a nearly $100 million expense.
A growing number of conservatives and business groups like the U.S. Chamber had publicly backed the deal, as Nippon Steel began to win over some Steelworkers union members and mayors in areas near its blast furnaces in Pennsylvania and Indiana.
Mike Pompeo, who served as Trump’s first secretary of state, called a potential rejection of the deal “shortsighted” in the Wall Street Journal last month.
“The deal would strengthen U.S. Steel’s current operations and production capacity, benefit its workers and their communities, and enhance the competitiveness of the American steel industry,” he wrote.
Levy reported from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
President Joe Biden speaks at an event to award the Presidential Citizens Medal to recipients in the East Room at the White House, Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
