Steelers' Concerns Continue To Grow As Zach Frazier's Startling Issues Return

The Pittsburgh Steelers have not had a very smooth 2025 training camp so far, but that is to be expected. This is the time for all the rust and issues to come out so they don't happen during the regular season. However, consistent problems could still cause concern, especially from players that are expected to start, like Broderick Jones' struggles as the starting left tackle. The struggles in camp go far beyond him, however, as other players have their stocks dropping hard as practices go on and microscopes get put on. 

Starting center Zach Frazier has not had a good training camp so far. He opened up the July practices with botched snaps in each of the first two days, which led to him being pulled for a short time in the hopes that temporarily being the backup would make him work harder on fixing his issues. After that, he seemed to be getting better at snapping the ball, at least for a little bit.

With quarterback Mason Rudolph taking over first-team reps on Saturday, the quarterback-center exchange problems flared up again, as they had a fumbled snap during team drills, as reported by Steeler Nation's own Brandon Wallace. 

Botched snaps are unacceptable at any level of football. You have to get the ball to your quarterback 100% of the time without fail. So far, that has been the one negative to Frazier's game in his second season. Many analysts already have him as one of the best centers in the NFL, and he is expected to grow off of that performance, as opposed to stagnating and maybe even regressing. Things are not looking great so far. 

Things seemed to be even worse when rookie quarterback Will Howard stepped in, and another snap was botched and fumbled. 

This has been way too consistent of an issue for Frazier. He still has time to fix it before the regular season, but the Steelers are probably thinking about giving backup center Ryan McCollum some reps with the first-team offense. They did it for a bit back on the second day of training camp, and another day or two of swapped roles may be needed to get the former second-round pick's head back in the game. 

Steelers Dealt With Snap Issues Early In 2024 Season

This is not a new problem for Frazier. There were multiple botched snaps early in 2024 when Justin Fields was under center. One of those failed exchanges came on the final drive of the game against the Indianapolis Colts, and that pretty much sealed Pittsburgh's defeat in that contest. He got much better as the year went on, but it seems to be rearing its ugly head again.

The common trend here seems to be that Frazier struggles when snapping to someone he's never snapped to before. In 2024, he was the backup until Nate Herbig got injured for the season, so he didn't snap for the starters until after training camp, and even then, Russell Wilson was starting to get healthy and take more reps with the first-team offense, so Frazier did not get consistent practice time with Fields until the regular season.

Every day that Frazier first worked with Howard, Rudolph, and Aaron Rodgers has started on the wrong foot. He has gotten better with Rodgers, but he took a vet day off on Saturday, which led to the second-year center having more issues with the backups. Hopefully, he works with all of them enough to develop chemistry, but for now, Steelers fans are starting to get very concerned about these snap problems.

What do you think about Frazier's snap issues coming back? Let us know in the comments or on X at @Steelers_ChrisB.

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