PITTSBURGH — The highest-profile unofficial assistant position coach in the NFL is no more — at least not for now. Restrictions on the number of personnel permitted to be around the team put in place by the NFL out of concerns related to the coronavirus pandemic have prevented Ryan Shazier from taking part in Pittsburgh Steelers training camp.
Shazier, a former Pro Bowl linebacker, spent the past two seasons around the team on a daily basis after his playing career was cut short by a spinal injury suffered during a December 2017 game.
“It’s really hard to not have him around,” inside linebackers coach Jerry Olsavsky said during a video conference call with media Monday. “I think about him every day. I have to send a text to him. I haven’t. I go out there and I see a picture of something or a clip of something from years’ past, and I’m really like, ‘Damn, I miss him.'”
Shazier remains on the Steelers’ roster under the “reserve/retired” designation. He turns 28 on Sunday and hasn’t played since undergoing spinal stabilization surgery two days after being injured while making a tackle during the Dec. 4, 2017, Monday night game at the Cincinnati Bengals.
Shazier has vowed to return to play, and the Steelers have publicly supported him in that quest. Shazier’s first public appearance walking came when he announced the Steelers’ first-round pick in April 2018. He has since posted videos of working out, and has been seen walking around with relative ease.
Because the Steelers had already exercised their injury-protected fifth-year option for Shazier, he was paid for the 2018 season. The club then paid him the veteran-minimum salary last season. During each, Shazier was regularly around the practice facility and was said to have had an active role in meetings and practices.
“Ryan did a great job last year,” Olsavsky said. “A player like Ryan puts in different pieces to the puzzle a lot. It’s hard to quantify exactly what he did. When you have a guy there that says, ‘This is what used to happen to me, and this is what I did to overcome it,’ that really helps because you know how successful Ryan is. You’re like, ‘Oh, I’m glad somebody else went through this.’ As I said, it’s hard to quantify the impact Ryan had last year only because it was so varied. He was so great to have around.”
That wasn’t as easy to maneuver in 2020 during a pandemic. General manager Kevin Colbert said last week that the organization let Shazier know before camp that he would not have an official 2020 role and that Shazier was “very understanding.”
The league cut roster sizes for camp and limits media and other personnel from the Heinz Field camp site and South Side practice facility.
“Ryan will always be a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers in an official or unofficial capacity,” Colbert said. “But he also understands that we have to deal with current 2020 business, which first and foremost is this training camp and he knows that even though he isn’t a part of it or in the building, he will always be a part of us.”
