Steelers add athletic, durable guard McCormick in fourth round

The Steelers added more depth to their offensive line by selecting athletic South Dakota State guard Mason McCormick with the 119th overall selection in the fourth round of the 2024 NFL Draft Saturday afternoon.

McCormick is the third offensive lineman selected within the Steelers' first five picks of the draft after Troy Fautanu was drafted 20th and Zach Frazier was picked 51st. 

McCormick stood out at the NFL Combine with the second-highest score for athleticism among all guards, per NFL Next Gen Stats, after he ran a 5.08-second 40-yard dash, jumped 35.5 inches vertically and recorded a 9-foot-9 broad jump.

"The kid's tough," offensive line coach Pat Meyer said. "He plays football the right way, he loves football. He wanted to be a Steeler. I know that just talking to him, working the kid out, so we're excited to have him. We have him penciled in at guard, the guard position, and he'll come in and compete from Day 1."

McCormick's reaction to the call from Mike Tomlin confirms Meyer's words about McCormick wanting to be a Steeler:

"I'm ready to be plug and play wherever I can and I'm just ready to be a team-first guy and help the team however I can," McCormick said via conference call with reporters. "... I'm very excited to be a Pittsburgh Steeler. This is definitely a dream come true."

The 6-foot-4, 309-pound McCormick is a two-time Associated Press Football Championship Subdivision All-American and a three-time team captain at South Dakota State. He redshirted in 2018 but started in a school-record 57 games, mostly at left guard. Just like Fautanu and Wilson, McCormick comes from a school with championship pedigree. South Dakota State won the FCS national championship in 2022 and 2023, and was the runner up in 2020.

"Regardless of the competition, what it is, it's the style of play and how do the guys finish," Meyer said. "Play style, how do they finish, how do they act throughout the game. If they're banged up through this game do they still play through injury? All that type of stuff, we study all of it.

"... Obviously he did great (at the Combine). You talk about guys that are in the 'green' numbers wise in terms of what his 10 (-yard split) time is and shuttle time and all that, he was in that upper echelon of timing. The film is the film and that's what you base it off of but we've got guys that are close, that are similar -- you get them ranked similar -- and you go back to the numbers and you look at that like, 'this guy's this, this guy's this.'"

McCormick is insurance for the interior alongside Nate Herbig and behind Isaac Seumalo and James Daniels. Daniels is entering the final year of his three-year contract and will be an unrestricted free agent in 2025. 

A native of Sioux Falls, S.D., McCormick was unranked as a high-school prospect and did not receive a college football offer. He is the first offensive lineman to be drafted out of South Dakota State since Adam Timmerman in 1995.

"I bring an intensity to the game, I play with a ton of effort and I want to be somebody who gives everything I have to the team," McCormick said.

The Steelers are continuing to build up the trenches under new offensive coordinator Arthur Smith, and the three newest pieces to that offensive line are already connected in some way. McCormick and Fautanu made their pre-draft visits to the South Side together, and McCormick trained alongside Frazier in Frisco, Texas, with the nationally renowned Duke Manyweather before the NFL Combine.

"Obviously I'm biased with coaching the line and being an ex-lineman, games are won in the trenches," Meyer said. "That's true. I know it's cliche but it's got to start up front. They're going to add to a room that we've been working on for a few years now and that's just going to add to that group and to that room. It's going to be great, it's going to be awesome."