{"id":732250,"date":"2026-02-05T23:57:16","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:57:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732250\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T23:57:16","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T23:57:16","slug":"jack-sawyer-looks-back-at-first-season-with-steelers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/732250\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Sawyer Looks Back at First Season with Steelers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Steelers News<\/a><\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"SteelersPittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Jack Sawyer during a game against the Detroit Lions on Dec. 21, 2025. — Ed Thompson \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

During a recent appearance on The Christian Kuntz Podcast<\/a>, Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Jack Sawyer<\/a> reflected on his rookie season with the Black and Gold. <\/p>\n

\u201cOnce you get in the swing of it, like playing, man. I love ball so much that I think, for me, it\u2019s fun when you\u2019re playing games and constantly game planning. And you got a game on Sunday, Monday, getting competitive and obviously making the playoffs was great,\u201d Sawyer said. <\/p>\n

Sawyer finished the season with three splash plays \u2014 two interceptions and a strip sack. The strip sack came in the Steelers\u2019 Wild Card round playoff loss to the Houston Texans. <\/p>\n

Late the first quarter, Sawyer came off the edge and stripped the ball from Texans quarterback C.J. Stroud. Black was right there to recover the loose ball.<\/p>\n

The Texans tried to trick the Steelers with a flea-flicker but Sawyer was not fooled. Sawyer\u2019s heads up play possibly saved a touchdown, as a Texans receiver was open downfield.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting to see what that atmosphere was like was awesome. Stadium was rocking, obviously it got away from us at the end,\u201d Sawyer said. \u201cMy grade for myself, I give myself like a B- minus, C-plus. I think I got a lot of room to grow. I think I started to come on a little bit late in the year, getting comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"PittsburghPittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Jack Sawyer at training camp on Aug. 3, 2025. \u2014 Ed Thompson \/ Steelers Now<\/p>\n

Former Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin<\/a> gave Sawyer a ringing endorsement during his weekly press conference ahead of the team\u2019s Week 16 game against the Detroit Lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cJack is doing what a lot of young, quality defenders do: They make the best with what you ask them to do, and they work in all areas and get better,\u201d Tomlin said. \u201cUsually those that are playmakers on special teams eventually become playmakers on defense, and he\u2019s certainly been that for us. He\u2019s made some plays on teams. He made some plays on teams last night. And so, I\u2019m never surprised when they transfer that playmaking to the defensive side when they get more opportunities to do so. He\u2019s had some opportunities this year, has made some plays, has had a sack, has had an interception, and so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if he displays that readiness if he gets an expanded role opportunity this week.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sawyer hopes he can build off his promising rookie campaign. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think this year was fun. It was really good. I think first coming into the NFL, you never know how it\u2019s gonna be,\u201d Sawyer said. Honestly, it was great with the guys we got in the locker room. I think I hit on that last time. Long season coming off the natty and training. I feel like you never stopped for about two years straight. So that was kind of tough in its own right. I hit the rookie wall like day four of fall camp [training camp].\u201d<\/p>\n

Sawyer revealed that former special teams coach Danny Smith<\/a> played a part in his welcome to the NFL moment. <\/p>\n

\u201cI get up after one of them, because I\u2019ve never played special teams. So running that month, Danny working me. I\u2019m gonna miss Danny. Danny was awesome, he was great to me. But man, he was working us,\u201d Sawyer said. \u201cWe\u2019re taking every rep. I wake up on day four and I can\u2019t even move. I\u2019m like, \u2018I gotta go in the training room and get right.’\u201d <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned In This Article: Christian Kuntz<\/a> Jack Sawyer<\/a> Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> Steelers<\/a> Steelers News<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steelers News Pittsburgh Steelers outside linebacker Jack Sawyer during a game against the Detroit Lions on Dec. 21,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732251,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2055],"tags":[9040,7,295,6,520,57,2360,426,2395],"class_list":["post-732250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-christian-kuntz","tag-football","tag-jack-sawyer","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-pittsburghsteelers","tag-steelers","tag-steelers-news"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116020738009056380","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732250\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}