Less than five months ago, before he signed a contract with the Steelers that meant little more than an opportunity, Mike Matthews was selling soft-shell football equipment.
If ever there were a name that a high school football coach could trust as a salesman, it would be Matthews — that’s Matthews as in Bruce (his Hall of Fame dad), as in Clay (his All-Pro cousin), as in Jake (his first-round pick brother). You’d expect Mike to be wearing shoulder pads, not selling them.
“I can’t emphasize enough how humbling of an experience it was to go from playing in the NFL to having a pee-wee coach tell you, ‘Get out of my face,’ ” he said.