PITTSBURGH -- Robert Spillane remembers receiving the call that put him on an early flight to Nashville one Friday morning in 2018.
A week earlier, the now Pittsburgh Steelers inside linebacker made the trip to Minnesota for a tryout with the Vikings and returned home to Chicago without a roster spot.
Even as undrafted free agents around the league got invitations to camps, Spillane’s phone and that of his agent were silent in the week that followed the Vikings tryout.