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Rookie Zach Gentry adjusting to ‘speed across the board’

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Steelers tight end Zach Gentry runs through a drill at the Rooney Complex during OTAs – MATT SUNDAY / DKPS

Zach Gentry is a big human being with an even bigger opportunity at hand.

Gentry, the Steelers' 6-foot-8 rookie tight end, finds himself fighting for a spot on a squad in need of help. Vance McDonald will lock down the primary starting role, but after that, with the team losing Jesse James in free agency to the Lions, there's an opening. Xavier Grimble, who has been with the Steelers since 2016, catching 22 passes for 236 yards and three touchdowns during that time, is the current frontrunner to earn No. 2 honors, but Gentry is keeping his head down and doing the necessary work to keep his name in the mix.

And if everything goes his way, he may just beat out Grimble for that spot by the time the regular season rolls around.

"We're all really competitive guys, and obviously I know that's a necessity on the roster, so yeah, I'm going to go out there and compete every day, and I know everybody else will, too," Gentry was telling Dejan Kovacevic during the final day of Week 2 of Steelers' OTAs at the Rooney Complex.

Related: Read more about Grimble's progress and development from Dale Lolley here. 

While the competition is stiff, Gentry, a fifth-round pick out of Michigan, says it's a healthy atmosphere within the team. Everybody is there to help each other, and both McDonald and Grimble have gone out of their way to give Gentry tips and tricks to help him adjust.

"I mean, Vance and X [Grimble] have been really helpful," Gentry said. "There's probably nothing they haven't taught me in terms of just body positioning and what to do on plays, kind of telling some things on defense with body positioning and alignment. They're really just helping me with everything right now."

The biggest adjustment for Gentry? The speed of the game. This comes as no surprise, first because this is what we hear from rookies every year, but also because McDonald told us this when asked about Gentry's progress during Week 1 of OTAs.

“Well, first off, the NFL is way faster than college,” McDonald was saying. “But when you’re talking about a guy with that kind of size, obviously playing low to the ground is very difficult. Naturally, you want to run high and come off the ball, so that’s the first thing he’s going to have to focus on and think about, is staying low, playing low and playing fast. That’s really phase one for him.”

Think Gentry agrees? Here's what he had to say when posed with the same question:

"I think it's pretty much the same thing that a lot of people say, and that's the speed," Gentry said. "Speed across the board, too. D-linemen are fast. Linebackers are fast. Obviously, the DBs are fast. They just move at a quicker pace, so I think that's the biggest adjustment."

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