With a 5 on the back of his left heel and a 9 on the back of his right, Pat Freiermuth won’t be paying homage to Jack Ham or trying to look flashy in bright orange Sunday afternoon.
No, the shoe choice for the Steelers’ No. 1 tight end is part of the NFL’s “My Cause, My Cleats” week around the league. Plenty of players on the team will wear messages of their own, but only one is coming off a career-best performance for a passing game that badly needed a jolt last week in Cincinnati.
The timing couldn’t be better for Freiermuth, his family and Paula Garrant, who lost her son Reid to cancer in 2018 at the age of 22. Freiermuth will wear orange cleats for Leukemia awareness for the second season in a row to honor Reid, who was a friend and teammate of Pat and his older brother, Tim.
“I knew him very well growing up, playing sports, hanging out together,” said Tim Freiermuth, who was a grade ahead of Reid. “For me, it’s awesome. It’s obviously a great thing the NFL does with ‘My Cause, My Cleats,’ and it’s something great that’s kind of personal to Pat, our family, and all the support he gets where we live.”
Reid Garrant and the Freiermuths played at Pentucket Regional High School in West Newbury, Mass., just across the Rocks Village Bridge from their hometown of Merrimac. While Pat finished his decorated prep career nearby at the Brooks School, both Reid and Tim were Cape Ann League all-stars who followed their love of the game to play offensive line at the Division III level at UMass-Dartmouth and Springfield College, respectively.
But it’s Pat Freiermuth who had the size, athleticism and skill to star at Penn State, then get drafted in the second round in 2021 by the Steelers — Reid’s favorite team, it turns out. Now his ability has given him the platform to be more than just a football player, and no matter what Paula has asked him to do in memory of her son, he’s been game for it.
“I’m so proud of him,” Paula said this week, a few days before traveling to Pittsburgh to see Pat represent Reid in-person. “It’s a testament to him, who he is as a person, how he was raised in a small community where the boys played at Pentucket.”
Freiermuth has embraced his new community, too. He’s actively involved with the Boys & Girls Clubs of Western Pennsylvania, making a $5,000 donation in the spring while visiting the Carnegie Clubhouse location. On Thursday night, he and Steelers long snapper Christian Kuntz visited the annual Stuff-A-Bus toy drive in Robinson, which isn’t exactly close to where Freiermuth lives in the Mars area.
“Obviously, I wanted to create an impact on the field just so people can put a face to the name,” Freiermuth said earlier in the day, “then, when I established myself a little bit, get in the community and show my love for the city of Pittsburgh.”
It was easy for Steelers fans to love him back his first two seasons. On top of snagging seven touchdown passes as a rookie, then catching 63 passes for 732 yards last year, it was tough to find a player having more fun than Freiermuth, who’s not shy to show off some dance moves, spike a ball into oblivion after a touchdown catch or ask teammates awkward questions for his “Grillin’ and Chillin’” web series.
But his third NFL campaign hasn’t gone the way anyone expected. Sure, he caught two touchdowns in the first three weeks and excitedly hit his “dab” celebration. During Week 4 in Houston, though, Freiermuth went down with a hamstring injury in the third quarter of a blowout loss to the Texans. Freiermuth then had a setback in his recovery and was out of sight, out of mind for the next five games while on injured reserve.
“Certainly, the year didn't start off quite like he thought it would or how we thought, but we had a lot of talks, and the biggest thing was keeping his head down, keep working,” said Tim, who at 28 is three years older than Pat. “No one’s career is perfect. Everyone’s going to deal with injuries, bumps, bruises, maybe not getting the stats or numbers that they want. Honestly, it’s kind of a blessing to reset, get his mind right, get his body right, and hopefully, he and the team can finish strong.”
If the elder Freiermuth sounds like a good source of coaching for his younger brother, there’s a simple explanation for that. He’s the head coach at Hamilton-Wenham Regional High School in Massachusetts and also spent a couple years as an assistant coach at Geneva College. Tim was in Beaver Falls for Pat’s freshman and sophomore seasons at Penn State, which made it more convenient to see each other when their schedules lined up right.
When the Steelers drafted Pat, Tim’s phone was “blowing up just as much as his” because of all the Western Pennsylvania friends he made at Geneva, and Reid Garrant would’ve been beaming, too. Tim calls Pittsburgh his “second city” now, and while he’s still a Bruins and Celtics diehard, he has no problem rooting for the Penguins and Pirates.
Oh, and the Steelers, as you might’ve guessed. As the Freiermuth family watches Pat carve out his place among a tight end-happy fanbase, Tim jokes that all the people in No. 88 jerseys are actually wearing his name on the back.
“So far, he’s had a great career, but I just keep telling him it can change in a flash, so keep working hard,” Tim said. “And he knows that. Every day, we appreciate it.”
Last Sunday was a good reminder of that. John and Dianne Freiermuth aren’t particularly fond of flying — especially dad — so they watched at home with their older son. Three days after Tim coached his team to a season-ending 34-0 win on Thanksgiving, Pat had a Week 12 NFL-best 120 yards receiving on nine receptions, both career highs and his first 100-yard game.
Most important, the Steelers beat the Bengals. After being on a snap count at Cleveland in his first game back, now that Freiermuth is fully healthy and firmly re-established in the game plan, there should be more where that production came from Sunday against the Cardinals.
The whole family is making the trip for this one — a 10-hour drive for his parents — along with Paula Garrant and a host of others from their slice of New England. She’ll look at Freiermuth’s feet, then imagine Reid is sitting in those yellow seats with her, waving a Terrible Towel and cheering on the guy who made this moment possible. It’s one of the highlights of the year for the Reid Landry Garrant Foundation and another day at the office for Freiermuth.
“When I come in every single day for work, it does feel like work,” Freiermuth said, sitting at his locker after practice. “But when I'm away from Pittsburgh or I step back and think about it, I’m like, ‘Damn, this is pretty cool.’”
Brian Batko: bbatko@post-gazette.com and Twitter @BrianBatko.
First Published: December 2, 2023, 10:30 a.m.
Updated: December 2, 2023, 8:00 p.m.