When the Pittsburgh Steelers formally introduced first-round pick Troy Fautanu at an April 27 press conference, team owner Art Rooney II was quick to credit one of the team’s scouts.
“We had some inside information on Troy this year because his teammate was Mark Bruener’s son,” Rooney said, via the team’s YouTube page. “Great to have Mark share some thoughts.”
The Steelers selected Bruener out of Washington with the 27th overall pick in 1995. Before Fautanu, he was the last Washington product selected by the Steelers in the first round. He played nine seasons at tight end for the Steelers and five with the Houston Texans.
Bruener became a scout for the Steelers in 2018.
His son Carson Bruener is a senior linebacker at Washington.
Bruener ‘Stood on the Table’ for Fautanu
Mark Bruener may have been a big advocate to bring Fautanu to Pittsburgh, but he wasn’t sure it would happen.
“We were extremely excited that we were able to pick him at 20,” he said in a May 3 interview with Seattle’s Sports Radio 950 KJR. “We had no inkling that he was going to be around at 20.”
Bruener wasn’t alone in thinking Fautanu wouldn’t be available at 20. Most projections placed Fautanu in the 10-15 range. In an April 30 interview with 950 KJR, Fautanu said he believes he slid after another team leaked his injury history.
“What you do as a scout is you do your job, and you call your contacts to make sure that what you believe that you have in your information is correct,” Bruener said.
Regardless of those reports, Bruener added the team was confident in what they saw through the pre-draft process.
“He was a guy that I stood on the table for. When we’re evaluating our players, we have a lot of people that evaluate them. So, our assistant general manager came out to evaluate him. We had other area scouts. We had over-the-top scouts. He was evaluated by a lot of people, and he played football the right way, as we Steelers evaluate our players. We were very, very lucky, and we’re happy to have him as a Steeler.”
Bruener: Steelers Welcomed Fautanu ‘the Husky Way’
According to Bruener, a car service normally greets prospects at Pittsburgh International Airport ahead of their pre-draft visits.
Fautanu’s flight was scheduled to land late the night before his pre-draft visit with the Steelers, but Bruener told the team the car service wouldn’t be needed and picked him up personally.
“He’s a Husky. You’ve got to welcome him the right way,” Bruener said. “So, all the restaurants are closed because it’s late. I get him a couple hamburgers. He looks in the car and he’s like ‘wait, is that for me?’ I was like ‘yeah, you’re gonna be hungry.’ He’s like ‘oh man, this is great.’ I said ‘we’ve got to welcome you the Husky way!’”
Fautanu’s relationship with the Steelers goes far past his connection to the Bruener family.
The offensive tackle grew up a Steelers fan and idolized Troy Polamalu.
“Watching (Polamalu), you kind of get to see what the Steelers are about,” Fautanu said in his introductory press conference on April 27. “How they play football, what their brand of football is. I kind of just took that and put it into my own game. You know what I mean? What I think of when I think of the Steelers, I think of gritty. I think of working the trenches, stuff that you don’t see, but I take personal because it’s part of my job. It’s an awesome organization. I’m just so happy to be a part of it.”
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