This story may not have been written if Dylan Cook had never played another down of football after high school. That version had Cook entering the police academy in Butte, Montana, buying a house a few miles from where he grew up, and telling stories about his days as a star varsity quarterback.
That wasn’t as far-fetched a tale as it may seem.
The son of former NFL defensive lineman Scott Cook, Dylan grew up in a household of football players, including his two brothers, Dallas and Devon
Starting his football career as a quarterback in the fifth grade, Dylan was pushed every day by his father, who knew from his time as a replacement player with the Dallas Cowboys and a practice squad grinder that energy and perfection were needed in order for his kid to make it to the next level.
Thanks to his dad’s guidance, Dylan finished his junior season with the Bulldogs throwing for 3,124 yards and 30 touchdowns, and claimed the Class AA Offensive MVP and state title.
One could only imagine what an encore during his senior season might have led to.
Unfortunately, a broken collarbone to start the campaign turned any hopes into questions of “what could have been.”
Being that he was playing for a small AA program in Montana, the injury that derailed his senior season also didn’t help attract any interest from high-profile Division 1 programs.
Staying in-state, Cook landed at Montana State University-Northern, a NAIA school in Havre, Montana. Rather than big lights and national TV cameras, the rural community of 9,300 people featured farmland and wide-open skylines.
Unlike his high school career, when he racked up yardage and trips to the end zone, Cook roamed the sidelines as a freshman before starting as a sophomore. He ended up playing just eight games, completing 11 of 18 passes for 181 yards and 2 touchdowns, and adding 177 yards and three trips to the end zone on the ground.
Those certainly weren’t numbers that would attract NFL scouts.
Heck, they weren’t even good enough for Cook, who almost decided that his football career had come to an end and he was ready to move on with life off the gridiron.
“I just kind of sat there and said, ‘This is not for me,” Cook told SWX Local Sports. “Just mentally wasn’t in it.”
He considered going to Montana Tech as purely a student. He also thought about becoming a police officer. In his mind, football was behind him.
Enter Justin Green, a recruiting coordinator for the Montana Grizzlies.
Green presented Cook with a unique offer: instead of playing quarterback, how about blocking for one?
Grizzlies head coach Bobby Hauck noticed something in Cook that others hadn’t. Standing 6’6”, 260 pounds, the kid was built like a wall, not someone who needed to hide behind one.
It wasn’t the first time that Hauck had conducted this experiment. While at UNLV, he’d moved Brett Boyko from signal-caller to the offensive line, and it stuck. Today, he’s a guard in the CFL.
Cook never second-guessed the opportunity. Having played the sport since he was in third grade, when he was told that he’d be moved from quarterback to the offensive line, his response was simply “Let’s play ball!”
Making the move as a walk-on prospect, nothing about switching positions was successful – at least right away.
As a transfer player, Dylan was required to sit out his first season at Montana, which allowed him time to figure out life playing a new position with a new bulky mask, pads, and gloves starting on day one. And a new way of moving his body.
Everything he knew about football since he was a kid had completely changed.
“I’ve always been considered big, so I guess the thought has always been there, but I never truthfully considered it until I was at home, not doing anything.”
It wasn’t all for naught, as Dylan’s athleticism and football IQ from being a quarterback helped him with his transition. Knowing how defenses line up, how to flip a play, and adjust accordingly.
The one difference was changing his mentality from remaining calm and avoiding contact to being the one creating and absorbing it.
By the 2019 season, Cook had packed on weight and won a spot in the Grizzlies’ starting rotation. He also earned himself a scholarship.
By the time his college career wrapped up in 2021, he’d finished with 23 starts and was named to the All-Big Sky Team.
Not too bad for a player who, in the span of three years, started as a quarterback at a small NAIA school and turned into an offensive tackle at a Division 1 FCS program.
Cook’s old high school coach watched it all unfold from a distance.
“This is the coolest story in the world,” Arie Grey said. “With no help from anyone, he decided he wanted to change his stars, and he did.”
The feel-good story didn’t end after Cook picked up his degree in public administration and hung up his Grizzlies jersey.
The 2022 NFL Draft came and went without his name getting called, which wasn’t much of a surprise. Just as he wasn’t heavily recruited out of high school as a quarterback, despite the impressive numbers, the same could be said for a top-tier lineman from the Big Sky Conference.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers eventually picked him up as an undrafted free agent, where he spent most of his rookie year on the practice squad and was signed and waived multiple times throughout the season.
Given a second chance to make an impression when the Pittsburgh Steelers signed him as a free agent in May 2023, Cook entered training camp as a long shot. Ultimately, he made the 53-man roster.
However, making the roster and playing on Sundays are two completely different things.
Splitting time between the practice squad and the injured reserve list, Cook played the waiting game for over two years, hoping for an opportunity.
That chance finally came on December 7, 2025, when he made his debut against the Baltimore Ravens, filling in for the injured Andrus Peat. Named the starting left tackle for the remainder of the season, he did not look out of place, making minimal errors while helping protect aging future Hall of Fame quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
“I just try to do my best to keep him up and onto the next play,” he told KXLF Sports. “At 42 years old, he doesn’t have many more hits in him.”
Although the Steelers’ 2025 campaign came to an end following a Wild Card loss to the Houston Texans, Cook had proved his worth enough that even new head coach Mike McCarthy listed him as a starter for the 2026 season over first-round rookie Max Iheanachor.
Unfortunately, the honeymoon didn’t last long, as Cook played in just three of the Steelers’ games of the year before losing his job to Iheanachor.
Imagine if Dylan Cook had walked into that police academy instead of answering Justin Green’s call.
Imagine if he’d never agreed to trade his helmet with the facemask for one with a cage, never learned to turn years of reading defenses into reading pass rushers instead.
Imagine if Pittsburgh never needed a fourth left tackle in 2025, and Cook never got three weeks to show what he could do.
Instead, a quarterback nobody recruited out of a Montana high school ended up protecting a future Hall of Famer in the NFL playoffs.
That he’s now watching a first-round rookie take his starting job isn’t the end of the story; it’s just the latest version of the same tale Cook has been crafting since he left Havre with no plan and no scholarship.
He’s been here before. He’s never been the guy anybody expected to make it, and he’s made it anyway – more than once.
“When you feel like your whole football career is just done, that really kind of showed me that I can deal with adversity and that I can keep my head up and keep pushing forward,” he said.
“No matter how hard things get, I can keep going and always believe in myself and know my family and friends will always be there for me.”
