But that doesn't mean they don't still get to talk football all the time. Both are still very much involved in the game.

LeShun, who spent time with four different NFL teams over two seasons before moving on from playing football, was a 1,000-yard runner in college, becoming just the second Iowa runner to top 1,000 yards since 2011 when he did so in the 2016 season. He didn't mind giving his younger brother the business if he felt he missed a block or an assignment.

"I usually got on him more than some of the other offensive linemen because obviously we were way more familiar with each other," LeShun Jr. said. "I definitely gave James a bunch of crap if he would mess up something, whether it would be a regular run play or a pass protection and I've got to try to cover for him or make a guy miss in the backfield. I definitely let him hear about it almost every single time."

Still does even now, despite the fact they're no longer playing together.

"He would. He definitely would," James Daniels said. "He would be, 'I'm going to be honest. I expect you to make every block, no matter who it is or what they do. I expect you to make every block.' He couldn't say that to anyone else. He still says it to me now. He'll text me now after a game. 'I saw this. I don't care what happened. That's a minus on the grade sheet.' He does the same exact stuff now."

Perhaps that's because LeShun knows his younger brother also offers criticisms of his current job as a video game designer for EA Sports, working specifically on the Madden Football game and a new college football game that is in production.

Both Daniels brothers are still very much involved in the game they've played since they were youngsters growing up in Northeastern Ohio, just across the border from Pennsylvania.

That doesn't mean he doesn't ask his older brother about his Madden rating from time to time.

"He did ask me when I first got hired, 'Hey, you've got to tell the player guys to up my rating. You've got to put me at least in the 80s,' LeShun said with a laugh. "He gave me a bunch of crap about that. Yeah, he definitely lobbied to get his rating increased. It has increased, but because of his play."

Daniels put together a very solid season for the Steelers in 2022. He was one of only five offensive linemen in the NFL last season who played at least 600 snaps and did not allow a sack. Daniels was a key component of a Steelers offensive line that continually improved over the course of the season.

A big reason for that was because of the acquisitions of Daniels and center Mason Cole in free agency.

Daniels, along with left tackle Dan Moore and left guard Kevin Dotson, played every offensive snap in 2022 for the Steelers. The 25-year-old proved to be just what the Steelers were looking for – a young veteran who could help stabilize a young offensive line.

"He's excited about being closer to home," said LeShun Daniels Sr., who now lives in the Washington, D.C. area where he is a district manager for Comfort Group North America and his wife serves as a human relations specialist for the Library of Congress. "He loves Mike Tomlin, the way he goes about his business, and just the group he's around. The line is so young. If they keep those guys together, next year, they could have a pretty good year."

LeShun Sr. knows a little bit about the business. He was an offensive lineman on Warren G. Harding's state championship team in 1990, moved on to play collegiately at Ohio State and then moved on to play in the NFL for the Vikings and Jaguars.

He knows a little bit about offensive line play and what it takes to play at a high level. Actually, he knows a lot about it.

"The biggest benefit was in the recruiting process," James Daniels said. "A lot of coaches, I understand where they're coming from, but a lot of coaches when they're recruiting kids, they tell them a lot of BS. They try to sugarcoat things so that kids will go to the college. There were times when we would go to a college and my dad would say, 'Nah, that's not how it works.'

"Looking back at it, my dad was right. There are coaches when they're recruiting that sugarcoat a lot of things. I would feel bad if I didn't have a sense of what college football was. And then there was the work ethic. My dad was an offensive linemen. There's not a lot of glory on the offensive line. And just how important it is to have good hand placement, foot placement, body positioning, things like that. My dad has been very helpful in my development as a player ever since I was a kid."

But, being the son of LeShun Daniels Sr. carried with it some weight in Warren, Ohio, a city of just under 40,000 people located just northwest of Youngstown on the Ohio-Pennsylvania border.

Warren is a football town. Warren G. Harding High School has produced more than three dozen NFL players, among them Pro Football Hall of Fame member Paul Warfield and former Ohio State star and Vikings first-round draft pick Korey Stringer.

In fact, Stringer was a teammate of LeShun Daniels Sr at Harding and again at Ohio State and with the Vikings. The two were extremely close, so close, in fact, that Stringer was LeShun Jr.'s godfather.

Stringer's death Aug. 1, 2001 during the Vikings' training camp due to organ failure brought on by heat stroke changed not only how the NFL approached water breaks and hydration, but how football in general viewed them. Heat acclimation periods and ramp ups are now commonplace. Stringer's untimely death at 27 made a huge impact on football.

It also made a major impact on the Daniels family.

"It was hard. That was a heck of a day," LeShun Sr. said. "I was down in Jacksonville's camp. My wife was at our home in Minnesota. After practice that day in workouts, I get a call and she said, 'Hey, there's something wrong with Korey. You had better call (Vikings offensive line coach Mike) Tice and see what's going on.' He just ran everything down and it was just a crazy night. Very difficult, not just for myself, but for our hometown. We tried to be involved in the community for the youth. It was just a big loss."

It still has an effect on the family.

"That was his best friend," James Daniels said. "Every time I talk to my dad and mom on the phone, especially throughout camp, they always end the phone call with, 'Make sure you're hydrating.' Or they'll end the call with something like if you're out there and you don't feel right, tell a trainer. Being out for one practice is a lot better than risking your life or being out for a week of practices. They always tell me every time we talk during camp, they tell me, 'We love you and make sure you're hydrated.'"

Despite that, when the time came for his two eldest sons to play football, LeShun Sr. – he also has a younger son playing high school football now – didn't stop them. He had moved back to Warren to be closer to both his own and his wife's families.

There was, of course, some pressure for the sons to follow in the footsteps of their father. But it didn't come from LeShun or Alicia. The expectations came from everyone else.

They came from a football family. Not only had their father been a big-time recruit, but their cousin, Chris Chambers, had been a wide receiver in the NFL, as well.

"Yeah. It was a little bit," said LeShun Jr. of that pressure. "But it wasn't anything greater than what we put on ourselves. Coming from having my dad playing and playing in the NFL, and cousin Chris Chambers played a long time in the NFL, we came from a football family. So, it was one of those things like, yeah, people put pressure on us, but that was something we wanted to do. It wasn't any extra pressure on us. Whatever sport we were playing, football or wrestling or basketball, we had an opportunity to show off our skills. We knew what we needed to do to get to that next level. There wasn't anyone who could put more pressure on us than we could ourselves."

But there was an obvious excitement in the small town when LsShun Sr. and Alica moved back home, much as it would be in any of the small towns that dot the map between Pittsburgh and Cleveland when a high-profile athlete returns home.

"In Warren, there's like 10 last names. And so you know who's married to who and who is related to who," James Daniels said. "It's not very hard to look at a 1990s Warren-Harding picture and know that this is this guy's son, or this is this guy's nephew, that kind of stuff. It's all the same, it's just a different city name."

The brothers excelled at sports and in the classroom. Mom and dad insisted on the latter even more so than the former.

Grades were always important.

"There was never a chance where I wasn't going to play football," James Daniels said. "My parents did treat grades very seriously. One time in middle school, my brother, I can't remember what his grade was, but he got a bad grade at a quarter or midway through a quarter. My dad called the football coach and told him not to let my brother play because of his grades. There was never a time where I seriously thought about not playing."

Longtime Warren G. Harding basketball coach Steve Arnold had been an assistant coach when LeShun Sr. played, so he knew the family background. He also was coaching basketball when the Daniels family moved back to Warren, but became head football coach when LeShun Jr. was a senior and James Daniels was a sophomore.

It didn't take him long to figure out he had something special in James Daniels.

"First couple of reps when he was a sophomore. We came in and said, 'This guy is going to be playing on Sundays,'" Arnold said. "He's such a technician. He won't wow you with his speed or anything, but he just does everything the right way. His demeanor on the field is completely different off the field. I've seen him get nasty on the field. But when you see him off the field, he's joking, playing around. But he fastens it up, he's ready to go. When he was a sophomore, we knew he was going to be a big-time recruit, he was going to be play on Sundays some day, barring injury or something like that."

Arnold saw the boys competing not just against opponents, but against each other.

Being so close in age, there was an edge there. Though LeShun Jr. was older, it was obvious James was going to be big.

"Yes and no," LeShun Jr. said of wishing he had that size. "I'm not going to lie, it would have been nice to be 6-4 and have that big-bodied build. But being a little bit smaller, being a lot more athletic, being able to carry the football and run, I'm not going to complain about it too much. I always let James know that even though he is bigger, I'm still the older brother. I'm the one that always can handle you, so don't try to get too cute or crazy."

Likewise, there were and still are times when James looks at his older brother and wishes he had been the 225-pound running back instead of the 300-pound offensive lineman – especially when he's taking on 300-pound defensive linemen play after play.

"I felt like I was always bigger because in middle school, I was playing offensive and defensive line in middle school. Growing up playing pee wee, I was always a two-stripe kid," he said. "When you have two stripes on your helmet, you can only play o-line and d-line. When you have one stripe, you can play tight end, linebacker. I was a lineman my entire life. He might have been bigger than me, but I was the bigger person. I would play lineman, while he was a running back in middle school and high school."

The duo helped lead Harding to the state playoffs in LeShun's senior season in 2012. It was there they ran into James' future teammate, both with the Bears and Steelers, Mitch Trubisky.

Trubisky, who was Ohio's Mr. Football that year, led Mentor High to a 45-35 playoff win in which he accounted for 450 yards of total offense and six touchdowns, ending Harding's season at 9-2.

"It's funny, I coached against Mitch in basketball. I was doing both," Arnold said. "It was their toughest game in the playoffs that year, and it was 45-35. We held them to 45. That year, they were on a run. They were scoring 50-some points in the playoffs, and we held them to 45."

LeShun chose to attend Iowa after his senior season at Harding. James was being recruited by every major program in the country.

Many locally assumed he would follow in the footsteps of his parents – his mother also had been an athlete at Ohio State – and stay in state. Ohio State was one of his finalists along with Alabama and Iowa.

LeShun Jr. never pushed his brother to join him and his parents allowed James to make his own decision. But knowing how close the brothers and family are, Arnold never had any doubts where his star offensive lineman would end up.

"He would always ask me, 'Coach, where should I go?' As long as I've coached, I've never told a kid where to go," Arnold said. "I put everything out there for them, but as far as the decision, they had to make the decision. I wrote down on a piece of paper and I told him, I think I know where you're going to go, but I'm not going to show it to you until after you make your decision.'

"It got down close to it, he asked, 'Coach, where should I go.' I said, 'James, you might as well quit asking me. I'm not going to tell you.' I told him what each school offered. I I wrote on that piece of paper, Iowa. He never knew until he made his decision. The reason I did that was because of the close-knit family structure they have. Very seldom will you get an opportunity to play with your brother. It's not like one brother was on offense and one was on defense. You're blocking for your brother. He said, 'Coach, how did you know I was going to pick Iowa?' I said, 'Buddy, I know you and your family.'"

For James Daniels, playing with his brother was one part of the equation. But he also formed a bond with Iowa head coach Kirk Ferentz, a native of the Pittsburgh suburb of Upper St. Clair, and his son, Brian, who was the offensive line coach at the time and now serves as offensive coordinator for the Hawkeyes.

James enrolled early as a biology major and would go on to be named all-academic Big Ten throughout his career.

If he wasn't playing football, James Daniels would have his college degree on which to fall back.

"I know he had ambitions of going to medical school," LeShun Sr. said. "I'm not sure if that's still in play down the road when he's done playing. He could have done anything, from playing on the defensive side of the ball, to pretty much anything if he put his mind to it."

In the meantime, the Daniels brothers were back together again. They even roomed together with some other teammates in LeShun Jr.'s final season.

"It was cool. It was very nice," James said. "Our house was probably a half mile from Kinnick Stadium. So when our parents would come to games, right after the game, they wouldn't even meet us at the stadium, they would just walk back to the house and our family would be there and we would do dinner. We would just hang out at the house. It was very nice. It was a good setup."

But after his junior season, it became decision time for James Daniels. LeShun Jr. had already moved on and was trying to catch on in the NFL. For James, he had done everything he could do individually in his first three seasons as Iowa's starting center. He could have gone back for his final season, but at 20, he decided to declare for the NFL Draft.

"Ultimately, it came down to being his decision," LeShun Sr. said. "As a family, we weighed the pros and cons. He had enrolled early, so we already knew he was pretty close to graduation. So he didn't need to stay to graduate. We knew in the offseason, he could easily go back and finish. So, he was able to do that. We just weighed the benefits of getting hurt or what more could he do? Could he improve his draft position? He probably definitely could have. But, it was do you want to start earning a paycheck now, or waiting another year? It was the right time for him to go.

"I think it did appeal to him. Being young and me playing and just knowing the history, too many guys don't get three contracts. I think that was appealing to him. He got his rookie contract and then if you're that young, you can get two more, even three more with the age he is at currently."

His age coming off that first contract was one of the things that appealed to the Steelers. Despite still being just 24 years old when he signed with the Steelers last Spring, Daniels had 48 career starts under his belt at an age when many other players were just leaving school.

For Daniels, the decision to join the Steelers was an opportunity to move closer to where he grew up and put the black and gold back on again.

Iowa, of course, also wears black and gold jerseys inspired by the Steelers. In fact, back in the late 1970s, when longtime coach Hayden Fry was hired to rejuvenate the struggling program, he contacted the Steelers to ask if Iowa could copy the team's uniforms in an effort to copy what was the dominant football team in the NFL.

He was given the OK and Iowa's classic uniform was born.

"The jerseys are exactly the same," James Daniels said. "I had the same number in college. When I signed with the Steelers, I said it would be cool if I could get 78. It's wild looking at pictures of when I played in college and I look at pictures now, it's the exact same jersey, except instead of the Steelers logo, it's a Tiger Hawk. It is really cool that I'm playing in the exact same jersey, the same socks. I wear the same style of cleats. It's like my college uniform is the exact uniform I'm wearing seven years later."

It no doubt caused something of a stir in Warren, which sits in almost the exact middle ground between Pittsburgh and Cleveland. There are as many Steelers fans – or almost as many – in Warren as there are those of the Browns.

The Daniels family grew up rooting for the Cleveland side of the rivalry, but Daniels knew Arnold, whose brother David had been a fifth-round pick as a defensive back of the Steelers in 1989, was on the Steelers' side of things.

"You're on one side of the fence or the other," Arnold said. "You're a diehard Steelers fan or a diehard Browns fan. If you're a Browns fan and the Browns and Steelers are playing, people want James to do well.

"My brother was drafted by the Steelers in 1989. I've been a Steelers fan for a long time. When James made the decision in free agency to go sign with the Steelers, we were talking about it leading up to free agency. One morning, my man sends me an emoji of black and gold balloons. I called him and said, 'What are you doing.' He said, 'I'm going to be a Steeler, coach.' I was happy for him."

It also affords Daniels the opportunity to do more giving back to the community. He has done things such as purchase new uniforms for the football program at Warren G. Harding. But last summer, he asked Tomlin if he could bring Arnold and his team to training camp for a day in Latrobe for a day.

"That was awesome. They were supposed to come to the Friday night practice but it got rained out. They ended up coming the next day," James Daniels said. "That was so cool. All the kids, it's wild. There is a lot of hard work to get from where they're at to where I'm at, but they don't know that you could be, the seniors, could literally be Steelers players in four or five years. It's how fast time moves. COVID was pretty much four years ago. It's wild to realize that I was in their spot. They have no idea how close they are to be in the spot I am in now."

The spot he is in now is where he and LeShun Jr. thought they would be when they were growing up competing against each other in sports, playing video games, doing the things that brothers do.

They knew they would both be involved in football to some degree. And here they both are, 20 years later doing so.

But who has the cooler job?

"It's weird because I'm playing the game that we played growing up, but he's designing the game we played growing up," James Daniels said. "I'd say his job is cool and he doesn't have to take on bull rushes, but I'd say mine is cooler. Being in the NFL, there are only so many spots. Right guard, there's only 32 starting right guards in the world. It's really cool when you look at the NFL like that, how special the things are you are doing."