A second-year player like Dan Moore Jr. doesn’t have any say as to who the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2022 offensive line coach. But Wednesday, he went to bat for interim coach Chris Morgan, expressing support for Morgan becoming the permanent leader of the offensive line.
Speaking with reporters via the team’ YouTube channel, Moore talked about Morgan’s impact on the room.
“C-MO knows this offense incredibly well,” Moore said via Zoom. “He’s a teacher, he’s a leader. I think we bonded really well when we had the switch. Obviously change is not easy especially at that time in the season.”
Morgan took for for Adrian Klemm beginning in Week 17 after Klemm left for the same position with the Oregon Ducks. Morgan is no stranger to running a room, a long-term line coach and head O-line coach for six seasons with the Atlanta Falcons. The Steelers had their best rushing output in Morgan’s first game, going for 190 yards in their win over the Cleveland Browns, but the run game crashed back to earth over the final two games of the season.
Evaluating coaches is hard, especially positional ones, but Morgan is regarded as a clear communicator and not a coach who yells and screams at guys, a similar approach as to Mike Munchak, the last great O-line coach the Steelers have had. Morgan emphasizes reps and playing with tempo in practice rather than getting bogged down with coaching every detail between reps. He also comes from a zone-blocking background, and if he remains the permanent line coach for 2022, the Steelers could increase their use of inside and outside zone, though the former was used quite a bit in 2021.
In a difficult year, Moore viewed Morgan as a strong leader of the group.
“I think all the guys did a really good job about, and I think C-MO did a great job of leading us. I would be more than happy to have him here as our O-line coach.”
There’s no question the Steelers’ offensive line struggled this year and looked downright ugly at times. But there also was incredible turnover upfront. Not one player who started Week 1 in 2021 started Week 1 of 2020, and the team had two rookies in Moore and center Kendrick Green. For the Steelers, they’ll have to determine how much of the problems were on that chance and inexperience, and how much of it was coaching. While the team is likely to explore outside candidates, as they did last year before promoting Klemm, Morgan should be viewed as the frontrunner for the job.
