The Steelers are now in their offseason after failing to reach the playoffs in 2022, coming up just a game short of sneaking in as the seventh seed. They needed help in week 18 and only got some of it, so instead they sat home and watched the playoffs with the rest of us.
On tap is figuring out how to be on the field in January and February instead of being a spectator. They started out 2-6, digging a hole that proved too deep to dig out of even if they managed to go 7-2 in the second half of the year.
Starting from the end of the regular season and leading all the way up to the beginning of the 2023 season, there are plenty of questions that need answered, starting with who will be the offensive coordinator. Which free agents will be kept? Who might be let go due to their salary? How might they tackle free agency with this new front office? We’ll try to frame the conversation in relevant ways as long as you stick with us throughout this offseason, as we have for many years.
Question: How many snaps will the Steelers need from their backup offensive linemen this season?
The Steelers were incredibly fortunate in 2022 in at least one critical statistic: offensive snaps played by backup offensive linemen. Of their starting five, none missed a start, and the group collectively missed 47 snaps—46 by center Mason Cole and 1 by right tackle Chukwuma Okorafor.
They know better than anyone that the odds of their having anything close to that kind of luck two years in a row is very low. At some point, somebody somewhere along that line is probably going to miss a game. Odds are multiple starters will miss at least one game, if not multiple games.
In 2021, for example, Kevin Dotson at left guard missed eight games. Dan Moore Jr. missed one game. Okorafor also missed a game, and Kendrick Green missed two. None of the starters played more than 93 percent of the total offensive snaps. Last year’s line saw everybody play at least 96 percent.
So what will their luck be this year? split somewhere down the middle? I guess our first step is to look at the career histories of the projected starters. Outside of a major injury in 2020, Daniels has had very good durability. The same can be said of the durability of Okorafor and Moore. Cole has had some nicks here and there but has rarely missed games.
Isaac Seumalo, however, has had a lot of injury struggles in his career, albeit not in 2022. But he missed 21 games combined in the two years prior. And as for the potential of Broderick Jones starting, he never had a documented football injury in college, but his resume as a starter is also very limited, and he’s never played in the NFL before.
The good news is that the Steelers have improved their offensive line depth. If a tackle goes down, either Moore or Jones would start in his place. Along the interior, Nate Herbig would likely be the next man up at guard, and possibly center as well. If not, Kendrick Green may be the backup center, but that’s a position that’s still being figured out. This may be the one spot that’s downgraded from J.C. Hassenauer a year ago, who wasn’t anything special but got the job done.
