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: Will we soon hear of Chukwuma Okorafor taking reps at left tackle?
Much has been made of the fact that rookie first-round draft pick Broderick Jones has begun seeing some snaps at left tackle with the first-team offense, and consequently that incumbent starting left tackle Dan Moore Jr. has taken some snaps on the right side—presumably with the second team, mostly.
This has been reasonably interpreted as indications that Jones will start at the beginning of the season, should he prove ready over the course of the next few months, and that Moore will be moving to the role of swing tackle, which would require him to be able to play on both the left and right side.
But it is possible that we will be hearing about the Steelers’ incumbent right tackle, Chukwuma Okorafor, taking snaps on the left side, in the event that it is not Moore but himself who ends up outside of the starting lineup?
“Everyone is getting reps all around the board”, Jones told reporters recently, downplaying the significance of the teams he’s working with and the movements of Moore. Jones, you might recall, said after the draft that all of the tackles at Georgia practiced both sides every day in practice, even though he was the left tackle.
For what it’s worth, Okorafor would be much more comfortable playing on the left side than Moore would be on the right. The former has starting college experience as a left tackle. Moore has only worked some preseason games in the NFL on the right side as a rookie.
In fact, Okorafor was supposed to start at left tackle during Moore’s rookie season, with Zach Banner at right tackle, but a setback with Banner’s knee injury thrust the rookie in the starting lineup. The coaches did not feel comfortable with him playing on the right side, so they had to plug him in at left tackle and move Okorafor, who had been working at left tackle the entirety of the offseason, back to the right on the fly.
The prevailing assumption is that Okorafor’s job is far more safe than Moore’s, for multiple reasons, but it might be wise for this coaching staff at least to keep as many options open as possible. I’m guessing Moore will get a good amount of work at right tackle this summer, but I don’t know that I see a competition emerging between himself and Okorafor to start there. Then again, you never know.
