With the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2022 season over, the team finishing above .500 but failing to make the postseason, we have turned our attention to the offseason. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on broader contexts, reflecting on a player’s development, either positively or negatively, over the course of the season. Other evaluations will reflect only one immediate event or trend. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: T Dan Moore Jr.
Stock Value: Even
Reasoning: While the news of Dan Moore Jr. beginning to take snaps at right tackle during OTAs has become a story, at the end of the day, it doesn’t change what we already know. Broderick Jones was drafted to start at left tackle, so sooner or later, Moore is going to have to get work on the right side, whether he is a starter or a backup. All this means is that he’s starting to get that work in now.
Everybody knew as soon as the Steelers traded up with the New England Patriots in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft that the meter had started on Dan Moore Jr. There was only so much time left that he would function as the starting left tackle. In other words, he was going to have to start getting comfortable on the right side.
So the news this past week that Moore was actually getting work on the right side should be met stoically as the predictable outcome of this offseason’s moves. It doesn’t mean that he won’t open the season as the starting left tackle in week one.
It does mean that everybody recognizes what the intentions are for the near future: Broderick Jones in the starting lineup. Whether that’s week one, week five, week 11, or week one of 2024, it’s what the Steelers plan on, which means Moore will have to move.
He can either find a new home for himself as the starting tackle on the right side, or at least he’s going to have to become comfortable playing on both the left and the right side, because your swing tackle is going to need to be able to step in at either spot at a moment’s notice.
Jones is already taking snaps on both the left and the right side as well. Chukwuma Okorafor has the most experience working on either side as a former starting left tackle in college, so he probably needs the least amount of work becoming ambidextrous, so to speak.
So, Dan Moore Jr. taking snaps at right tackle? Nothing to see here. At least, nothing we couldn’t have easily predicted. The only thing that could be considered even a mild surprise is the fact that we’re already seeing this during the second week of OTAs as opposed to…say…maybe the third week of OTAs. Otherwise, ho-hum.
