Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2022 season is over, the team finishing above .500 but failing to make the postseason, we turn our attention to the offseason and everything that means. 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: Up
Reasoning: In spite of the fact that he is battling against a running clock to retain his starting job, something we have addressed in previous installments in this series, third-year tackle Dan Moore Jr. is saying and doing all the right things since the Steelers addressed his intended successor, Broderick Jones.
There frequently seems to be confusion when it comes to this series as to how one player’s stock could be this or that given some other factor. I try to explain the context in which I’m evaluating each stock with every post for that reason. For example, a player dealing with a minor injury that prevented him from participating much in OTAs and minicamp sees his stock go down, even if it’s slight and temporary.
In this case, with Dan Moore Jr., we are dealing specifically with what he has done with himself on the field over the past several weeks. Yes, his stock this offseason overall is down since the Steelers drafted a player in Broderick Jones they are hoping can unseat him at left tackle sooner rather than later.
But we’ve discussed that in this series multiple times. That saw his stock plummet. The fact that he has not let it get to him and has kept chipping away every day is a credit to him, however, and that work ethic and performance should be acknowledged.
While his teammates and coaches will have said the obligatory nice things about how he has looked so far during OTAs and minicamp, including his position coach, Pat Meyer, I think the most notable evaluations have come from the reporters, such as Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, who have commented on how he has looked. The general takeaway is that he’s not giving up without a fight.
The thing is, the worst-case scenario at left tackle at the start of this season should be that the play is improved from last season. Either that’s because they got somebody better in the starting lineup, or the competition has made their incumbent starter better by pushing him.
Of course, there are the more independent factors. Moore is still a young player. He is in the second season of Meyer’s system, which is something he had to work his way into. He should naturally be expected to be better. But with his positive attitude and dedication to his craft, he is having a good offseason, even if that ultimately results in a backup job down the line. If it does, it won’t be because he didn’t give every effort to stay in the starting lineup. And that’s why this particular assessment is stock up based on his work on the field so far. Because he’s better than he was last year, or so it sounds like.
