Despite there being a left tackle competition this year in Pittsburgh, it seems there is no bad blood. After the Steelers traded up to draft left tackle Broderick Jones, it signaled that there would be a new starting left tackle for the team for years to come. While Jones will be that left tackle, it may not happen this year. However, even though he will eventually concede his job to Jones, current left tackle Dan Moore Jr. has been nothing short of helpful to the rookie.
Remember when the Steelers drafted JuJu Smith-Schuster and Martavis Bryant tweeted, “lol that’s Sammie coates replacement not minds take it how you want I’m back”? Yeah, that isn’t happening with Moore and Jones. In fact, Jones, while meeting with the media today, sang praises of how good of a teammate Moore is and how helpful he has been so far.
“Dan is amazing, man,” Jones said in audio provided by 93.7 The Fan. “He really took me under his wing. We talk every day, he tells me what I’m doing wrong, he tells me what I need to do to fix it. He shows me, more than anybody else, what to do after practice. He stays out there with me to get extra work every day. It’s just been an amazing feeling just having him as like a big brother on the team and somebody to look up to.”
It’s not common for a player to help out the player who was drafted to replace him, especially when that player who is being replaced is only entering his third season in the NFL. Moore serious improvement in his second season and will definitely have an opportunity to keep his job this season, even if Jones eventually supplants him as the starter.
Learning the offensive line under offensive line coach Pat Meyer is hard, and last preseason the Steelers offensive line struggled a lot with it. Moore easily could have ignored Jones and made him learn on his own. Instead he is helping him so that he can learn as quickly as possible and become an important player for the Steelers in the future.
Even when Moore eventually loses his job, his time with the Steelers may not be over. It is very possible that Moore ends up moving to right tackle in the future and if he performs well there who is to say the Steelers won’t pay him to play right tackle? Moore seems like the ultimate team player who wants to win a championship. He knows the better Jones is the better chance Pittsburgh has to win a Super Bowl.
It’s not often a player is happy to train their replacement, but from everything we are hearing it seems Moore has put his ego aside to do what is best for the Steelers.
