Pat Meyer, the offensive line coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, tried not to speak of rookie first-round pick Broderick Jones being guaranteed to ascend into a starting role. He wasn’t wholly successful, acknowledging the obvious fact that he was drafted with an eye toward him developing into a franchise left tackle sooner rather than later.
Unless he truly bombs out, it’s a foregone conclusion that he is going to start at some point. Perhaps slightly less clear is what might happen at right tackle once Jones ascends into the starting lineup on the left side. At least that’s all Meyer had to say on the subject yesterday.
“We’ll just deal with it as it happens, if it happens, or when it happens, whether it be due to injury or if somebody beats somebody out”, he told reporters yesterday, via the team’s media department. “That’s always the case. If it’s an injury, it is what it is. If it’s somebody that’s playing better than somebody and we move him in, we’re gonna put the five-best combination that we can up front to give us the best chance to win”.
Jones moving into the starting lineup at left tackle would displace Dan Moore Jr., the third-year player who has started every game for which he has been healthy thus far. Sparsely versed in play on the right side, he has begun working through OTAs and minicamp to get familiar and comfortable with the possibility of playing right tackle.
But would that be as a starter or a swing tackle? Chukwuma Okorafor has been the Steelers’ right tackle for the past three seasons, though I don’t believe he ever actually “won” the job when there has been a competition. He lost out to a three-way race between himself, Matt Feiler, and Zach Banner in 2019, and then against just Banner in 2020. The latter ended up tearing his ACL late in the season opener that year, however, with Okorafor having stepped in since then.
Whether there even is a competition for right tackle, at least at the start of the season, may well depend entirely upon how quickly Jones can show the coaching staff that he might be able to hang there.
Because the thing is, if Jones is at left tackle, then Okorafor is going to have to get work on the left side for the possibility of being the swing tackle in the event of a competition for the right side. Now, Okorafor did play left tackle in college and was preparing to start there in 2021 before a setback for Banner prior to the start of the season sidelined him and the Steelers had to change their plans.
At this point, I’m not putting much stock into the idea that Moore might start at right tackle. But that is something that could even evolve over the course of the year. The more he gets work on the right side, including into the regular season, the better chance he might have of contending for the role.
