Dan Moore Jr. was not drafted in 2021 with the intention of being the Pittsburgh Steelers’ future franchise left tackle. Surely the team held aspirations of hitting on a gem in the middle of the draft, but you don’t wait that long when you think you have a franchise piece.
Yet Moore has started every game of his career over the past two seasons, initially due to injury, but now he is facing stiff competition for his job after the team traded up in the first round to draft Broderick Jones 14th overall out of Georgia.
While not welcome news for Moore in terms of his job security, he’s taken the right attitude since Day One and embraced the competition—not that, as he told the team’s website recently, he feels he or anybody should need such motivation.
“In my head, if somebody has to push me to be better at my job then I shouldn’t really be here”, Teresa Varley quoted him as saying upon the opening of training camp. “I take it in that mindset, not wanting somebody to push me. I am pushing myself”.
Moore opened the first day of practice working with the first-team offense, Jones running behind him, though the day before head coach Mike Tomlin didn’t seem willing to put too much stock in who is playing where and with whom early on.
After all, they’re not in pads yet, and that’s when you really start to learn more about your offensive linemen in particular. Physicality is a big part of Jones’ game, though the same can be said for Moore as well. Perhaps then the snap distribution will start to matter a bit more.
Though he understands that there is a limit to how long he can remain entrenched at left tackle, Jones’ ascension into the starting lineup being more a matter of when rather than if, he has consistently expressed the right attitude.
“As a competitor, I find drive just each and every day. I feel like I wouldn’t be a professional if I didn’t have that motivation”, he said back in June. “I guess you could say a little extra competition fuels the fire for sure, but you’ve got to have that drive within”.
A Texas A&M product, Moore was set to be the swing tackle his rookie season before an injury setback for RT Zach Banner prompted a late-stage change of plans prior to the start of the regular season in 2021. The coaches shifted Chukwuma Okorafor from left tackle to right tackle and put the rookie on the left side, where he’s taken all of his meaningful reps.
He has played every snap for which he has been healthy since then, including every snap in 2022. Jones is hoping to do the same for himself in 2023, but he will have to unseat a very motivated veteran in order to do so. I believe fans are beginning to realize that’s not as easily done as they might have thought or wanted to think.
