Last Friday night was the preseason debut for several rookies on the Pittsburgh Steelers, including their first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft: OT Broderick Jones. After going through Jones’ performance in a film room, you could see that the young offensive tackle took his lumps in his NFL action when it came to keeping the quarterback clean and consistently winning against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defense.
When asked about his preseason debut and what he can specifically improve on by the media Tuesday, Jones suggested that it’s not any glaring issue he needs to fix, but rather the small details of his game that he needs to refine.
“You know, you can always improve on the small things,” Jones said via video from the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review’s Chris Adamski’s Twitter page. “Technique-wise, you know, just knowing the ins and outs of the playbook. You know, just the small things. It’s never nothing major. It’s always the little things that you want to correct.”
When watching Jones against Tampa Bay, you could see that he struggled with his hand usage and sustaining blocks after his initial punch. His strike was inaccurate at times, getting placed outside of the defender’s torso, causing him to lose the block after first contact. It often looked like he was trying to get in a backyard brawl with defenders rather than playing steady and being disciplined with his punch and replacing his hands to counter the pass rush.
Chad Reuter of NFL.com gave Jones a C- grade for his Week One performance, citing the poor timing with his hands and the main issue he dealt with during the contest. It was his biggest flaw coming out of the University of Georgia as well, displaying issues timing his punch and sustaining blocks past initial contact.
Much like Jones said above, these are issues that can be worked on with continual reps in practice and games as well as mental reps in team and position meetings. Jones needs to dedicate time and effort to improving this aspect of his game if he truly wants to have a shot to overtake LT Dan Moore Jr. for the starting job at some point during the 2023 season. Based on what we saw last weekend, it appears that it may be best for Moore to man the starting job, at least to begin the season, until Jones has more consistency on executing from a technical perspective.
