Now that the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 2023 season is getting underway after the team finished above .500 but failing to make the postseason last year, we turn our attention to the next chapter of Steelers football and everything that entails. One thing that it means is that some stock evaluations are going to start taking on more specific contexts as we get into the season, reflecting more immediate plusses and minus rather than trends over long periods. The nature of the evaluation, whether short-term or long-term, will be noted in the reasoning section below.
Player: DL Larry Ogunjobi
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The veteran defensive lineman had one of his best games as a member of the Steelers last week against the Cleveland Browns, notching four tackles, a sack, and two quarterback hits. He also recovered a fumble.
I don’t know if Larry Ogunjobi is going to go through a single full week of practice this season. But he won’t need to if he can play the way he did last week against the Browns. Suffering a foot injury of some kind during training camp, he did very little over the summer but came ready to play in the regular season.
That included arguably his best game since joining the Steelers last year. His pressure was strong for much of the night, registering two hits on the quarterback, one of which was a sack. He had four tackles in total, and he also recovered a fumble.
In fact, he played a pretty big role early on with the team struggling after scoring on a pick-six touchdown on the first play of the game. The offense didn’t do much afterward and the defense allowed the Browns to drive. The first drive stalled in field goal range with Joey Porter Jr. making a play on third down.
On the next drive, Cleveland was moving again, with first and 10 at the Steelers’ 19, when Ogunjobi got his sack for a seven-yard loss. He helped force an incompletion on third and 16 two plays later with his pressure, prompting a 43-yard field goal attempt, which hooked left for no points.
A short time later, he was in the right place at the right time on a fourth-and-1 conversion attempt. Montravius Adams knocked the ball out from QB Deshaun Watson, and Ogunjobi was there to collect it for the change of possession, even if the Browns were awarded a successful conversion.
One wonders if his foot is giving him any issues at all, or if his limited practice regimen is just a safeguard against any setbacks. He dealt with injury all of last year, which included recovery from foot surgery, but the Steelers believed in what he could do if fully healthy.
They re-signed him to a three-year contract worth nearly $30 million even if his numbers were not great a year ago. The training camp foot injury set off alarm bells, but at least so far, it doesn’t appear to be having an adverse effect on his performance.
