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: T Dan Moore Jr.
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The third-year veteran has held off the initial challenge from rookie first-round draft pick Broderick Jones, the two contending for his starting job at left tackle. At least for the time being, Moore will continue to do what he’s always done since entering the NFL: blocking on the blindside of the Steelers’ quarterbacks. For how long remains to be seen.
I’m not sure many people were confident that Dan Moore Jr. would be in the starting lineup come September from the very moment the Steelers traded up in the first round to select Broderick Jones out of Georgia.
While it was understood that the rookie was coming into the league somewhat lacking in experience, even the coaches were saying that you don’t draft a guy that high to sit him on the bench. Still, everybody has to earn their jobs.
And Moore gave Jones stiff competition, having by far the best offseason of his young career as he prepared for the job he’s had since his very first snap in his very first regular season game: the starting left tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
At some point along the line, Jones is going to start, and we will have to see what happens to Moore then. He could potentially displace Chukwuma Okorafor at the starter on the right side, the Steelers having given him work there. Already he is the likely backup right tackle should Okorafor get hurt, because Jones hasn’t worked there at all.
But to this point, we have been given no indication that we should expect to see an offensive snap taken by the Steelers without Moore on the field. He beat out Jones for the left tackle job throughout the offseason, and Jones will have to take it from him at some point—perhaps not even this year.
That would be the ideal, of course. If Moore remains in the lineup, it most likely means that he is playing at a sufficiently high level and giving the coaching staff no cause to want to make a change. While you may be in a rush to see the rookie in the starting lineup, the reality is that the fastest way that happens is if bad things are happening on the field, and that’s not what we want.
