The numbers change, but the role remains the same. The Pittsburgh Steelers may have found their new tackle-eligible tight end in rookie first-round pick Broderick Jones while he waits for his opportunity to crack the starting lineup.
While he failed to unseat incumbent Dan Moore Jr. at left tackle—or so we are led to believe—it would be a mistake to assume that means Jones isn’t going to see meaningful playing time even toward the beginning of his rookie season.
For more than a decade, the Steelers have used the tackle-eligible tight end role as a means of breaking in talent along the offensive line. It really started in earnest with Mike Adams in 2012, a second-round rookie who didn’t have a starting job yet. Kelvin Beachum followed, and the role was made most famous by Zach Banner a few years back, getting the home crowd to cheer whenever they heard announced, “Number 72 reporting as eligible”.
Expect to hear the same for number 77. I don’t know how much they might use it, at least initially, but they want to get Jones on the field. He is going to dress anyway because he is their swing tackle, so they might as well find ways to make use of him.
And they can use him in ways that highlight some of his greatest natural attributes, such as his athleticism and footwork. He feasted on any defensive back who would dare cross his path when pulling to either side of the field. He can do that even more easily as a sixth lineman.
The Steelers worked him exclusively at left tackle throughout the entire offseason to give him the best odds of competing for the starting job, but my guess is that they have been working on moving him around the field a bit more since exiting training camp, and the public eye along with it.
While I still suspect that Moore would shift over to the right side in the event that Chukwuma Okorafor suffered an injury, the coaches are going to want Jones to be able to have some kind of flexibility. A left tackle in college, he did claim that he practiced on the right side every day at Georgia just because they had a lack of depth there.
The tackle-eligible role is even more different still, rather than simply playing on the other side of the formation, but it’s a more limited role. And who would say no to the opportunity to get work on the field without having earned a starting job?
The Steelers only kept one true blocking tight end in his college teammate, Darnell Washington, so a set that includes both of them on the field as extra blockers would really be something. As a matter of fact, I would probably put money down on us seeing just that look at some point this year. They might even call it the ‘Bulldog’ package.
