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: LT Dan Moore Jr.
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: The third-year starter had by far his best game of the season last Sunday, and perhaps one of the better games of his career, in his first action coming back from suffering a knee injury. His job security constantly in question, he has maintained his poise under pressure with dignity, even if his performance often leaves something to be desired.
It shouldn’t be a great surprise that Dan Moore Jr. looked better in the sixth game of the season than in the first or second or third. Not so much because he is a player who needs to warm up to the competition, but because the competition was starker in the early goings. Yes, the Los Angeles Rams have Aaron Donald along the interior, but they have no Myles Garrett or Maxx Crosby on the end.
And none of Los Angeles’ rushers looked the part working against Moore this past Sunday. Really, the offensive line as a whole did a nice job on Sunday, their issues being more schematic than execution, and that’s obviously on the coaches.
But not only did Moore hold his own in pass protection, he was an asset as a run blocker, particularly on gap-scheme runs. He has always had a physicality to his game that occasionally shows up in his run blocking, and this game was a decent example.
With that being said, nobody is arguing that he should retain the left tackle job indefinitely, even if it seems as though he might, at least for the remainder of this season. He has rookie Broderick Jones breathing down his neck, and the No. 1 draft pick already had a solid start in his place the game before last.
That’s really what made this start as significant as it is. The coaching staff gave him the opportunity to retain his starting job even though his eventual successor just stepped in and showed he can handle it. And he turned around and delivered his best showing of the season.
Of course, now it’s about stacking performances, something that he has struggled to do throughout his career. He would have a good game sporadically, but a good stretch of games is rare. Up next is the Jacksonville Jaguars, and he’ll have to deal with Josh Allen coming off the defensive right edge, who, by the way, already has seven sacks and is coming off a three-sack game, his second of the year.
