Pittsburgh Steelers OT Dan Moore Jr. went down with a knee injury early in the team’s loss against the Houston Texans, which gave first-round pick Broderick Jones his first real taste of NFL action. While Jones played against the San Francisco 49ers in Week One, he logged just four snaps. But former Steelers defensive lineman and current analyst Chris Hoke wasn’t impressed with Jones’ performance today, calling him out on the KDKA postgame show.
“Broderick Jones struggled in this game when he came in. That pressure came off the left side right there with Broderick Jones. So all those people that wanted to see Broderick Jones in there instead of Dan Moore Jr., be careful what you ask for. You got it today,” Hoke said.
The specific play he mentioned the pressure coming off the left side was on the absolutely disastrous fourth-and-one play that saw QB Kenny Pickett get hurt.
But Jones had his hands full all day with Jonathan Greenard, who had two sacks, three quarterback hits and three tackles for a loss on the day.
Moore hasn’t been impressive this season, but there was obviously a reason why he was still starting over Jones. It makes sense why there was a call for Jones, the team’s 2023 first-round pick, to get playing time, but he really wasn’t great today. It’s not his fault that Pickett got hurt, and the play was doomed from the beginning. It was a disaster from the get-go, but throughout the game, it appeared that Jones had his struggles.
Jones talked about there still being room for improvement in his game.
“Lot of things still to get better on, so I can’t wait to get in the lab, film room, correct those mistakes and continue to just thrive towards those goals that I want to continue to get better on,” he told reporters via video from Steelers.com.
It doesn’t sound like he was too happy with his performance, and with Moore’s status unknown, there’s a chance that Jones will be thrust into a bigger role going forward. Figuring out why he got beat today is going to be important for him to correct and fix his issues, and, hopefully, end up living up to his draft status if he does have to get significant playing time in the coming weeks.
Today was an unmitigated disaster for the Steelers, with Moore and Pickett both going down in addition to TE Pat Freiermuth and DL DeMarvin Leal. On top of that, they stunk in all phases of the game, getting completely dominated by the Texans from the opening kickoff to the final whistle.
This is a team and coaching staff that across the board needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror and figure out what’s been going wrong, because the performance today was so far below what the Steelers are capable of, and it’s been an ongoing issue.
