For better or worse, the Pittsburgh Steelers have been in no rush to get their rookies onto the field very often in the early goings of the 2023 season. Partly through attrition, however, they have been left with no choice in some instances. And it is through attrition that we may now see the beginning of the Broderick Jones era at left tackle—again, for better or worse.
LT Dan Moore Jr. exited Sunday’s game with a knee sprain, leaving the rookie to fill in for most of the way. He was rocky, certainly, but generally got better as the game went on. Here’s the thing, though: it may not matter at this point.
According to Gerry Dulac of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, while head coach Mike Tomlin may have already ruled Moore out for Sunday’s game against the Baltimore Ravens, “it appears he will be out much longer than that”, he wrote on Twitter. He added, “This is Broderick Jones’ entree to the starting lineup”.
Time will tell if that proves to be the case, but it’s reasonable to assume that if Moore is sidelined for long enough and Jones plays or improves sufficiently enough in his absence, the rookie is going to hang onto that job.
After all, the plan has always been for him to be the starter. You don’t trade up in the first round for a player you think is going to be a backup, or even an average starter. The Steelers believe Jones is their long-term solution at left tackle. Once he is in the lineup, they don’t expect him to leave it for the next decade.
That doesn’t mean he’s not going to take his lumps. His limited tape is already pretty lumpy. But we knew before the draft that he was still pretty raw and inexperienced. We knew he would need to be smoothed out over time.
It will be interesting to see what the word is on Moore as the week progresses. Up to this point, this is the only report I have seen giving any indication of how the team might be viewing his injury outside of a moment-by-moment perspective.
Dulac saying that he will be out “much longer” than the team’s next game strongly indicates that he will also miss time on the other side of the bye week. That would give Jones a full start, then a week to assess, and then a week to work on fundamentals while making corrections.
This may be the ideal time for the rookie to make his move. He gets to prepare as a starter for one game and then gets a full week of evaluation and targeted coaching. Teams frequently make lineup changes like this during bye weeks because they have that time to break things down and assess.
Truth be told, I don’t think anybody would be surprised either way if Jones were to become the starter on the other side of the bye week, even if Moore weren’t hurt. But it wasn’t supposed to come about by force.
