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: Down
Reasoning: Any Steelers fans who were under some misapprehension that the veteran left tackle had ever previously “handled” Browns DE Myles Garrett were offered a rude awakening yesterday with the Pro Bowl defender dominating Moore, both in the game and on the stat sheet.
While many will have escaped any delusions to the contrary, or will at least now be able to conveniently say that they have, Steelers LT Dan Moore Jr. has always played poorly against Myles Garrett. In every meeting, regardless of what actual statistics Garrett might have put up in each individual game.
I say this because there has been an undercurrent to the contrary for some time, not just among some members of the fan base but also members of the media. A reporter even asked Moore last week about his history of dominating Garrett, which is absurd.
The generational pass rusher might not have always produced an impressive traditional stat line when playing the Steelers, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t embarrassing Moore on a regular basis. His lack of production had been in no small part to Pittsburgh actively trying to minimize his impact by staying away from him, just as it does other great front-four defenders.
Well, the dream of Moore being some kind of Garrett whisperer died a harsh death yesterday. After being limited to just one tackle in the first meeting between the two teams earlier this year—a game in which the Steelers offense did next to nothing—he got to QB Kenny Pickett twice for sacks with frequent pass-rush wins, including another quarterback hit on just 31 drop backs. His second sack killed any chances of Pittsburgh going up 14-10 midway through the fourth quarter by setting up 3rd and 22 at the Browns’ 27-yard line.
There are games in which Moore is largely invisible, in a good way, but that wasn’t the case yesterday. His performance was a distinct negative in holding back the offense’s ability to function. It’s to the point where I can’t help but wonder if the coaches might not try to reshuffle the tackle position to get him out of the lineup, with either Chukwuma Okorafor or Broderick Jones taking over at left tackle. The latter was always the expected move all along, and he’s already started a game there. How bad could what Okorafor said have been?
