If you were surprised by the pre-game revelation that Broderick Jones and not Chukwuma Okorafor would be starting last night’s game at right tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers, you were not alone. Okorafor was surprised too—or, actually a little bit more than that.
“Shocked, yeah”, he told Chris Adamski of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review regarding his reaction to hearing that he was being benched for the game. “But I couldn’t really do anything else but show Broderick (the ropes). Brod being able to play left and right tackle helps him and us a lot”.
The sixth-year veteran has started every game for which he has been healthy since the second game of the 2020 season, just prior to which Zach Banner tore his ACL. Last night was the first time since then that anybody else had started a game at right tackle for the Steelers for a reason other than injury.
But Okorafor insists he was told it had nothing to do with his performance. Rather, he said that he was benched for disciplinary reasons after some things that he had said during last Sunday’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars that was unbefitting a veteran like himself.
Still, even if it’s true that he was sat for this game for disciplinary reasons, it won’t necessarily be that easy to get back on the field. Jones is destined to be a starter one way or another, and now he has a quality start on both the left and the right side in the first eight games of the season.
One of the tackles is going to lose his spot to Jones, the 14th-overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft. It’s a question of when rather than if, and the answer may be now. While the Steelers continue to persist in their fondness for Dan Moore Jr. at left tackle, Okorafor could now be vulnerable, getting wedged out of his job under the guise of discipline.
“I hope I am back out there with the guys”, Adamski quoted Okorafor as saying, acknowledging that he has not been told one way or another what his status would be when the Steelers return from their short break. “But who knows what’s going to happen?”.
The only thing we know is that Jones is going to start at some point, and that most people believe he should be starting now. While he has some things to clean up, the impression he has made in his first two starts has been quite promising, and he’s particularly held up well in pass protection.
The fact that he was able to play at the level he did on the right side, doing so on a short week after spending the good majority of his time playing and practicing at left tackle, is all the more credit to him.
And all the more concerning for Okorafor, who may not have spent as much time worrying about his job as Moorer, given that Jones was seemingly earmarked for the blindside. But now the door to the right side has swung open as well.
