While the Pittsburgh Steelers in recent years have done a better job of getting their rookies on the field and ready to contribute, it hasn’t been a strictly uniform process. Not only does every player develop at a different pace, but the positions they play and the circumstances they enter will also dictate the availability of opportunity.
But it seems as though the opportunity has finally come for first-round pick Broderick Jones, who is expected to be the Steelers’ full-time starting right tackle from this point forward. Recently listed as co-starter with Chukwuma Okorafor, the years-long incumbent at the position, it doesn’t seem as though anybody feels the Steelers can turn back at this stage.
“I don’t see the toothpaste going back in the tube here. Broderick Jones is a number-one pick. I think he’s gonna play from here on out”, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporter Ray Fittipaldo told Andrew Fillipponi and Chris Mueller recently on 93.7 The Fan.
Jones started at right tackle in the Steelers’ last game against the Tennessee Titans and garnered favorable reviews, including those favoring him over Okorafor. While the veteran’s demotion was evidently tied to something he said in the team’s loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars, it now serves as a convenient way to make the transition that sees a 60-game starter take a seat.
As far as his future, however, Fittipaldo doesn’t see it being very bright, at least not in Pittsburgh. “The Chuks thing, they can get rid of him at the end of the year. That’s not a big deal”, he said. Earlier in the week during a chat on the Post-Gazette website, he said that he thinks “they were always going to cut Chuks after this season”.
Signed to a three-year extension in 2021 for $29.25 million, Okorafor is playing out the second year of that deal this season. He is due to earn $8,750,000 in 2024, including a roster bonus that will accrue on March 22, so they would have to make a decision early next offseason.
If they were to part ways with Okorafor, that would raise questions about the starting lineup. Do they leave Jones at right tackle in that case even though he likely would be better at left tackle? That is the position at which they drafted him to play.
But LT Dan Moore Jr. is apparently significantly worse at right tackle, according to head coach Mike Tomlin, so if you don’t like his play as it is now, just wait until you get a look at him playing out of position. Even the third-year veteran acknowledged that Jones is much more of a natural at right tackle than he is.
So if you get rid of Okorafor and you plan for Jones to play left tackle, then basically what you’re saying is that you don’t have a right tackle after this season. So then it becomes, are you better off with a Moore-Jones pairing, leaving him on the right side, or do you go with Jones on the blind side and press your luck finding a right tackle elsewhere?
