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 Broderick Jones
Stock Value: Down
Reasoning: The rookie first-round draft pick had his worst game of the year against the Indianapolis Colts on Saturday, struggling both as a run blocker and in pass protection. While his pass protection was already a work in progress, he looked raw against the Colts after having seemingly made steady progress.
The bad news is that Broderick Jones often looked awful against the Indianapolis Colts last week. The good news is that it seems to be an aberration so far. His run blocking was suspect the week before against the New England Patriots, but that is one of the stoutest run defenses in the league, and conversely, he had one of his best games of the year in pass protection.
Unfortunately, he had one of his worst games in pass protection on Saturday against the Colts while also possibly having his worst game as a run blocker, as well. As a team, the Steelers allowed four sacks and rushed for just 74 yards while turning the ball over three times.
I imagine one of our writers will opt to tackle the subject later this week if it’s not already in progress, but it feels as though the game in Indianapolis is just one that snowballed away from the Steelers as a whole.
I’m not sure how many players I could even say had a good game, especially on offense. Certainly, nobody along the offensive line is hanging his head high after this one, quite possibly its worst collective performance of the year, or at least since the Steelers’ bye week. Isaac Seumalo probably came closest to approximating competence.
There is clearly still work to do, as this performance laid bare. Any team, any unit can be subject to a bad game, but we knew that this offensive line wasn’t a finished product no matter what kind of run it might have been on in recent weeks.
And much of the credit really goes to the running backs. Najee Harris and Jaylen Warren had largely been making a lot of plays. But they’re finding it harder to get out of the backfield again, and second-level access has been minimal.
