Since stepping into the starting lineup ahead of the Week Nine Thursday Night Football matchup against the Tennessee Titans, Pittsburgh Steelers rookie right tackle Broderick Jones has had some highs and some lows, as expected.
In the run game, Jones has had a major impact for the Steelers, providing a physical, nasty edge to the offensive line, helping Pittsburgh make major improvements running the football. But, playing out of his natural position of left tackle, Jones has had some issues down the stretch in his first NFL season from a pass-blocking perspective.
That’s caused his overall grade from Pro Football Focus to fluctuate. Some weeks, Jones is stout. Others, he has issues. The Week 18 season finale against the Baltimore Ravens was one of those weeks, which caused Jones to drop to the No. 3 graded rookie offensive tackle in football from PFF.
Against the Ravens, Jones graded out at a 48.1, his second-lowest grade of the season behind the Week 15 game against the Indianapolis Colts (38.7). The struggles against Baltimore placed him behind Cleveland’s Dawand Jones and Chicago’s Darnell Wright on the season.
“Jones struggled in his final regular-season start of the year. He allowed three pressures, including a Jadeveon Clowney strip sack, en route to a 34.2 pass-blocking grade that stands as his second-worst mark of the season,” PFF’s Dalton Wasserman writes. “He also consistently failed to move defenders laterally in the run game and finished the game with five negatively graded run blocks.
“Despite some inconsistency, Jones finishes the regular season as Pittsburgh’s highest-graded tackle.”
There were issues throughout the game against the Ravens from Jones, particularly in pass blocking. Conditions were rather poor, which made for some issues with footing at times, but taking on the likes of Jadeveon Clowney and Kyle Van Noy — two savvy, proven veterans — brought its challenges for the young tackle.
In the 17-10 win over the Ravens, Jones yielded three pressures and one sack, allowing Clowney to race around the edge for his sack, forcing a fumble on quarterback Mason Rudolph in the process, though the Steelers were able to recover.
On the year, Jones allowed 29 total pressures and four sacks on 405 pass-blocking reps. That’s a pressure once every 14 reps, and a sack once every 101 reps. Those aren’t bad numbers overall, considering Jones was playing out of position. He finished his rookie regular season with a PFF grade of 60.7 overall and generated grades of 62.9 as a run blocker and 52.1 in pass protection.
Jones also had just two penalties on the season, which is promising.
Hopefully the Steelers flip him back to his natural position of left tackle in 2024 and address the right tackle position, either in free agency or the 2024 NFL Draft, especially after left tackle Dan Moore Jr. finished the regular season as the worst-graded pass-blocking offensive tackle on the season.
