Buy Or Sell: Dan Moore Jr. is your Pittsburgh Steelers left tackle for the 2024 season.
Explanation: While general manager Omar Khan says Broderick Jones is going to be the left tackle…eventually…head coach Mike Tomlin continues to hem and haw about whether that ever even happens. The Steelers need somebody else to play right tackle before they can move Jones to left tackle. Right now, they don’t have the player the need to allow themselves that move.
Buy:
Just because you don’t want something to be true doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Dan Moore Jr. is going to be the Steelers’ starting left tackle this year. He just is because Broderick Jones is the only one who can play right tackle. Even if they draft somebody in the first round, like Jones in 2023, he won’t be ready to play at the start of the year.
And lest we forget, the Steelers benched Chukwuma Okorafor last year, rather than Moore. They did that in spite of the fact that Jones spent the offseason training at left tackle. They forced Jones to adapt on the fly, as a rookie, in order to play right tackle. And you think they’re going to move Moore that easily now?
Sell:
There’s a good chance that Moore opens the season as the left tackle, but he won’t finish there. In some way, shape, or form, the Steelers are bringing in another significant tackle this offseason. They already know that Moore is not a long-term starter, and quite possibly this is his last year in Pittsburgh.
Even if they don’t draft a tackle in the first round, that doesn’t mean they can’t draft a tackle they can get up to starting speed. Their priority, no matter the timeline, is to maximize Jones, and maximizing him means putting him in his ideal position. Just because they don’t come out and broadcast it doesn’t mean they don’t know it. The Steelers are rarely up front with these sorts of things, particularly head coach Mike Tomlin, the master of ambiguity.
With the Steelers’ 2023 season in the rearview mirror following a disappointing year that came up short in the playoffs once again, it’s time to start asking more questions. Questions about the team’s future in 2024 and beyond. Questions about The Standard.
The rookie class of a year ago was on the whole impressive, but they need to step up into staple starters in 2024. And they likely need a strong influx of talent in both free agency and in the 2024 NFL draft yet again. In addition to a revisitation of the coaching staff.
These sorts of uncertainties are what I will look to address in our Buy or Sell series. In each installment, I will introduce a topic statement and weigh some of the arguments for either buying it (meaning that you agree with it or expect it to be true) or selling it (meaning you disagree with it or expect it to be false).
