In the 2023 NFL Draft, the Pittsburgh Steelers traded up three spots from No. 17 to No. 14 to select OT Broderick Jones. They made the trade with the New England Patriots and appeared to be positioning themselves to select a tackle before the New York Jets made their selection. The Jets were in need of a tackle, so naturally the narrative became that Bill Belichick, the mastermind that he is, made the trade to prevent the Jets from landing a tackle.
Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show on Wednesday afternoon, Belichick was asked about the trade in last year’s draft and clarified his reasoning.
“We were pretty confident that the Steelers were looking for a tackle, and we were pretty confident that the Jets weren’t gonna take a corner because they had taken [Sauce] Gardner the year before…We probably would have stayed there and taken [Christian] Gonzalez if there hadn’t been a trade available,” Belichick said. “We didn’t know if the Steelers were gonna take the guy that the Jets wanted. I mean, I would say we weren’t heartbroken that that happened.”
So according to Bill Belichick himself, the Patriots were just looking to add draft capital and they were pretty positive that they were going to be able to get Gonzalez regardless. Sabotaging the Jets was just a happy coincidence.
The Jets ended up taking EDGE Will McDonald at No. 15 with multiple tackles already off the board. They weren’t able to really fill the need at offensive tackle until this offseason, trading for Morgan Moses and signing Tyron Smith as a free agent. The offensive tackle situation in New York immediately came back to bite the Jets with an injury to their star quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
The Steelers traded up and stole Jones out from under them and got a solid building block for the future of their offensive line. He started 11 games last season and helped propel the Steelers’ rushing attack into a top unit over the back half of the season. McDonald didn’t flash much his rookie season for the Jets, with zero starts and 14 total tackles, including three sacks.
