The Pittsburgh Steelers hopefully completed their offensive line overhaul when they spent three of their top five picks on the group in the 2024 NFL Draft. Given the high investments, OT Troy Fautanu and C Zach Frazier will likely be counted on to start as early as Week 1. Growing pains can be expected, as they are with any rookie, but Fautanu in particular will have the benefit of practicing against the best edge rusher in the NFL every day.
T.J. Watt was asked if he is going to help Fautanu acclimate to the NFL in an interview conducted by Mike Garafolo on NFL Network earlier today. His answer was yes, but that part might come later in the process. First, Watt intends on figuring him out.
“Yeah, at the end of the day, we’re teammates. But early on you try to be able to map him out,” Watt said. “Cause for me, it’s a new guy, too, so I’m trying to learn what he’s doing. Maybe they’re doing some new things in college that I haven’t seen much in the NFL. But at the end of the day, we’re teammates. I’m trying to make everybody better out here.”
Watt is still a competitor in the prime of his career. He isn’t going to teach the rookies all his tricks right away. Fautanu repeatedly getting beat by Watt is one of the best ways to learn. It’s like in the movie Dodgeball: “If you can dodge traffic, you can dodge a ball.” If Fautanu can learn how to overcome arguably the best edge rusher in the league, he should be able to handle most challenges that are thrown his way.
Once Watt figures him out, he will help him along as he does all of his teammates.
Fautanu has received first-team reps here and there over the first few days of training camp practice but has mostly worked with the second-team offense. During Sunday’s practice earlier today, Fautanu got some first-team opportunities at right tackle during the final team session of practice.
The number of snaps he gets with the first-team offense will be one of the top storylines to track throughout the rest of camp. He will eventually be the starter at right tackle, which will move Broderick Jones back over to the left side. But first he must prove that he is a better right tackle than Dan Moore Jr. is a left tackle.
The pads come on and full contact begins Tuesday after the Steelers take a day of rest on Monday. That is when the real competition will begin, and when we will start hearing a lot more about Watt versus Fautanu in individual drills and team sessions.
