For the second straight week, the Pittsburgh Steelers’ starting offense accomplished very little in preseason play. Unfortunately, the play of the offensive line, and the right tackle in particular, was the main culprit. Last week highlighted rookie first-round OT Troy Fautanu’s struggles, and this week it was 2023 first-round OT Broderick Jones.
He did some okay things in the run game, but today we are going to focus on pass protection. Like the famous children’s book, Broderick Jones had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.
Jones played 30 snaps and 20 of them were passing plays. In those 20 snaps, Jones allowed three total pressures with two sacks and a quarterback hit, per Pro Football Focus.
Jones was up and down in his rookie season in pass protection, but never this bad. So what went wrong?
The first sack he allowed sums up many of the issues that kept popping up throughout the game. OL coach Pat Meyer preaches independent hand usage and first significant contact. Jones struggled with both of those concepts all night.
The goal with making first significant contact is to make the edge rusher play on your terms. Whether that means knocking him off balance or off his ideal path, it allows a bigger margin of error to reset hands as necessary. I included both angles on this first clip. Jones didn’t make first significant contact and tried to catch Greg Rousseau. His inside arm ended up wrapped around Rousseau’s back which doesn’t do Jones much good.
Because Rousseau set the terms, he caught Jones’ late punch which effectively eliminated all of his power. From there, it was an easy long-arm extension to shed the block and make the sack.
Jones did have a few reps in pass protection that went well. The below clip shows two of those plays. You can see Jones making his first significant contact with independent hands on the first play, and he lands a nice two-handed strike on the second play. Both instances show him forcing the edge rusher to play on his terms instead of the other way around.
In general, Jones was playing a little too loose with his elbows. He should ideally be keeping them inside and tight. It helps generate power and makes it more difficult for the defender to get into his chest. On the second sack, Jones’ punch timing is off. He never actually gets a punch out. It is sometimes okay to catch the defender, but only if those elbows are in tight. The below clip shows Jones with his arms out wide. He gave up his chest and got thrown out of the club by Rousseau for another sack.
Here’s another quick example of his arms being too wide and giving up his chest. He nearly gets shoved right back into Wilson.
Too often Jones’ punch placement with his inside arm was off target. In the below play, Jones landed his punch in a perfect position with his outside arm, but instead of keeping his inside arm free to reset and stymie the inside counter, his arm ended up wrapped around the defender’s back. That made his inside shoulder very soft for the defender to long arm and rip back inside for a quarterback hit on Justin Fields.
These last two plays in the clip below were inconsequential, but still make you scratch your head. He had a tight end chipping his guy on both occasions. In the first play in particular, Darnell Washington knocks the edge rusher way off balance. He was served up on a silver platter to Jones. Ideally, he just buries the defender in these situations while they are off balance. Instead, he plays passive and lets them get back into the play.
Is this performance concerning? Yeah, I am at least a little concerned. Jones is wearing that elbow brace on his right arm, so maybe the injury is worse than has been reported. Jones reportedly declined interviews yesterday because he had to go meet with the team doctor.
Or can this be blamed on Broderick Jones being in limbo practicing on both the right and left side? Left tackle is his natural position, so maybe he is like Dan Moore Jr. and he just doesn’t feel comfortable on the right side. Everything is flipped, so you are striking with the opposite arm and stepping first with the opposite leg.
It is probably a combination of all of the above, but whatever it is the Steelers must figure it out quickly.
