Broderick Jones started the season opener for the Pittsburgh Steelers but came off the bench a week later. As it turns out, he should have just stayed there because he wasn’t mentally prepared for a rotational role. But once he got to the sideline, all head coach Mike Tomlin was interested in was building. After the game, Jones talked about Tomlin’s message after he pulled him out of the game.
“Flush it. Next-play mentality”, Jones said of the words from Tomlin, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. “It’s always gonna be that. We still had a game to win. We’ve just got to continue to focus on that”.
A first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft, Broderick Jones started for the majority of his rookie season. By most accounts, he played well, especially considering he was playing “out of position” at right tackle. Until further notice, that is still his position, although no longer his starting position.
After starting the opener, the Steelers replaced Jones with rookie Troy Fautanu, a first-round pick now healthy. Jones rotated in for the third possession, and one imagines that was their plan, to alter every third series. Unfortunately, he played so badly, that Tomlin decided to save him from himself.
In a span of six plays, Jones committed a false start and two holding penalties. The second holding penalty negated a 51-yard catch by George Pickens and ruined the series. Instead of 1st and goal at the Broncos’ 6 it was 2nd and 28 at their own 33. Unsurprisingly, they punted two plays later in a one-possession game.
Not that anybody had to tell Broderick Jones that he screwed up. He was out there on the field; he knows what happened. “I’m chewing my own self out”, he said. “It’s something that you don’t want to happen as an o-lineman. You’re just trying to get done with that as quick as possible”.
The Steelers wanted to move Jones to left tackle, but that depended on the readiness of Fautanu. Now that he is ready, Jones is not, for whatever reasons there may be. Dan Moore Jr. is playing decently enough at left tackle where he has started for the past three seasons.
Troy Fautanu will presumably retain the right tackle job for now, leaving Jones on the bench. But he will now, presumably, have the opportunity to start pushing Moore for the left tackle spot. That is the position the Steelers traded up in the first round for him last year to play. But now he has to earn that job.
And after yesterday’s dismal showing, he knows the only thing he can do now is work. Jones knows his showing in Denver is not representative of the sort of player he wants to be. It is also not representative of the player that he was last year, and that is the thing. We know that he is better than this, but how does he get back to that, and how long will it take?
