Pittsburgh Steelers rookie T Troy Fautanu started for the first time yesterday in the second NFL game of his career. While he dressed for the season opener, he did not see a snap, acting strictly as a backup. The sudden change occurred because he was recovering from a knee injury and didn’t get enough practice to start.
The Steelers even put the training wheels on yesterday, beginning with a rotation, which failed miserably. Not on Fautanu’s part, but rather on the part of Broderick Jones, rotating in, who didn’t last a full series. He committed three penalties in short succession, including two holding penalties. One negated a 51-yard reception, as well as the rest of his theoretical playing time.
And presumably the Steelers did intend to play him more. Troy Fautanu played the first two series, Jones coming in for the third. They may have hoped to alternate every third series, but the game results dictated that they alter their plans.
In reality, neither Fautanu nor Jones really sound like they knew what was going on. I don’t know if they really didn’t know or if they think it’s in the team’s best interest not to divulge that, but either way, in hindsight, I suppose it doesn’t matter how they explain the mess.
“I’m not sure what the plan was for me”, Fautanu said after the game, via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, in reference to his playing time within a rotation with Jones. “They told me I was gonna get to go, and whatever happened with the rotation, I can’t control that type of stuff. For me, it was just making sure that every drive that I did get was taken advantage of”.
Does Fautanu really mean to say that the Steelers coaches didn’t make it clear to them how the rotation worked? I suppose that could be true—the coaches just tell one player to go in before each drive. That apparently did not work well at all for Jones, unfortunately, who admitted he “wasn’t locked in enough”.
Broderick Jones has spent the majority of his career as a starter and has started every same since entering the lineup full time. I’m sure it was something of an ego blow to have Troy Fautanu start in his place. He knows he responded to it very poorly and that he can’t afford to do it again.
Jones also admitted after the game that he “didn’t know” how much he would play beforehand, and that he “really wasn’t too much worried about it”. He added that he knows his job is to give the Steelers whatever they need from him, even playing sporadically.
Offensive linemen rarely rotate the way some other positions do, and there’s a reason for that. That doesn’t excuse Broderick Jones’ play at all, and the Steelers have used a rotation successfully before—briefly. An offensive line rotation is, of course, done to eventually settle on one over the other. On this day, Jones lost his edge to Fautanu, decidedly, so I don’t think either will have to worry what the plan is next week.
