While the offensive line had a pretty solid showing overall in the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 37-15 win over the New York Jets in Week 7, the one sack the team allowed was the fault of OT Broderick Jones, who’s had an inconsistent, at best, season. However, head coach Mike Tomlin said he’s happy with Jones’ development in his second NFL season.
“I like the solid trajectory of his growth and development. He had some challenges early on in team development, he missed some time and so forth due to minor injuries. But largely, just looking at the trajectory of his play, I’m pleased with it. I like the professional approach that he brings to work, and I just think he’s moving in the right direction and it needs to continue,” Tomlin said Tuesday during his weekly press conference via the team’s YouTube channel.
It wasn’t a great showing for Jones on Sunday, and he’s struggled often this season. What he has been better with is cutting down on penalties. He was flagged three times on one drive in Week 2, but that accounts for 75% of his total penalties this season, and he was penalty-free against the Jets. But the play he allowed the sack on, against Will McDonald IV, it seemed as if Jones just gave up at the end of the play. It wasn’t a good rep, but Jones didn’t let McDonald become a major factor all night. It was the only sack allowed by the Steelers, although overall it wasn’t a great night for Jones.
There’s been some growth from Jones, and he hasn’t been a negative every week. He had a solid performance in Week 3 against the Los Angeles Chargers, and he’s had some decent reps throughout the year, and he’s certainly a lot better from where he was in the preseason. But Jones hasn’t been particularly good, and he needs to play with more consistency and not have such extreme dips in his performance.
Jones has owned a lot of his struggles in the media, so he deserves some credit for that, and it’s at least a positive that Tomlin has liked some of what he’s seen from Jones. He also was a mentor for some of the younger offensive linemen during training camp, working with Troy Fautanu after practice, so Jones has mostly been going about his business the right way. But there’s no doubt that he needs to be better, and his trajectory really needs to start climbing a lot higher for the Steelers to feel comfortable with him as a consistent starter moving forward.
Tomlin obviously isn’t going to bash him publicly, and the Steelers don’t really have any other options to turn to at offensive tackle with Fautanu out of the season. So it’s good on Tomlin to try and keep Jones’ confidence high, and hopefully he can turn a corner in the second half of the season.
