Player: T Dan Moore Jr.
Stock Value: Up
Reasoning: Veteran T Dan Moore Jr. continues to refuse to go quietly, still entrenched at left tackle. In a contract year, he is setting himself up for a nice payday. Despite serious challenges for his job annually, he has only grown from it and is playing his best football.
Injuries put the kibosh on any plans the Steelers had of starting their two young first-round tackles this season. They tried, plugging Troy Fautanu into the starting lineup in Week 2. They thought, I’m sure, Broderick Jones would slowly but steadily nudge Dan Moore Jr. from the left tackle spot.
Well, we never even got the chance to find out if that might realistically happen. Fautanu suffered a likely season-ending injury, and Jones is stuck at right tackle. And Moore is “stuck” at left tackle—except he is actually thriving.
Or as close as Moore has ever come to thriving in Pittsburgh. Now in his fourth season, he is playing the best football of his career. He should be, make no mistake about it, but one can easily imagine that he has also grown as a direct result of all the competition the Steelers have thrown at him throughout his career.
Dan Moore Jr. is going to be a starting left tackle somewhere in the league in 2025, making great money. I don’t know what the odds are of that place being Pittsburgh, though, because they obviously still want Broderick Jones sand Troy Fautanu playing. But they will have to go into 2025 blind on both sides. Can Jones play left tackle? Can Fautanu play, period? They’ll be crossing their fingers, hoping to collect a compensatory pick for Moore.
In the meantime, he is raising his value through his play thus far. Moore has been strong in particular in pass protection, although the degree of competition hasn’t always been high. The Cowboys last time out, for example, were missing their best pass rushers. But Moore played against Dallas’ B team the way you would expect a starting left tackle to. And that’s all you can ask.
As the season progresses, Steelers players’ stocks rise and fall. The nature of the evaluation differs with the time of year, with in-season considerations being more often short-term. Considerations in the offseason often have broader implications, particularly when players lose their jobs, or the team signs someone. This time of year is full of transactions, whether minor or major.
A bad game, a new contract, an injury, a promotion—any number of things affect a player’s value. Think of it as a stock on the market, based on speculation. You’ll feel better about a player after a good game, or worse after a bad one. Some stock updates are minor, while others are likely to be quite drastic, so bear in mind the degree. I’ll do my best to explain the nature of that in the reasoning section of each column.
