Over the preseason and into the first couple regular-season games, I was very critical of Broderick Jones and his lack of sound technique with his use of hands. He wasn’t timing or placing his punches correctly, and his snatch-and-trap move was a mess. Now at the halfway point of the season, and roughly one full season of games into Jones’ Steelers career as a starter, he has improved in some areas while remaining stagnant or even regressing in others.
Not to say that his hands are now perfect. There are still lapses where it looks like it did during the preseason, but back then it was difficult to find even one rep where he was utilizing his punch properly. Now there are more reps than not where Jones is using his length, timing his punches, and landing them inside. He doesn’t have as big of an issue with wide elbows, and late or wide punches that lack power.
Here is an example from last Monday night against the New York Giants of some of the issues plaguing him earlier in the season, just to jog your memory.
Jones played catch and didn’t time his punch correctly while keeping his arms too wide. By the time he went for a punch it was too late, and he gave up the edge.
While that still shows up at times on his tape, he was actually using his hands pretty well throughout the game, especially when moving forward as a run blocker.
His hands have been a lot more active, and he has even shown the ability to reset his hands throughout a rep. Here, Jones landed a punch with his outside arm and then used that to reset his inside arm back to an acceptable position and win the rep.
The snatch and trap almost always resulted in disaster for him earlier in the year, but he managed to land one on this play. Again, he has improved his technique with use of hands. This is a big positive and shows some progression from earlier in the season.
The new thing that I am going to harp on is Jones’ lack of finish. Former Steelers DL Chris Hoke recently talked about it on 93.7 The Fan, and he is absolutely right.
It is almost as if there is an internal clock in Broderick Jones’ head for a play that is running a bit quick. He will be in position and doing well on a play, but he falls off the block too early. Sometimes he will even get caught looking back at the play.
On this play, he does a great job landing his punches inside and extending his arms to widen the hole. For some reason, he stops his feet and doesn’t show a willingness to finish on the play. Once he wins the leverage, he should be using it to bury defenders like C Zach Frazier does.
This game against the Giants was probably his strongest of the last month. That isn’t saying much with a few really poor performances. Even still, Jones allowed a sack, multiple pressures, and committed a facemask penalty that negated a touchdown and took points off the board.
He is still very much a work in progress, but I am at least a little encouraged that some of the technique stuff is getting cleaned up. It is important to keep in mind that Jones is still only 23 years old and just logged his 18th career start. He is just now reaching one full season of experience.
OL coach Pat Meyer isn’t giving up on him, but said he needs to focus on every play. Broderick Jones is learning, but the Steelers’ goal is to get him to learn faster.
