The Pittsburgh Steelers have their best shot at raking in some compensatory draft value this free agency period towards the 2026 NFL Draft as there are several players set to get paid elsewhere. Other than the quarterbacks, nobody should enjoy a better pay raise than OT Dan Moore Jr. According to one NFL insider, teams might be viewing him as the cream of the crop in the FA tackle market.
“With [Ronnie] Stanley off the market, my sense is some tackle-hungry teams will prefer OT Dan Moore Jr. to Minnesota’s Cam Robinson,” Breer wrote via his MMQB Lead on SI.com. “He’s younger, and cleaner from a football-character standpoint. He also was criticized a bunch toward the end of the year—but Pittsburgh people will tell you that the handful of sacks he gave up were actually on Russell Wilson, not Moore himself.
“Either way, I think both of these guys get healthy deals, maybe close to $15 million per year on the post-Stanley tackle market.”
If you ask most Steelers fans, they would probably laugh at the idea of Moore being the top tackle on the market, but let’s take a look at some of the stats.
Moore has started 66 of 68 possible regular season games over his four-year career. The former fourth-round pick was thrust into a starting job right away because of circumstance and he understandably took his lumps early on. He showed improvement year over year for the most part aside from an abnormally rough 2023 season, but he finished with the best season of his career in 2024.
PFF gave him a 67.2 overall grade including a 66.9 pass-blocking grade and a 60.9 run-blocking grade. He allowed 41 total pressures and 12 sacks with a pass-blocking efficiency metric of 95.5. He also cleaned up his game and had just five penalties called against him last season. At 26 years old, Moore is just entering the prime of his career and has been nothing but a positive force in the Steelers’ locker room.
Robinson has started 101 of a possible 132 games in his career, including all 17 last season for both the Jacksonville Jaguars and Minnesota Vikings. The former second-round pick has had multiple major injuries throughout his career, including two notable knee injuries.
PFF gave him a 63.2 overall grade for the 2024 season, including a 67.2 pass-blocking grade and a 60.0 run-blocking grade. They also had him down for 13 penalties. At 29 years old, Robinson is still in his prime, but he will be on the wrong side of 30 in October.
Given Moore’s youth and career trajectory, he could very well be the top offensive tackle on the market over Robinson. I don’t think many Steelers fans would have believed that a year or two ago, and some probably still don’t.
It will help once he is out of the AFC North and no longer has to go against Myles Garrett and Trey Hendrickson, though they each have active trade requests which could land them elsewhere.
According to FOX Sports’ Jordan Schultz, Moore is expected to have a market in the mid-to-high teens.
