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It took 2023 first-round pick Broderick Jones about half of the 2023 season before entering the starting lineup on a regular basis for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Dan Moore Jr. remained the team’s starting left tackle throughout 2023 while Jones, who played left tackle in college, started at right tackle the final 10 games.
The Athletic’s Mark Kaboly argued the same thing could happen this season. Not with Jones and Moore but Moore and 2024 first-round pick Troy Fautanu.
“Jones is your starting left tackle,” Kaboly wrote in a mailbag on June 24. “Moore and Fautanu will battle for right tackle in camp. The loser of that battle will be the swing tackle.”
Kaboly added to a question about the possibility Moore starts in front of a rookie again this fall:
“It’s quite possible. It worked last year with Broderick Jones, so it might be something they entertain again this year. Moore isn’t as bad as people make him out to be.”
Moore has received the wrath of Steelers fans because of his poor player grades at Pro Football Focus. PFF ranked Moore 50th out of 56 offensive tackles who played at least 50% of his team’s offensive snaps last season.
But Kaboly noted that PFF shouldn’t be taken “as gospel” with Moore and then dispelled in T.J. Watt and Myles Garrett arguments.
Could Dan Moore Jr. Start at RT Instead of Troy Fautanu?
Similar to Jones last year, Fautanu arrived at Pittsburgh’s rookie OTAs as a highly-touted prospect. Last season, Fautanu won the Morris Trophy as the top offensive or defensive lineman in the Pac-12.
Fautanu captured that award while being part of the Washington’s offensive line, which won the Joe Moore Award. The top offensive line in college football receives that honor annually.
But Moore is obviously more experienced on the NFL level than Fautanu. Moore has started 49 games and played nearly 3,200 offensive snaps over three seasons.
In addition to his mailbag answers, Kaboly stressed during an appearance on The Joe Starkey Show on 93.7 The Fan on June 26 that Moore’s experience could lead to him starting at right tackle.
“It happened last year. Why wouldn’t it happen again this year?” said Kaboly.
“If they go into this training camp and could out of the training camp and Dan Moore is obviously better than him, like you saw pretty significantly last year with him and Broderick Jones, at least early in the process, I mean, why not? I think that they would allow that.”
Moore was a Day 1 starter for the Steelers after being a fourth-round pick in 2021. He has started every contest in which he’s played and has missed just two games in his three-year NFL career.
Why It Would Be Surprising If Moore Starts Instead of Fautanu
While Kaboly’s point about Moore’s experience is warranted, the situation between the Moore-Jones 2023 competition and the pending Moore-Fautanu battle aren’t exactly the same.
All of Moore’s NFL experience is at left tackle. So, it made sense that he was able to hold off the rookie Jones last season.
It will shock some pundits if Moore can switch to right tackle this summer and start instead of another first-round pick.
“[Moore]’s struggled when put at right tackle, and his NFL experience, save for four snaps, is entirely at that position,” Steelers Depot’s Joe Clark wrote. “So if Jones really is locked in at left tackle, it would be a surprise if Moore beat out Fautanu on the right side.”
In Moore’s defense, Fautanu didn’t play right tackle in college, so he won’t exactly have an edge in the competition. But whichever tackle adapts to the right side fastest is likely to be Pittsburgh’s starter at right tackle in Week 1.
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