PITTSBURGH — The Pittsburgh Steelers got their first real look at what might be their offensive line of the future on Wednesday, as the team worked with rookie first-round draft pick Troy Fautanu at right tackle and second-year first-round selection Broderick Jones at left tackle at practice.
The duo of 23-year-old tackles have worked together before, at OTAs and during minicamp, when veteran left tackle Dan Moore was given some time off.
Moore was out of practice on Wednesday with a right ankle injury, giving the Steelers a chance to get their dynamic young tackles some reps together with the first team.
The reason they haven’t to this point was an injury to Fautanu. He suffered an MCL sprain in the preseason opener against the Houston Texans and missed three weeks of practice. Fautanu did some work last week, ramping up to full participation to get him ready to hit the ground running this week.
“It’s tough missing three weeks,” Fautanu said. “That’s three weeks I wasn’t able to get better. I was really locked in more mentally, so that when I do get back out there, I’m playing fast.”
Now the question will be what happens going forward. If Moore returns to health, he’ll probably regain his starting role. He played a very solid game in the season opener against the Falcons. He helped hold Matthew Judon and company in check and head coach Mike Tomlin credited his perseverance in continuing to improve, despite the fact that the Steelers have drafted potential replacements for him in two straight draft classes.
“We’re continually trying to replace people, and people better be continually getting better in an effort to sustain and grow, and that’s kind of reflective of his approach and what’s happened with him. He’s gotten better continually,” Tomlin said. “He’s gotten snap opportunities in an effort to do so. Obviously, experience is a component, a significant component to get better. But I just think that’s a really natural thing. I think that happens across all positions on every team at this level. Competition is ever present. New talent, new competition is just a component of our game at this level.”
That doesn’t sound like a guy who’s about to kick Moore to the curb, and to be honest, there probably ins’t a good football case to do so at the moment.
Playing through an elbow injury, Jones struggled in the preseason, and had always needed to develop and refine his pass protection skills after an up-and-down rookie season.
Moving Jones to the left side, where those occasional pass protection hiccups would move to the blind side of the quarterback, might not be the best thing for the team right now.
And while the Steelers absolutely want Jones to be their left tackle and Fautanu their right tackle deep into the future, they can’t really afford to give away games right now, either.
The Steelers set out this offseason to ramp up their rebuild, with their sights solidly on an elusive playoff win. If they want to accomplish that goal, they absolutely have to stack wins in September and October before their murderer’s row of a late-season slate kicks in.
The future of the offensive line in general, and the tackle position specifically look bright, but injuries to Moore and Fautanu have the present a little bit murky.
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