PITTSBURGH– So far, it’s been nothing short of a year to forget Pittsburgh Steelers right tackle Broderick Jones. He would play at left tackle Troy Fautanu taking over at right tackle. However, Jones only played at right tackle after Fautanu suffered a serious knee injury.
It will come as no surprise that Jones has struggled mightily. He continues to give up pressure and sacks. While his run blocking is fine, his down-to-down impact is not there. He may lose focus. So when offensive line coach Pat Meyer spoke to the media on Wednesday, he got brutally honest about where Jones was at this point in his career.
Broderick was great. His attitude, he listens. He just has to learn it. He has focus on every game. There are a lot of good plays. There are plays where you look at him and say, ‘Wow, he’s doing a lot of good things.’ With him he is young again. He hasn’t played a full NFL season yet, he’s only 23 years old,” Meyer said. “He’s going to grow. The thing about Broderick is he’s a confident guy; he plays hard, he loves the game. He just has to continue to learn and we have to make sure he learns faster.”
Meyer has often been tasked with developing young offensive linemen during his NFL career. It is no different for the Steelers. Dan Moore Jr. is making a leap and coming in with one of his best seasons. Zach Frazier and Mason McCormick have come in and played well. So why doesn’t Jones follow the same path?
Meyer says for Jones it’s all about focus and making the game slow down for him.
“He just needs to learn and grow as a player,” Meyer said. “I’m talking about focusing on each rep and what he needs to do. His mentality. If you think about it, I bet an offensive lineman has ten to fifteen things going through their mind before the snap – their alignment, their step-off, their snap, what foot they’re stepping with, how are we doing things, where are we? I put on my hat, my hands? It just takes some time to do that. We just need to accelerate that.”
The Steelers may be willing to be patient with Jones’ development, but if they have any aspirations of winning a playoff game this year, he either needs to be better or the team needs to figure out what else they have on the roster.
- BETTING: Check out our guide to the best PA sports bookswhere our team of sports betting experts reviewed the experience, payout speed, parlay options and odds quality across multiple sportsbooks.