Dan Moore Jr. has been taking some practice reps at right tackle over the first two weeks of Pittsburgh Steelers organized team activities.
The Steelers’ starting left tackle the past two seasons, Moore confirmed the handful of reps after Thursday’s session at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.
“Not too many reps, nothing crazy,” Moore said. “Just practicing lining up, getting the feel for it, being next to (starting right guard James Daniels), just trying to get my set down, hand timing.”
Moore is still taking most of his snaps as the first-team left tackle. But when he moves to the right side, it’s an opportunity for first-round pick Broderick Jones to get work on the left side at the position where most view he’ll be starting soon.
“Once he goes to the right, I have to step up and go to first-string left tackle,” Jones said. “At the end of the day, everybody’s getting reps all around the board. So we take it rep by rep and day by day.”
While Moore’s work on the right side adds versatility, it typically is not a standard course of action for a two-year starter on the left side. So it can be ascertained that Moore’s practice reps at right tackle is one of the first tangible signs of Jones eventually taking Moore’s job as the starter at left tackle.
Jones believes the culture created at Georgia can help him become a better player with the #Steelers. https://t.co/IzbahvpehZ
— Tribune-Review Sports (@TribSports) April 29, 2023
Make no mistake, no decisions have been made — at last not publicly. Moore termed his right-side reps as, “just so I can kind of add that to my arsenal.”
“That’s all it seems to be,” Moore, a few moments later, said with a chuckle. “You guys (in the media) may know more than I do. I’m not sure. I just do what they tell me.”
Moore was repping frequently at right tackle as a rookie fourth-round pick during summer 2021. But when it became clear the purported starter at right tackle, Zach Banner, was not recovering smoothly from a torn ACL, the Steelers shuffled their line late in the preseason and Moore became the starter on the left side.
He has started every game but one since for the Steelers at left tackle. And he practiced there exclusively for two years, too.
Moore said the transition is not as simple as it might seem.
“It’s weird,” he said. “It’s like wiping your butt with the other hand.
“It’s hard, but I’m getting the (hang) of it. It’ll come. A lot of people think switching sides is super easy. (But) it’s looking a different way, pushing off from a different leg, getting calls from a different direction. When you have so many snaps on one side, and now you’re getting asked to move to a different side — especially tackle, where you’re being asked to block crazy athletes like T.J. Watt on an island most of the time — that’s not the easiest thing to do.
“Definitely foreign to me, but it will definitely come.”
Veteran Chuks Okorafor is entering his fourth season as the starter at right tackle. The top backup tackle on NFL teams typically dresses on gamedays to serve as the backup to the starters on both sides.
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