How Does Dan Moore Jr. fit with the Steelers?

As with every offseason, there has been a lot of scrutiny on a few choice players on the Steelers roster. Outside of the obvious, Kenny Pickett, you would be hard-pressed to find someone who has been a target of anger and disapproval among Steelers fans more than Dan Moore Jr. For those of you who don’t frequent Steelers Twitter pages, I am here to bring you the unsurprising news that it doesn’t take long scrolling to start seeing some of the outcry there is to replace or even get rid of Dan Moore. A very popular criticism there is on him is that he had the league’s worst PFF grade for tackles during the 2023-24 regular season. I, as a proud non-subscriber, don't treat PFF as the gospel and take it with a grain of salt. I was never fully ingrained in the PFF culture so to speak, and then the robbery of DPOY we experienced with TJ Watt and Myles Garrett this year will forever strain PFF’s reputation in my mind. I could spend countless hours bashing PFF for numerous things, but perhaps none more disturbing than taking away complete access to the mock draft simulator without a subscription. However, that is beside the point. It doesn’t take a fancy subscription-based data analysis website to tell you that Dan Moore’s performance this year was downright unacceptable. It is extremely evident from simply turning on the game replays from this past season. This transitions us into the meat of this article, discussing and dissecting the role that Dan Moore can play next season for the Steelers. 

As a loud and proud advocate for the Steelers to acquire a starting caliber tackle in the first two rounds of the draft I don’t believe in Dan Moore to be the left or right tackle of the future, but that isn’t to say Moore can’t serve an important or even invaluable role on the team this upcoming season. I could bore you with the statistics from Moore’s three seasons in the NFL to prove he isn’t a starting-caliber player at this point in his career, but I’ll spare you that because it isn’t important anymore. The Steelers will draft another tackle with the plan to have that draftee assume the starting spot ahead of Moore at some point throughout next season. That is an important distinction to make. Whoever is brought in will assume the starting position at SOME point during the season, but nobody truly knows the exact game or week it might be. It is fair and reasonable to expect this given what we saw last year and how Broderick Jones didn’t overtake Chuks Okorafor and become a permanent starter until week nine. He did make his career start in week five due to a Dan Moore injury, but once healthy Moore was slated in front of him on the depth chart.

Here in lies Dan Moore’s value, he is the stopgap option for the Steelers at tackle. He can enter the season as one of the starting tackles until the next up-and-coming tackle is deemed worthy or qualified enough to start, whether that is in week one or week nine like saw last year. He also provides much-needed competition during training camp and depth during the season if, god forbid, we get bit with the injury bug. For what it's worth as well, he has always been with the organization for three years running on four, and is familiar with the standards and goals that are in place. It is impossible to fully know what you have with a rookie until you get him in the building and at camp, Dan Moore provides a somewhat viable option at tackle if the rookie they will presumably select isn’t quite as NFL-ready as they had thought or hoped. I would also be remiss to not mention the opportunity it gives Dan Moore to prove he is a starter in this league and earn another contract in Pittsburgh or somewhere else.

This is far from a glamorous role, but I can only imagine the respect that Dan Moore will garner among the coaching staff and in the locker room and the opportunity he has to extend his career if he commits to doing this in the best interest of the team.