I know this sounds like a post about Broderick Jones and this could become a post about Broderick Jones. But this isn\u2019t a post about Broderick Jones. His evaluation, like many others, remains incomplete. With an injury and just two padded practices, there\u2019s a lot more that needs examined before feeling any type of way about Jones going into his critical third season. His start certainly is far from ideal, but it\u2019s not the reason why adding a veteran offensive tackle should \u2013 and likely will \u2013 be on the Steelers\u2019 to-do list come August cutdowns.<\/p>\n
Pittsburgh entered camp in a shaky place. Depth was questionable. Calvin Anderson can play either spot but logged more than 200 season snaps just once in his NFL career. Dylan Cook created buzz in 2023 but hasn\u2019t captured it since. Steven Jones and Gareth Warren aren\u2019t next-man-up.<\/p>\n
To his credit, Anderson had an encouraging start to camp with wins against Alex Highsmith as Jones missed time. But late in Friday Night Lights practice, Anderson limped off the field. Specifics of the injury aren\u2019t known but Mike Tomlin implied it\u2019s one that\u2019ll keep him out<\/a> for the time being, deeming it more severe than \u201cday-to-day.\u201d That could mean a range of things but at this point, it\u2019ll be a plus just for Anderson to return by training camp\u2019s end in nine days. Missing a large chunk of the summer seems plausible.<\/p>\n Lines got so thin that yesterday, Spencer Anderson kicked out and picked up a handful of left tackle reps. Even though he vowed to be done<\/a> with his tackle days, the Steelers are already forced to explore every alternative two weeks into training camp.<\/p>\n Injuries have already piled up. Broderick Jones and Isaac Seumalo are recovering from soft tissue injuries. Ryan McCollum has dealt with an on-off ailment throughout camp. Anderson\u2019s now down. Pittsburgh came into the year with far less depth than a year ago and is already feeling the squeeze.<\/p>\n Which puts Pittsburgh on external addition alert. There\u2019s no magical option to cure everything. Offensive line talent is scarce and teams who have it don\u2019t want to give it up. But the Steelers need to turn over every option. Whether it\u2019s injury or Jones being ineffective during the season, Pittsburgh needs a Plan B to protect Aaron Rodgers.<\/p>\n It\u2019s too early to create a list of names. That\u2019ll come later this summer. Without much study, veterans worth rattling off could include the Cleveland Browns\u2019 Jackson Barton, Houston Texans\u2019 Trent Brown, Kansas City Chiefs\u2019 Wanya Morris, and Philadelphia Eagles\u2019 Kendall Lamm. George Fant remains a free agent and could a reunion with Chukwuma Okorafor<\/a> be on the table?<\/p>\n None of those options sound appealing. When it comes to adding offensive line help in August, it rarely does. But the Steelers are on a course where they\u2019ll be scouring the waiver wire, and potentially the trade market, to beef up the trenches before the regular season kicks off. It\u2019s sure better to have depth and not need it than need it and not have it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I know this sounds like a post about Broderick Jones and this could become a post about Broderick…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[33678,41327,43310,349,1321,99,3795],"class_list":["post-57470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-broderick-jones","tag-calvin-anderson","tag-dylan-cook","tag-nfl","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports","tag-trending"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}