All of the talk about the Steelers’ former third-round pick is about moving him to guard, but a simple position switch won’t suddenly fix a bad offensive lineman.
While the hope was for Kendrick Green to bring his nasty and physical demeanor to a stale Steelers offensive line in 2021, he has provided anything but. While only a third-round pick, expectations were high that the team had found their next great center. He was hand-selected from a crop of talented centers in the past draft to be the next fixture along the teams’ offensive line.
Unfortunately, the results haven’t been as expected. Green struggled throughout the entire season, but his play really fell off about four to five weeks ago. Suddenly, his snaps were becoming even worse than before, and he offered next to no push from his center spot. Worse yet, when the Steelers used veteran J.C. Hassenauer at center last week, it led to the best rushing performance from the team all season.
The desire popped up early in the year that Green should be moved back to guard. Based on his mediocre 51.7 PFF grade at center and his experience in college naturally coming at guard, the rumor at least makes sense. Ben Roethlisberger even came out and said he believed Green’s best fit would come at guard. With these rumors now heating up, one has to ask just how smart of a move it is to move Green back to guard.
This isn’t an easy fix for the Steelers
To be clear upfront, if Green does get moved back to guard, expecting him to all of a sudden be fixed as a player is silly. Green’s issues are numerous. While he has good strength and a nasty demeanor as a lineman, his technique is still extremely raw. Despite being on the shorter side he lacks leverage and his hand placements as a blocker often leads to him getting pushed back into the pocket or thrown to the ground and out of the play.
Those issues would still persist as a guard. It isn’t like he will suddenly become a technician as a blocker, and everything would come together for him. As well, he is extremely small as a lineman, standing just a smidge under 6’2. That is relatively small for a center, but it makes him undersized as a guard. That can lead to size disadvantages down the road if he were moved back to guard.
I think that Roethlisberger’s comments on Green are more damaging than hopeful. He has seen what it is like to play behind Green, and he doesn’t believe that he can be a center for a good offensive line. Simply put, he is overmatched, and Roethlisberger understands that better than anyone. While he or the team can’t outright say it, moving Green to guard makes him dangerously close to being a draft bust.
While I understand why the team would want to move Green to guard, don’t expect his problems to suddenly be fixed. His issues lie with his technique and size, and only one of those can be fixed. A positional switch after being hailed as the next great center is damaging to Green’s stock. No matter if he is a guard or center for the Steelers in 2022, he will have a long way to go before he could be seen as a capable NFL starter.