Ranking all 7 Steelers rookies from worst to best following the 2023 preseason

Steelers fifth-best rookie: Broderick Jones

In a similar vein as Washington, thus the reason I have these two nearly tied, Broderick Jones had a fine training camp by all accounts. Like everyone else in this class, Jones had his highs and lows, but I would say he had a successful first outing at Latrode. That said, the expectation vs. what we got wasn’t as big of a push as I would have liked to see.

Jones was a raw prospect coming out of Georgia. He was a limited starter there, but when on the field he was a force of nature. While the Steelers have needed an offensive line boost for a while, they also could have afforded to let a raw prospect like Jones sit if need be. He entered camp battling for the left tackle gig though against Dan Moore.

Unsurprisingly, Jones had his share of good and bad as a raw prospect. There were times in camp when Jones was unstoppable, but other times (usually in pass blocking) where the lack of technique showed.

These up-and-down trends continued into the preseason games. Again, Jones wasn’t horrible, but he had his fair share of struggles. The real issue was that Moore showed tremendous development in his third preseason. He comfortably won the left tackle job with camp wrapping up.

This isn’t the end of the world; Jones will get his chance down the road to start and he didn’t have a horrible showing in camp. That said, having firmly lost his training camp battle, I can’t rate Jones that high, especially with so many strong showings from the other members of this rookie class.