Steelers are making a massive mistake in their offensive tackle room

The Steelers have a long history of slowly working their rookies into a starting role. They want any starter to have earned their spot, and even if the rookie is an early pick, the team allows them to ramp up before taking over as the starter. While many critique this move, I am for it, as it provides a young player time to catch their footing.

Another, more recent trend for the Steelers has been prioritizing position flexibility along the offensive line. Almost every drafted rookie has taken time at various positions, even if it wasn’t what they were drafted to play. For mid and late-round depth picks, this makes perfect sense. However, it has become a pain point for the tackle room.

Now, the team appears to be all in on Troy Fautanu getting the nod as a starter. According to Gerry Dulac, the Steelers intend on starting Fautaunu in week one this year, a stark contrast to the treatment of then-rookie Broderick Jones last year. All of this is coming off the news that Fautanu will miss some practice time with an injury suffered in the first preseason game.

The Steelers are messing up their young tackles

While I am not objectively against the idea of starting Fautanu off the bat, it raises a lot of issues elsewhere. While the team indicated they wanted Fautanu as the primary right tackle shortly after drafting him, you had Jones play there predominantly as a rookie. On paper, this shouldn’t be an issue, as you could have just planned for Jones to move permanently back to the left side.

Instead, the Steelers have been focused on rotating their tackles once again on both sides of the line. The most consistent player has been Dan Moore, who has almost exclusively been on the left side. Now, with Fautanu set to start but also unable to practice, how will Pittsburgh accommodate?

What they should do, assuming this report is true, is get Jones over to the left side permanently. He needs every snap that he can get there now as the season inches closer. This creates some fallout for the rest of the depth chart, but it shouldn’t matter that much with the assumption that Fautanu will start week one.

Moore can either shift to the right side or if the team is really that adamant that he can only play on the left side, he becomes the second-team left tackle. Dylan Cook can take snaps at right tackle, and even if it is less than ideal, he should be the first-team right tackle assuming Moore doesn’t shift over there.

What is really frustrating is that the Steelers could have just entered camp with the setup like this. Jones could have been the starting left tackle with Fautanu on the right side, or if they were adamant that a veteran had to be ahead of him slot Cook or Moore there. The team clearly didn’t need a lot of convincing that Fautanu was ready to start, and had he imploded, you could have swapped Jones back to the right side until he was ready.

Tackle is arguably the most important position on the offensive line, and while it has been refreshing to see the team invest back-to-back top picks in tackles, they need to do a better job of getting them to a permanent home. Position versatility is good for a backup, but for It isn’t necessary for a top pick if you want to start at a specific position. There is still time to remedy this situation, but it is frustrating to see the top draft picks seemingly play round-robin on the left and right side.