Broderick Jones cleared to play

Dotson moved over to LG in 2021. That was the Trai Turner year. DeCastro's ankle gave up, they released him and signed Turner a few days later. Turner had never played LG or any position other than RG in the NFL. And, Feiler had just left for the Chargers.

So their options were basically:

• Move 5x Pro Bowler Trai Turner to LG for the first time in his career
• Keep Turner at RG and give promising young guy Dotson a chance to start at LG

If Dotson didn't start at LG that year, the boards would have lit up about him wasting away on the bench given how he played in 2020 when DeCastro went down.

And if DeCastro was around, same deal. Dotson was probably penciled in as the starter at LG in 2021 as early as November 2020...

Now in 2022 I suppose they could have put him back over at RG but the Daniels pieces were hashed out above. Plus they were bringing in Mason Cole as well after the Kendrick Green experiment failed. So keeping a young base of Dotson, Chuks, and Moore at stable spots going into 2022 made sense.

With the benefit of hindsight, re-signing Feiler in 2021 was the missed opportunity. But he hit FA and I doubt they were counting on DeCastro being done at that point.

But to play out the scenario, that means Dotson stays at RG, no Trai Turner, probably no James Daniels, maybe Seumalo still comes into the picture to follow up Feiler.

That whole OL deteriorated quick. Between 2020 and 2021 they had to replace Villy, Feiler, DeCastro, and Pouncey. And only Feiler was still playing at a reasonably high level. I think that DeCastro's injury really caught them off guard.

I think they made several reasonable decisions at the time in the moment. It still frustrates me that Colbert (or Tomlin I suppose, but it's not nice to talk about religion with friends) let the OL deteriorate twice like that on his watch. It's a minor miracle that they went to two Super Bowls given the state of the OL from 2008-2014.

 

A good chunk of the league runs outside zone. It's like any other football fad, once the defenses adjust they move to something else.
No OL expert but I've read it can take multiple seasons to get the outside zone scheme running smoothly. And that is with the same starting group, something the Steelers have lacked.

 

Its cool. I just figured I tell you before someone became a smarta$$ about it.
By the way , why don't you watch College football??

 

I hope this young man can stay healthy and play with urgency
if given the chance.

 

you are correct about a good chunk of the league running outside zone. prior to meyer we ran inside zone. he was brought in to change us to outside zone along with new draft picks and some existing players that are no longer here. yes for some it may take multiple seasons and for others not so much. many times it depends if said players ran it in college prior to the pros. meyer was known for teaching outside zone concepts.

many times under MT and we are going back to dick lebeau days, our draft picks were not matched up from what they were good at in college to what we expected from them in the pros. colbert had some to do with that as well. MT wanted to get away from DLB's zone blitz scheme more and more, to a man based scheme. DLB said he needed draft picks that played man and knew the system. they kept drafting zone schemed players but expected man results.

any of the blocking schemes still come down to player ability brain wise and athletic wise. it's a dance that each player and a combo of players together have to work together. both players have to read the same thing from the defense to run it accordingly. don't forget that if there are replacement players because of injury that those subs have also learned the system but may not have it down with whom they are paired with to run it.

as i said a good while ago, moving fautanu and mccormick to the left was a good idea. they still played together just on the opposite side. jones moved sides to gain a new guard next to him. jones coordination and smarts were not the greatest to start with and then had to reverse the side he worked but also with whom he worked next to. some guys make that switch much easier. he had trouble putting hand and footwork together plus then having to read the defensive movements with a new player to his inside for the double team parts of the dance.

cook has some better intelligence (being a former QB and also practiced both sides a lot more). his adjustment was more seaming less than jones'. he had to learn footwork for each side and more easily read the defense with the player he was paired with. even though he may not have the physical traits of jones, he had the knowledge to make it work.

player ability makes what you are saying about taking years to master is why some units take more time to get it down pat.

 

I think there are probably a couple of reasons.
1) Don't really want to devote the time to following another sport
2) I don't think the quality is as good. Especially re: competitiveness since most games seem to be big school playing no name school.
3) Didn't grow up / go to college in the US, so don't have a connection to any particular school
4) Same reason I don't watch the WNBA, the players just aren't as good as the pros (although the difference is obviously not as big).

 

Good stuff. Watching a lot of film breakdowns from last season it seemed like many plays got blown up because just one guy missed on his assignment. Really the difference between a big play and a busted one. The consistency was lacking, with Jones in particular very inconsistent.