Jones passing along knowledge to Steelers’ rookies
The second-year offensive lineman is sharing the wisdom he picked up in his first NFL season.
Broderick Jones has been mentoring fellow first-rounder Troy Fautanu this spring, which is ironic for a couple reasons:
• Although each tackle is 23 years old, Jones is seven months younger than Fautanu.
• Spanning the past three seasons of competitive football, Jones has started one fewer game than Fautanu.
But because Jones left school early and joined the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2023 as a first-round pick and Fautanu spent five seasons in school, Jones has the year of NFL experience that makes him the elder statesman.
Same scenario for rookie linemen Zach Frazier and Mason McCormick. Frazier is just three months younger than Jones, but McCormick is a full year older having just turned 24.
“It’s kind of crazy because they look at me for support,” Jones said last week after the Steelers concluded organized team activities. “I was just in their shoes last year. I try to help out as much as I can, and they are doing great.”
Jones is doing his part to ease the learning curve for the rookies, and his efforts have not gone unnoticed by the player whose position Jones will take one day.
“I like how he’s leading, how he’s helping out the younger guys,” left tackle Dan Moore Jr said. “He’s helping Zach in meetings by sitting next to him, helping Troy after practice. It’s cool to just see a young guy who I was helping last year transition into a leader and now helping that younger guy.
“That’s what it’s all about.” Jones can empathize with Fautanu perhaps more than the rookie interior linemen. Fautanu is being deployed at right tackle after starting 29 of his 31 games at Washington at left tackle. Jones made each of his 19 career starts at Georgia at left tackle but started 10 of his 11 games as a rookie on the right side.
In spring workouts, Jones has taken most first-team reps at right tackle with Fautanu working primarily with the second team. It’s a routine that could continue in practice until the Steelers move Jones back to left tackle.
Jones is impressed with how Fautanu has handled the transition.
“He can be whatever he wants to be,” he said. “He has the ability, he has the size, he has the talent. It’s all about what he is comfortable with. If he’s not comfortable playing right … it takes repetition, takes time, takes patience. For him to get in here, learn as much as he can without overthinking things, he’ll be all right.
“He’s a good player, he listens well. He understands football. I feel like he’ll be OK in the long run.”
The Steelers believe Jones will be OK in the long run as well when he inevitably replaces Moore. Jones is accustomed to facing questions about their roles on the offense line but has shown maturity in the way he has handled it.
“We don’t look at it as a competition between us,” Jones said. “I feel like that is one of our best qualities. As offensive tackles, we help each other out as much as possible. Me and Dan hang out all the time. He comes over to my house, and we hang out. Yeah, we know it’s a competition, and everybody knows it’s a competition — coach lets us know it’s a competition — but at the end of the day I don’t feel like it is or look at it like that.
“There is no bad blood between anybody.”
Jones would prefer to place his focus on helping the trio of rookie linemen avoid the pitfalls he encountered last season. Viewed as a raw prospect when he left Georgia, Jones began the season as a backup to Moore and didn’t get a full-time starting job — out of position — until veteran right tackle Chuks Okorafor was benched in Week 9.
Jones said he has talked to the rookies about “everything all the way down from how you set, the footwork to the hand placement.”
“There are a lot of different things you have to learn when you get to the next level,” he said. “You have to take your time with it. You can’t rush through it. You have to focus on one thing, lock in with it and make it one of your biggest assets. You can’t do one thing and try to jump to the next one the next day when you haven’t learned the first one.
“That’s what I did last year. I tried to rush things and hurry up and get through it. I hope it helps, and they grow from it.”
Another word of advice from Jones to his peers: don’t think that you will dominate one-on-one matchups like you did in college.
“It’s not going to be all peaches and cream,” he said. “You’re going to get beat. You’re going to lose. You have to adjust and get back in there.”
As much as Moore appreciates Jones’ newfound leadership role, he is doing his best to keep the second-year tackle in check.
“We’re still going to tell him what to do because he needs it,” Moore said. “But he’s got some experience now. He knows he’s going to have to step up into a bigger role this year.”
