Steelers Film Room: Dan Moore Played Much Better Than Believed vs Colts
Dan Moore Jr. proved in Week 12 that it's not always about how you start but instead how you finish. The Pittsburgh Steelers' second-year left tackle's night got off on the wrong foot, to say the least.
On the first drive of the game, he picked up a holding penalty, one that essentially killed the drive in its tracks. The second drive featured him allowing a sack that was quickly followed by a three-and-out despite great starting field position.
If you were on Twitter in the first quarter, fans were certainly vocal about voicing their displeasure over his play. To their point, he had earned the criticism. Surely some of that frustration rolled over from last week, where he allowed two sacks and a league-high eight pressures in Week 11 to Cincinnati Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson. This felt like we were getting pretty close to rock bottom.
Except it wasn't rock bottom as Moore picked himself off of the mat and began fighting and winning essentially every rep. 25 reps would follow after that first quarter sack allowed and not only did the Texas A&M product not allow another sack, he didn't even allow another pressure.
As the starting left tackle, you are responsible for the personal blind side protection of the quarterback and Moore's protecting who the Steelers believe is the true heir apparent to Ben Roethlisberger in Pickett. Yannick Ngakoue, like his opponent Trey Hendrickson last week, is a pretty good player that's racked up 64 sacks in his eight-year career. Ngakoue has a patented superman cross-chop move that he's been abusing pass blockers with for the entirety of his NFL career. Albeit undersized, he's an overall good athlete with inside counters at his disposal, and as Moore quickly found out, he can also convert speed to power as well.
In the first quarter, Ngakoue was able to get to Kenny Pickett mainly because Moore missed his first inside punch. The example below showcases poor hand placement, as you can see his right hand above Ngakoue's shoulder pad and on his the side of his helmet.
Ngakoue was then able to use good pad level, get low and convert speed to power to run right through Moore's chest. You can see Moore struggling a bit to transition to his anchor which has been his overwhelming weakness throughout his young career.
Ngakoue is a difficult rusher to prepare for because of his exaggerated movements and unique play style, there simply aren't a ton of pass rushers that look or play like him even if his signature move is one that many edge rushers emulate today.
But from that point on, Moore turned it up a notch and was essentially lights out the rest of the way. He was displaying independent hand usage after using different sets to throw off the timing of pass rushers. When facing a guy like Ngakoue, it's important to demonstrate "light" hands to avoid lunging while preferably leading with your inside hand first to make that first significant contact which will hopefully throw off the rhythm, and timing of the cross-chop specifically.
Mixing up your sets against more technical pass rushers is key because it throws off their footwork.
In the ten-play cutup below, you can get a glimpse of just how unbelievably well Moore played from the moment he gave up the sack until the end of the game.
Moore corrected his earlier mistake and was nearly flawless from that point forward. After the second drive, I only saw one rep that he "lost" and that was because he tried a two-hand punch which was down the midline of Ngakoue and Moore allowed him to win the corner before running him up the arc. He was also using snatch/trap techniques to counter long arms from the Colts' pass rushers and was able to get his man on the ground multiple times.
While obviously not the focal point of this article, Moore was also a beast in the run game.
The Steelers' signature run concept these days under new offensive line coach Pat Meyer is split flow inside zone and Moore was huge in boosting several of their better run plays. Pittsburgh continued to run behind him on the way to a massive 172-yard night. He had a couple of highlight-worthy plays, including key blocks on both of the Steelers' touchdown runs against the Colts.
Moore's second season as the Steelers' starting left tackle has been very up and down, much like his rookie season was when he was essentially learning on the fly. I would still argue that as a day three selection in the NFL Draft, Moore has outplayed his draft slot seeing as he's been serviceable more often than not. The numbers still aren't great; only two tackles have allowed more sacks than he has on the season with six. He's also top ten in pressures allowed, according to Pro Football Focus.
It's obvious that we need to see this level of play more consistently before we begin to get incredibly excited about Moore being Pickett's blindside protector. However, we must give credit where it's due. A lot of young players would have crumbled both physically and mentally after that many quarters of bad play. Instead, we saw Moore play arguably the best football of his career.
For a rebuilding team trying to figure out which pieces are going to be a part of the foundation moving forward, these flashes are insanely important to pay attention to.
Those flashes need to start becoming more consistent to quiet all of the fans clamoring for a left tackle in round one of next year's NFL Draft, but Moore might not be the finished product that many have insinuated that he is.
Even in the event that Pittsburgh does elect to upgrade the position, the experience he's gained over the past two seasons will prove invaluable as he slides into a potential depth role. But for now, he's currently staring at a six-game audition for next season, and if he can keep #8 off of the turf a bit more, he just might hang on to this job a little longer.
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