I'd just mentioned to James Daniels that the Steelers might have one hell of an offensive line for the 2023 NFL season.
He's not a man of many words. He's big on blocking, not so much on bloviating. And befitting that, he rose up at his stall, glanced over to the row of 300-pound-plus boys to his right, and widened his eyes to match his smile.
"Oh, I know," he'd say through that. "I mean, look at this."
Yeah, look at it. I did that. Both right then and for the better part of the two previous hours Tuesday morning, when the team took to the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex fields for the opening of OTAs.
And ... mm-hm. That's where all this is headed. Through it. Around it. Over it. But most emphatically, forward.
"There's a lot here, man," as Mason Cole would tell me. "It's pretty obvious what management wanted to do here ... and that they went out and did it."
From Cole in the middle to Daniels and Chuks Okorafor to his right, it's the same line that pushed forward to average 146.4 rushing yards over the team's 7-2 finish to the 2022 season will be back. And at the other two spots will be Broderick Jones, the No. 14 overall pick in the NFL Draft a month ago, and Isaac Seumalo, a veteran who was just called "the best guard in the league" by the great Jason Kelce, his old center in Philadelphia.
But even that's not it. Because the obvious and most immediate reverberation of adding Jones and Seumalo is that the starting left side of Kevin Dotson and Dan Moore Jr., full-time starters the past two seasons, suddenly would be relegated to backup roles. Which could mean more depth than the room's had in far too long, especially if one or both, as expected, eventually migrates to add other positions for versatility.
Or ... not?
I spent extensive time Tuesday with Moore and Dotson, separately, and their sentiments seemed similar: Both believe they were improving. Both believe they were part of the line's second-half surge. And both believe they've got futures in the NFL as starters, if not here then with one of the league's 31 other franchises.
In the two-hour practice session on this day, as confirmed by both, Moore was the first-team left tackle, Dotson the second-team left guard, though even Moore's status shouldn't be weighed much since it'd be highly uncommon for a rookie to open OTAs as a starter.
I asked Dotson, flat-out, if he's mad about what happened:
"I'm not really mad, man," he'd come right back. "It's just part of the game, right? There's nothing I can do about it. So there's no reason to worry about it. I feel like I can change the ... if I go somewhere else or if I stay here, I feel like I'll get my opportunity enough to do something."
If that sounds like he'd embrace the opportunity to start, regardless of uniform, I'd say that's an affirmative. That doesn't make him a malcontent. That doesn't make him a bad human. But it might not ultimately be seen as an ideal scenario for all concerned.
Dotson further suggested that the communication around the time of the acquisitions of Seumalo and another free-agent signee at guard, Nate Herbig, might not have gone as he'd have preferred.
When the season ended, he recalled, he was told by the coaches -- he didn't specify -- that they were satisfied with his progress and that the main focus for improvement should be cutting down his team-high 12 penalties: Four false starts, four holdings, three ineligible downfields, one unnecessary roughness.
"The penalties were the only thing where they wanted me to do better on," Dotson said. "But they didn't give me any inkling on, 'Hey, we're going to go find somebody else.' "
On March 14, Herbig was signed.
"They called me when they signed Nate," Dotson recalled, referring to offensive line coach Pat Meyer. "And it was, like, 'Yeah, don't worry about it. We just need depth, and it'll be a competition,' and stuff like that. And at, like, 11:30, they signed Isaac."
That didn't become publicly known until March 18, four days later.
"And then, nobody called me after that. So I don't think even they knew. Our coaches didn't know. I don't know if I just missed a call or what, so ..."
He shrugged his big shoulders with that.
I followed up by asking if he's been told whether he might be backing up at both left and right guard, as is common with second-stringers.
"They haven't really told me anything specifically for me, like what they want me to do," he'd reply. "I'm just waiting for that information. If I'm not starting in a spot, I'm going to assume they'll want me to do both."
And no problem with that?
"I mean, I'm gonna do whatever I can. I know I could play both."
Moore wasn't quite as direct in our talk, but trust me, he sees the scenario the same way:
"You know, you've got to control what you control," he replied. "What's done is done, and you've got to treat it with a professional approach every single day. I've been here, working hard and just trying to get better every single day."
He hasn't been informed, either, as to what his future might hold here.
Talking to all of these linemen about how all this unfolded, the one name that arose more than any other was that of Andy Weidl, the assistant general manager under Omar Khan who'd come over from Philadelphia, where the Eagles had built one of the NFL's most massive, smartest and deepest offensive lines. And where, by the way, Seumalo and Herbig had been part of that.
No one came close to criticizing Weidl, mind you. Rather, they just expressed an awareness of how all this arose, as well as why Meyer and other coaches might not have been party to it.
And that's where this kinda swings full circle, as I see it.
Because no one came close to criticizing the moves themselves, either. Cole described Jones as "a great young kid with a world of potential, which is why he was picked where he was." Moore spoke of the additions, "It's definitely a very good group. Obviously, with the changes that we've had, I think we can all see what we're trying to build up front." And from Dotson, just on Seumalo, "They went out and got themselves one of the best guards in the NFL."
Who knows how it'll unfold? And when?
The attitude Dotson and Moore will adopt, as both told me, is that they'll give everything to every assignment. If that means they play in Pittsburgh under a certain circumstance, so be it. If that means someone else sees the film and they end up playing elsewhere, then that'll be it.
In the meantime, there was Jones, planted in a stall right between the two, separated only by the COVID-era plexiglass that's still in place, palpably focused on his own future.
"I'm happy to be here, I'm happy to be learning, and I really like the guys," the kid would tell me after I was done with the other two. "I know we've got a lot of talent here."
No doubt. And that's where I fall on this.
Look, I've liked Moore and Dotson, and I was among those who felt they'd been as responsible as anyone on the line for the 7-2 second half, just as I was among those who took seriously all the positives I'd been picking up about them from within South Water Street. But I'm hardly about to question additions that, at the moment, appear to be upgrades at two vital positions. Not with Kenny Pickett entering his first full year as starter. Not with Najee Harris needing to run for 1,500 yards. Not with a Matt Canada-hamstrung passing game needing all the time it can get to create offense.
It's never bad to get better. The rest tends to play itself out to everyone's benefit.