Broderick Jones says the biggest change under Mike McCarthy is simple to describe and hard to absorb: put his hand in the dirt on first and 10 and play more out of a three-point stance. For a fourth-year Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackle who has spent most of his career in a two-point stance, it is a real shift in how he lines up before the ball is snapped.
That change is drawing attention now because Jones is not making it from a clean slate. He is still working his way back from spinal-fusion surgery and trying to add weight so he can get back to a comfortable playing form, which makes every rep in camp and every preseason snap part of the same recovery process. In that setting, the adjustment is not just about technique. It is about whether his body can handle the added demand of playing lower, tighter and more forcefully from the start of the play.
Jones said the idea is not mysterious. McCarthy wants the tackle down in the ground when it is first and 10, and Jones called it a small-detail change that is new for him. He said he has always been out of a two-point stance, so dropping into a three-point stance feels different. The language matters because it points to a broader change in how the Steelers are trying to play: more pad level, more leg drive, more physicality and more nastiness in the run game.
That helps explain why the preseason numbers did not read as encouraging even though Jones said he is loving the physical approach. In three preseason games, he played 140 snaps and finished with a 61.0 overall grade from Pro Football Focus, including a 57.6 mark in the run game and a 59.9 grade as a pass blocker. The workload shows McCarthy is giving him chances to adapt, but the grades suggest the adjustment is still in progress rather than finished.
Jones has already lived through one major football transition. He played for Kirby Smart at Georgia before spending his first three NFL seasons under Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh, and now he is adjusting to McCarthy after the head-coach change. The difference is not only about a new voice. It is about a different point of emphasis on offense, one that asks a lineman recovering from surgery to get lower, add mass and carry more of the contact from the first step.
For Jones, the next step is less about saying he likes the style and more about proving it in live snaps. The Steelers have seen the first version of the change in the preseason. What remains unanswered is how long it will take before the new stance feels as natural to him as the old one.
