Steelers Now
Former Pittsburgh Steeles offensive tackle and current New York Jet Chuks Okroafor is listed as questionable for Sunday’s season opener at MetLife Stadium. Okorafor has a hand injury and was limited in practice all week.
Okorafor is depth offensive tackle for the Jets, behind starters Armand Membou and Olu Fashanu.
Okorafor signed a one-year deal with the New York Jets worth $4 million this past March, making his return to the league after a significant absence.
Okorafor had been signed to play with the New England Patriots in 2024, but he left the team after just one game. The Patriots suspended him without pay, and Okorafor ended up sitting out the entire season before New England released him.
Okorafor was released by the Steelers in 2024, two years into a three-year contract extension, in a salary cap-related move. He signed a one-year deal in New England that was worth $4 million, but ended up seeing just over $300,000 of that money.
The 27-year-old native of Ibadan, Nigeria was a third-round pick of the Steelers in the 2018 NFL Draft, and he spent the first six seasons of his career in Pittsburgh. After playing sparingly as a backup in his first two season, he replaced the injured Zach Banner in Week 1 of the 2020 season at right tackle, and held that job for most of four season.
Okorafor was benched by the Steelers in 2023 for comments he made on the sideline during a Steelers loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Okorafor said he was benched for a comment about not wanting to continue to run plays as the team was hopelessly behind the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 8. That ended up being his last action at tackle for the Steelers, outside of a handful of plays as a sixth offensive lineman down the stretch run of the season.
During locker clean-out day after the Steelers’ playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills on Jan. 15, Okorafor seemed resigned to his fate with the team.
**“**If I had known that was going to be the case, I probably wouldn’t have chose to come back here,” he said. “But at that point, there wasn’t anything I could do about it.”
Okorafor said he still believes that he’s a starting-caliber NFL tackle.
“That’s the plan,” he said. “I think I’m young. I feel like I’ve got a lot of ball left in me.”
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Jets Offensive Lineman Could Miss Revenge Game vs. Steelers
