Steelers Now
PITTSBURGH — Cleveland Browns All-Pro edge rusher Myles Garrett planned on adding Aaron Rodgers to his graveyard, but he ended up recording only two assisted tackles. Left tackle Broderick Jones played a big role in shutting down Garrett, but he felt like it wasn’t a complete game for him.
“It was solid. It was enough to get us out of the stadium, but there’s always trial and tribulations that you got to come through. I feel like I could have played a little bit better,” Jones said on Monday. “Just trying to uphold the standard for me. I feel like I could have played better. At a more consistent level.”
Garrett had just three pressures, no sacks and zero quarterback hits.
Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers was impressed by Jones’ performance against one of the league’s best pass rushers.
“I think he took — hopefully he wasn’t reading it, but I feel like probably there’s some negative — based on the questions I was getting I think Week 3, some negative thoughts out there about how he was playing. I got a lot of confidence in him. I really enjoy his energy,” Rodgers said after Sunday’s 23-9 win. “Sometimes trying to kick him in the ass a little bit in practice to get going, but I like his positivity. You know, he’s always the first one to come celebrate with me on the field. I appreciate that, and I appreciate him rising to the challenge this week. Obviously you’re playing a generational type player like that, there’s not going to be a ton of one-on-ones. We’re going to throw different things at him. I thought we did a good job with the tight ends, variation body types, and running backs out there trying to chip him just to kind of slow him down, but when he had singles, I felt like — I got to look at the film, but it seemed like he played pretty well.”
Jones will have another massive challenge on Thursday night with going up against Cincinnati Bengals All-Pro edge rusher Trey Hendrickson.
“This is the NFL, man. It never gets easy. You got good players every week,” Jones said. “You just got to continue to prepare the right way. We’re going to Cincinnati, an away game. We’re going to their home turf. I know they are going to be fired up. It’s a rivalry game. So we just got to be on it.”
Hendrickson had 3.5 sacks in the Bengals’ Week 17 win over the Steelers last year. All of those sacks came on Dan Moore Jr., however.
“I never really went against Trey like that. I had a couple plays against him, but not enough,” Jones said. “The right and left is different. Now that I’m on the left side, we shall see on Thursday.
Jones knows he’ll have his hands full with Hendrickson.
“He’s just a relentless player. He never stops,” Jones said. “He has a motor about him. He has a deep bag...
