Editor’s note: From now until the first practice of training camp at Saint Vincent College, TribLive will be running through the Pittsburgh Steelers 90-man roster, looking at each player and evaluating their prospects for the 2024 season. We will analyze at least two players each day, in alphabetical order, from June 14 through July 25. Contract data provided by spotrac.com.
OT Troy Fautane
Experience/Age: Rookie, 23 years old
Contract status: The salary cap for 2024 is $2.74 million, and he is under contract through 2027 with a team option for 2028.
past: Named the Pac-12 Offensive Lineman of the Year and a third-team AP All-American, Fautanu was a key part of Washington’s offensive line that led the way to the College Football Playoff National Championship. He was a starter as a redshirt junior last season and has made 29 of his 31 career starts at left tackle (the other two at guard). The 6-foot-4, 317-pound Fautanu was one of the highest-rated offensive linemen available in this spring’s draft. The Steelers selected him 20th overall.Number The sixth tackle was selected overall.
Fautanu, a native of Henderson, Nevada, spent five years at Washington and was rated the fifth-best pass-blocking tackle in the country by Pro Football Focus last season.
Steelers first-round pick Troy Fautanu shares his thoughts on going from Pac-12 practice to his first NFL practice pic.twitter.com/5ZpU7QfR4m
— Chris Adamski (@C_AdamskiTrib) May 22, 2024
Outlook 2024: While some in the draft analysis community projected Fautanu as a guard (or even center) in the NFL, the Steelers quickly latched on to using him at tackle. He spent his first summer with the team and minicamp there, being assigned to the second-team right tackle position behind returning starter Broderick Jones. This is interesting, of course, because Jones was the Steelers’ first-round pick last year, and he served as a backup throughout his rookie summer, the preseason and the first half of the regular season before replacing Chucks Okorafor at right tackle late in the season.
The Steelers signed Dan Moore at left tackle on a three-year contract this summer, and of course, with Moore in the final year of his contract and the Steelers having drafted a tackle in the first round for the second straight year, some combination of Fautanu and Jones would make sense as a long-term plan.
Jones is generally thought of as a better fit on the left side, while the general consensus on Fautanu is that he’s best suited at right tackle. Washington had a left-handed quarterback, so Fautanu played in a right tackle-like role on the left side the past two seasons.
A lot of attention will be focused throughout camp and preseason on whether Fautanu will be promoted to the first team or if he or Jones will move to the left wing, but there’s no question that Fautanu is viewed as a long-time starter for the Steelers.
Chris Adamski is a reporter for TribLive who has covered the Pittsburgh Steelers primarily since 2014, after spending two seasons as Penn State’s football reporter. The western Pennsylvania native joined the Trib in 2012 after covering Pittsburgh sports for other media outlets for 10 years. He can be reached at cadamski@triblive.com.
