NFL Analysis
3/10/25
7 min read
Titans Sign Dan Moore to $82M Deal: A Risky but Necessary Move?
The Titans signed Dan Moore to a 4-year, $82M deal with $50M guaranteed in their latest attempt to secure league-average tackle play. This contract makes him the ninth highest paid tackle in the NFL, slotted in between Lane Johnson and Jordan Mailata. Moore was one of the worst starting tackles in the league in his first three seasons with Pittsburgh, but in 2024 he improved to average. This is a band-aid solution for Tennessee, but was probably their best option if they wanted to address the position in free agency. Having scouted the 2025 tackle class, I don’t necessarily blame them for taking that route.
PASS BLOCKING
Dan Moore allowed twelve sacks in 2024, most among NFL offensive linemen. His 7.1% pressure rate allowed ranked 145th out of 161 qualifying starters, per TruMedia. It’s important to note that he faced a very tough slate of pass rushers, including two matchups against Myles Garrett and Trey Hendrickson. Five of his twelve sacks came against those two players.
Moore is a solid athlete with good size and length. In the pre-draft process he measured in at 6055/311 with 34.5-inch arms and posted an 8.98 RAS score.
He’s explosive out of his stance and has adequate range to reach his set points on time. Moore has good play strength and significantly improved his anchor from 2023 to 2024. He has heavy hands and flashes of advanced technique, but his placement and timing is sloppy overall. If he can refine his hand usage under Bill Callahan’s coaching, there’s definitely some untapped potential as a pass blocker. His awareness and communication in pass protection are below average and he allowed some pressures due to late recognition of stunts and twists.
SPEED
Against average to below average pass rushers he was usually able to get enough depth to protect the corner:
His foot speed is just adequate, however, and he will lose the edge to better speed rushers. He’s often able to match the rusher’s initial burst, but lacks the recovery athleticism to expand his set point later in the play, which causes him to get cornered eventually. He also doesn’t have a very firm outside hand, so his punch can get knocked down by chops and swipes:
Moore gets influenced out of position by inside fakes, which creates a short corner that he struggles to recapture. On these reps, Josh Sweat and Trey Hendrickson use a euro-step to threaten the B-gap and cause Moore to stop his feet. Once they transition to a cross-chop, he’s unable to gear back up and get enough depth:
HAND USAGE
Moore’s hands are imprecise, but powerful. He has a bad habit of punching too wide, which allows the rusher to access his frame. He also occasionally lunges into his punch and gets beat around the edge.
One of the most impressive aspects of his pass blocking tape, however, was his inside hand punch. Moore frequently strikes first with his inside, which is an effective method for tackles without elite pocket range to counter speed rushers. On these reps Moore deploys an inside hand punch against a cross-chop, which allows him to:
1. Make first contact and stall the rusher’s momentum
2. Widen the rusher’s path so that the cross-chop is less likely to land accurately
3. Keep his outside hand unoccupied to clamp his opponent on the downswing of his move
Here you can see Moore’s hand pop to stab Jalyx Hunt and stop him in his tracks as he attempts to cross his face:
INSIDE COUNTERS
Every technique has a drawback, however, and while the inside hand punch is a safe and effective strategy against speed rushers, it leaves him vulnerable against inside counters. Punching aggressively with his right hand and opening his hips to the outside leaves Moore with very little recourse if the rusher decides to crossover into the B-gap. These plays show the dangers of over-committing to an inside hand punch and leaving too much space for a counter:
Even on plays where he’s taking a 45-degree set and staying square with his opponent, Moore had severe issues mirroring inside counters. His reaction time, fluidity, and inside hand strength are below average and this was by far his biggest vulnerability in pass protection:
ANCHOR
After being a liability for most of his career, Dan Moore’s anchor was significantly better in 2024. This was the improvement that took him from nearly unplayable to mediocre. His strike power allows him to neutralize his opponent’s burst off the snap and he has good play strength and lower-half flexibility to sink his hips and absorb a bull rush without getting displaced too far back into the pocket:
He still lost to power a few times in 2024, but most of these lapses were due to late or inaccurate hands. When rushers were able to make first contact he occasionally got driven backwards by a long-arm:
Moore sometimes uses a snatch-trap to counter power rushers and would benefit from deploying this technique more frequently when his opponent makes first contact and over-extends:
Overall, Moore’s anchor is a strength of his game and firmly above average compared to other starting tackles.
RUN BLOCKING
While he has the necessary size and athletic traits, Moore is not a very effective run blocker. Tennessee’s right guard is still pending, but all four of their known offensive line starters are better in pass protection than they are in the run game.
Moore is quick, explosive, and powerful, so he’s capable of driving defenders off the line of scrimmage when he’s connected and centered to his target. He’s particularly effective on double teams and combos, where his opponent isn’t engaging with him directly:
But he lacks precision into his block fits and is very easy to shed in isolated matchups. He doesn’t initiate contact with much authority and lacks the refined hand usage to win early control of the interaction. While he’s athletic enough to reach his landmarks as a zone blocker, he struggles to sustain blocks and doesn’t do much more than get in the defender’s way:
It’s a similar story when it comes to second level blocks. Moore has the range to get out in space as a puller or climb to targets at the second level, but he has a very poor connect rate once he reaches his target:
CONCLUSION
Dan Moore will likely be one of the worst starting tackles in the NFL, but there is a significant gap between the worst tackle and the ∼50th best tackle. The results can be volatile when a player switches teams and giving someone $50M guaranteed can negatively affect their effort and work ethic, but purely based on his 2024 tape, Dan Moore is a legitimate upgrade to Nicholas Petit-Frere.
While I don’t think Moore is a particularly good player, I have no problem with the signing. Unless Tennessee decided to take Armand Membou at the top of the draft, they didn’t have any better options to upgrade at tackle. This is the unfortunate reality they have to deal with because they missed on Isaiah Wilson, Dillon Radunz, and Nicholas Petit-Frere.
This is how I would rate Dan Moore’s individual skills on a 0-100 scale. I consider 50 as “adequate” relative to starting NFL tackles. Anything above 70 is “good” and anything below 30 is “poor”:
For the sake of comparison, here is how I would rate JC Latham:
