The Pittsburgh Steelers haven’t gotten the level of play they’ve expected out of OT Broderick Jones after taking him in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft, but the team is hoping a move to left tackle will spark Jones in 2025. During an appearance on The Mina Kimes Show, NFL Media’s Gregg Rosenthal called Jones Pittsburgh’s X factor for several reasons.
“He’s moving to left tackle, and there’s no backup plan if he doesn’t work. I don’t think the feeling last year was that he looked particularly good at right tackle,” Rosenthal said. “On paper, the offensive line could be really good if he plays well. That’s the part that I think Steelers fans have to be excited about, that they have a good, potentially very good, young offensive line if Broderick Jones comes through.”
The Steelers’ offensive line depth as a whole is thin, and that’s one of their major worries heading into 2025. Behind Jones and Troy Fautanu at tackle, the Steelers have Calvin Anderson, who will compete with Dylan Cook and undrafted free agent Gareth Warren to be Pittsburgh’s swing tackle. If Jones struggles, the Steelers are pretty much stuck unless one of those three can surprise.
Jones played left tackle at Georgia, but the majority of his NFL experience has been on the right side, so a move to left tackle isn’t necessarily going to be a cure-all. His NFL career hasn’t been a total bust so far — he showed some flashes as a rookie — but he struggled throughout most of his sophomore campaign last season and there’s legitimate worry that he won’t bounce back this season.
Offensive line play is going to be the key to Pittsburgh’s success this year. Keeping whoever is at quarterback upright is important, but Pittsburgh’s ground game could really excel with Kaleb Johnson and Jaylen Warren in OC Arthur Smith’s zone scheme. The play of Jones and the offensive line as a whole is going to be essential to making the run game work this year, and Jones can’t struggle at the point of attack like he did last season.
With Fautanu coming off a season-ending knee injury that limited him to one game in 2024, there are more questions than answers at the tackle spots for Pittsburgh. But there’s a lot of potential for the line to be good if he and Jones can play well, which is still a real possibility. But Jones has had two full seasons to show that he’s a capable starter, and he hasn’t proven that yet. The 2025 season is going to be an important one for him, and it’s hard to argue he’s not an X factor for the Steelers.
