The Pittsburgh Steelers are entering a pivotal 2025 season with a 41-year-old quarterback at the helm. Unfortunately, we still have no idea what this team will be getting out of third-year offensive tackle Broderick Jones. The 2023 first-round pick flashed his potential over his first two seasons, but Jones' play has been riddled with penalties and sloppy mechanics.
Jones is the biggest wild card on this team... and the national media knows it.
Ben Solak of ESPN recently broke down the biggest X-Factor for every NFL team ahead of the 2025 season. For the Steelers, Solak wasted no time labeling Jones as the player on whom everything hinges this year.
"That brings us to [Broderick] Jones," Solak wrote on ESPN. "A 2023 first-rounder, he has spent most of his career at right tackle, as he couldn't unseat veteran Dan Moore Jr. from the left side. The film at right tackle was at times thrilling -- he is a physically gifted player with dominant flashes in the running game -- but often infuriating, filled with mental lapses and poor penalties."
Solak knows that massive improvements must be made from Jones if Rodgers is to have a respectable season in his old age.
"Jones now flips to the left side to replace Moore, and a substantial leap in his pass protection is needed so Rodgers can deliver the final gasp of elite play the Steelers are hoping to draw from him," Solak concluded.
The Pittsburgh Steelers need to get a first-round-caliber performance out of Broderick Jones
I've studied Broderick Jones closely over the summer, and I broke down every offensive rep of Jones on the all-22 film on X. Jones had a quality performance overall, but the concerns still remain in the same areas as before.
Broderick will string together eight or nine excellent reps in a row, but then have a head-scratching, ugly rep that follows. During the preseason, Jones had four or five reps in which he either whiffed on his defender or looked lost in his assignment.
Though the rest of his play was excellent overall, it's these types of ugly reps and mental lapses that could get a quarterback injured or cause an offense to stall out. Jones is back at left tackle this year—something he's rarely done since he's been in the NFL.
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So far, the signs look encouraging. We knew when the Steelers drafted Jones that he was one of the rawest players in the 2023 NFL Draft class. He always required some time and patience to hone in on his craft. But we're now in year three, and we need to start seeing some results.
Jones will get some manageable matchups early in the season against the Jets, Seahawks, and Patriots before getting the ultimate test against players like Myles Garrett and Trey Hendrickson.
There's no doubt Broderick Jones is the biggest X-Factor on the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he needs to prove that he's up to the challenge in 2025.