Dallas Cowboys 7-Round Mock Draft: Upgrade the attack

Brandon Jones, SAF, Texas

Alas the Cowboys have drafted their first defensive player and at a position of need. But why so late? As a fan of potent passing offenses, I wanted to go grab two awesome receiving threats. Now realizing there is a massive unfilled hole at safety, I decided to select someone who is more of an athlete than a safety.

Great…

I promise this won’t sound as bad as it currently does.

Brandon Jones doesn’t possess the zone coverage instincts you’d expect of a 2 year starter. Lining up all over the field, Jones had to cover different areas of the field and he did it with mixed results.

As a deep safety, he allowed many long completions because his instincts to cover deep routes were lacking. Spot dropping in a shallower zone didn’t result in much difference as he failed to pick up and pass his assignments throughout the zone. Hearing a safety doesn’t hold up well in zone coverage is a big turn off for a lot of people and for good reason. But..

In man coverage, Jones shows a surprising ability to lock down his target. He’d lineup in the slot and he’d be able to successfully follow the receiver and put the receiver out of a position to make a play on the ball. It didn’t matter if Jones lost some footing because of the release, he used his closing speed to make up the lost yards and still make a play on the man.

While this occurred in a small sample size, the consistency with which he covered was still impressive.

However, perhaps the most important thing with Jones is that he is generally a good tackler. Jones, for all the deficiencies in coverage, is technically sound as a tackler. He did appear to miss some tackles but that was a result of incorrect pursuit angles more than technique. (Also not great to hear, but this is a fixable issue)

In addition to the tackling, Jones is a really solid player near the line of scrimmage. He is an effective blitzer and has impressive production recording 14 tackles for loss total in his last three seasons. His blend of speed and strength make him a unique blitzing option for a team that likes to do that.

So how could he fit with the Cowboys?

In this beautifully written piece of the safety position in the new look Dallas defense, fellow draft analyst Dalton Miller discusses how the Cowboys will adopt a two-high safety look to play a quarters style coverage. This means we will see two safeties deep with two corners on the outside running either man, zone, or both depending on how the offense lines up.

This quarters coverage would be the standard coverage in a base, nickel, and dime defense. Unlike base defenses, nickel and dime defenses require extra defensive backs. This is where Jones comes in. Jones’s ability to blitz and play man in the slot could bode well for the Cowboys who were gashed in the slot last year.

The Cowboys were eyeing an All-Pro safety at the trade deadline who possessed the ability to blitz at a high level and cover bigger targets. By no means am I comparing Brandon Jones to Jamal Adams, because Adams’ coverage instincts are tremendous, but Jones would fill a role the Cowboys did look to cover at the trade deadline at a significantly cheaper cost.

Knowing the contributions Jones would provide, does it make sense for the Cowboys to draft a box safety in the third round? Probably not, but if defensive backs coach Maurice Linguist develops this defensive backfield like he did with the backfield at Minnesota and Texas A&M, Jones could see a drastic improvement to his game that would make him an extremely entertaining football player.