He fits the defense well, with the Denver Broncos morphing more towards Vance Joseph’s philosophy, as a physical downhill safety who can rush the passer and impact the run game at a high level.

Over the two seasons he played a majority of Miami’s defensive snaps, he tallied seven sacks, 12 quarterback hits, and seven additional tackles for loss.

That nose for splash plays shows up elsewhere too, with Jones generating two interceptions and deflecting four passes in coverage, while also playing part in two takeaways on fumbles.

The big concern with the signing is how little Jones has played.

The University of Texas product has only had those two seasons playing a majority of Miami’s defensive snaps and the only season he was a truly unquestioned starter ended with an ACL tear.

With his return from injury and nagging lower-body issues in training camp last season, he was slow to become involved in Vic Fangio’s defense, and, with his play style not being coveted by Fangio, he eventually faded into a tertiary role in Miami’s defense.

The fact the Denver Broncos are replacing the prototypical Fangio safety with a safety that was just phased out by Fangio’s defense is extremely telling about their plans at the position moving forward.

Fangio didn’t completely snuff out Jones’ fire though. When the Dolphins were in a man coverage look, Jones dropped back into coverage at the eighth-lowest rate among safeties, per PFF (min. 200 coverage snaps). Interestingly, Jones dropped back into coverage 100% of the time when Miami was in a zone look.

The latter might be a Fangio trope, as teammate Deshon Elliott also spent 100% of his zone snaps in coverage, but the former appears to be an indicator of usage.

In 2022, under an entirely different defensive scheme, in man-coverage looks Jones had the lowest rate of dropping into coverage among all qualifying safeties, and ranked 69th out of 95 qualifying safeties in terms of dropping back in zone looks.

That usage is more a compliment to the havoc he can cause, than an insult.