Dallas Cowboys 2015 first-round pick Byron Jones joins a secondary with a plethora of holes. Cornerback Brandon Carr played well below his reputation last year, while former first-rounder Morris Claiborne saw his season end early due to injuries yet again. Safeties Barry Church and J.J. Wilcox formed one of the less effective defensive back tandems in the NFL. All together, Dallas' defense ranked 26th against the pass in 2014, allowing 251.9 yards per game through the air and a 66.5 completion percentage to opposing quarterbacks. The Cowboys also tied for the third most completions of 40 or more yards.
Jones isn't expected to fix all of that, but he is expected to help in multiple areas due to his versatility. During Monday's practice, the young DB lined up at three different spots on three consecutive plays. First, he covered the tight end in the dime defense. Next, he played off the line of scrimmage as a free safety. Finally, he took his post as the outside cornerback.
"Honestly, it's exciting," Jones said via ESPN. "It's cool because whenever they move me around I feel like they're challenging me, like they're saying, 'Hey, Byron, let's see what you got? Can you play the nickel? Can you play the dime? Can you play safety? Can you play corner? All in one practice, so I accept the challenge."
The challenge extends beyond just defense as well. Jones has been working with every special teams' unit throughout training camp. Earlier this week, special team coordinator Rich Bisaccia tried to trip Jones up with different looks and responsibilities. It didn't work.
While Jones' versatility is an impressive trait, the Cowboys know they have to be careful about giving him too much to think about.
"The worst thing you can do is overload a guy and he never gets comfortable at any of the things that you're asking him to do," head coach Jason Garrett said. "So we've tried to be methodical in our approach with him, started at corner, got him settled and acclimated a little bit there and then we moved him to safety. After that, we gave him a chance to play some nickel. So he's been doing this all through the spring. At any point if we didn't think he could handle it, we'd back off and say, 'Let's just stick with this.' We've done that with other players. But you want to see what they're capable of doing. It's about him but it's also about our football team. We're trying to get the best guys out there. We really feel good about his talent and potential to be a good player for us."
So far, so good. Jones appears to be taking it all in stride and impressing coaches along the way. He should be an immediate impact player for a Cowboys defense that sorely needs one.
