How Josh Jones Became the Jaguars' Surprising Defensive Starter

Ronnie Harrison is gone, so Josh Jones will now be tasked with taking his place after a rough few first years in the NFL.

Entering the Jacksonville Jaguars 2020 training camp, one would be hard-pressed to find many indications that the Jacksonville Jaguars starting strong safety position would not once again be held by 2018 third-rounder Ronnie Harrison. 

But last week, the Jaguars turned that perception upside down by making the surprising move to trade Harrison to the Cleveland Browns for a 2020 fifth-round selection. The move came as a surprise due to Harrison's youth, talent, experience as a starter and some leaps he had taken in 2019. 

But the Jaguars felt comfortable in shaking up their starting secondary due to the presence of one player who had up to this point gone completely unnoticed: fourth-year veteran Josh Jones, who had been considered an NFL Draft bust after three rough years in the league since being made a second-round pick by the Green Bay Packers in 2017.

After just two years and 12 starts with the Packers, Jones was released before the 2019 season began and would eventually sign with the Dallas Cowboys, where he would appear in six games. Jones quietly joined the Jaguars on Dec. 31 after being claimed on waivers, and it is there that his ascension to starting safety began. 

“I think that early on a lot of stuff starts with these players really after the season. You don’t have a lot of contact with them but when they contact you and they’re like, ‘Hey listen, can I get this? Can I get that? This is what I’m planning to do,'" Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone said on Monday. 

"We’ve talked a lot about that about Josh Allen, about where he was mentally afterwards and how he wanted to do more. Josh [Jones] was a guy that was on our team and [we] really didn’t know a lot about him and then after the season he was kind of in that same role that Josh Allen had., meaning, ‘Hey, let me get this stuff. Let me look at it. Let’s go.’"

Due to limited game tape at the NFL level, and the fact that there was no real offseason work on the field due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jaguars didn't know exactly what they would be getting from Jones on the field. But once the team began the grind toward Week 1, Marrone and his staff quickly noticed he was a player who was beginning to stand out.

"I’ve had a lot of talks with Josh Jones over the past couple of weeks in training camp," Marrone said Monday. "When we’re looking to get down to numbers early on, when we’re going from 90 to 80, I really didn’t know where a lot of these players were, and Josh just stood out right off the bat."

Marrone would go on to note that when the team entered the offseason, the safety spot wasn't exactly a position they were looking to make massive changes to. They had brought in plenty of depth, but Harrison and fellow 2019 started Jarrod Wilson were presumed by most to be entrenched as starters in the backend of the defense. 

But Jones had a strong training camp, earning more and more reps with the starting defense as August marched on. Eventually, the Jaguars would know they had to give him a fair chance to find a role. 

"So all of a sudden you’re coming in there and you’re not looking to move the chart, as far as the depth chart or getting guys reps, and he came back with knowledge and enthusiasm and being in the right position and making plays from the first day walking into the building," Marrone said. 

"I didn’t really want to mess up the depth chart too much early on, but I was like, ‘Shoot, we have to see more. We’ve got to see more. We’ve got to give this guy an opportunity.’ I think every time we had given him an opportunity, he showed up big, he really did. He took advantage of it. A lot of times players that maybe bounce around a little bit or something, I don’t want to put words in Josh’s mouth, but sometimes you’re like, ‘Hey, this is it. This is the last opportunity for me,’ and I think that might have played into his mindset after the season last year."

After enough solid play in camp, Jones launched himself above Harrison in a three-way competition for the starting safety job that also included rookie safety Daniel Thomas. Jones showed the Jaguars much of what he showed at NC State that helped him become a second-round pick and, as a result, he became the surprise starter for this year's Jaguars defense. 

"Josh has had a tremendous camp. He’s a guy that can play both in the backend and play up close to the box. He’s big. He’s got very good play speed and he’s long, like Ronnie is, and he can cover half the field, so we felt really good about him," general manager Dave Caldwell said last Saturday. 

Jones was not seen by most as a candidate to enter the 2020 season as a starter, but he did enough to convince the Jaguars to give him a chance in 2020. It is Jones' third chance in the NFL, but it just may be his best one yet.