The Miami Dolphins’ roster is full of talented players that can impact a game each week.
With so much talent, there are a few players that could be considered “secret weapons,” but Bleacher Report’s Gary Davenport was able to limit it to just one, as he listed safety Brandon Jones as the team’s “best-kept secret.”
Jones finished the 2021 season, his second in the NFL, as one of the best pass rushers from the safety position. His jump from playing 37% of Miami’s defensive snaps as a rookie to 64% the next year allowed to blitz 69 times and record 14 quarterback pressures.
While the former Texas Longhorn has made it clear that he wants to be known as more than a blitzing safety, the skill is his best attribute at the moment. Pro Football Focus gave Jones a 77.6 pass-rush grade in 2021, putting him 10th among all qualified safeties.
Here’s what Davenport wrote about Jones:
The fact Miami Dolphins made one of the biggest splash moves of the offseason in trading for star wideout Tyreek Hill is hardly a secret. But there’s another fact about the Dolphins that many casual fans don’t realize—Miami has quietly gone about putting together a stout defense to go along with that new offensive firepower.
And box safety Brandon Jones is an underrated component of that defense.
In addition to amassing 79 total tackles last year and adding an interception, Jones tallied five sacks. That number ranked fourth on the Dolphins, but it led every defensive back in the entire National Football League.
Jones may have already established himself as one of the best blitzing safeties in the league, but he told reporters at OTAs that his goal in 2022 is to become known as a more complete safety.
“My goal is to obviously kind of branch away from being labeled as this guy can only blitz, this guy can’t cover, this guy can’t do this,” Jones said. “Just trying to be and find the best way for me that I could be well rounded.”
Even if Jones achieves that goal, it isn’t likely that he would receive the sort of press as Jamal Adams of the Seahawks or Derwin James of the Chargers.
But he could have a similar impact for Miami—for a fraction of Adams’ salary.
