D.J. Jones
Denver BroncosModel Score
How good he is at what he is supposed to be doing, out of 100. Not a projection of what he will do next, and not a read on his contract. Median is about 70, and a 95 is rare. How it is built →
Season Stats · 16 games
Draft & College
He went about where consensus had him.
Covers the college seasons in our data, which does not always reach back to a player's first year.
Comps
STM Take
Tier 8 (#58) in 2024 to tier 3 (#24) bounce-back in 2025 is a 34-spot one-year jump that confirms the structural ceiling is still reachable late in Jones's chapter. The Ole Miss SEC 6th-round origin plus nine years of NFL survival give him the rare journeyman late-career résumé. The 2026 question is whether Jones holds tier 4 or better at age 30 or whether the structural late-career decline reasserts.
Jones came out of Ole Miss as the San Francisco 49ers' 6th-round pick (198th overall) in 2017 and spent five years in San Francisco before signing with the Denver Broncos in 2022 free agency. His STTM career runs tier 4 (#29) in 2021 with the 49ers, tier 7 (#51) in 2022 first Broncos year, tier 6 (#44) in 2023, tier 8 (#58) in 2024, and tier 3 (#24) bounce-back in 2025.
Strengths
- Tier 3 (#24) bounce-back at age 30 confirms a top-25 IDL ceiling exists when the Vance Joseph scheme aligns.
- Nine years of NFL survival across two systems as a 6th-round pick gives him real veteran journeyman value.
Concerns
- Career STTM volatility (tier 4 in 2021, tier 6-8 in 2022-2024, tier 3 in 2025) confirms the ceiling is highly scheme-dependent.
- Age 30 plus nine years of interior-line wear puts the late-career structural decline question on every 2026 projection.
What to watch: Whether Jones holds tier 4 or better in 2026 with continued Broncos scheme stability, the threshold for confirming the 2025 bounce-back was structural.