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Miami’s roster received an infusion of veteran and young talent this offseason, and perhaps the biggest addition was Byron Jones, the top available cornerback on the market. Miami will be able to line him up across from Xavien Howard and immediately boast one of (if not the) top cornerback tandems in the NFL.
In talking with Dave Halprin, managing editor of Blogging the Boys, this offseason about Jones, I asked him about Jones’ glaring lack of interceptions. His response kind of met my question, in that it is a strange phenomenon:
We’ve been trying to figure that out ourselves. The Cowboys secondary has failed to create turnovers and Jones has been a part of that. As for why, it’s hard to say. There’s been theories about coaching, about the Cowboys style of defense, the failure of the pass rush, some combination of all that. I can’t really give you an exact answer. Some guys just see the ball better and get after it, and are more of risk-takers. Jones may just be on the conservative side of that scale.
To the extent the issue was opportunities, I think those will come more Jones’ way playing in Miami. Yes, Dallas actually played a lot of aggressive man, single high safety during his time there, but he never had Xavien Howard covering the other side of the field. As such, I think there’s a solid chance that, for the first time in his career, we’ll see Jones pull down multiple interceptions in a season.
The over/under numbers for Jones are: 75 total tackles, 3 tackles for loss, 11 passes defended, 3 interceptions.