What role will Dre’Mont Jones have in Mike Macdonald’s defense?

(Editor’s note: Everyone please welcome Alexandre Castro to the Field Gulls staff! He will be our lead analyst moving forward, all the way from Brazil!)

Last week, Dre’Mont Jones agreed to terms on a restructured contract that freed up cap space for the Seattle Seahawks. The move helped the team and made it increasingly unlikely that he would be cut (although his contract has now become more attractive to other teams in a potential trade).

However, this isn’t Jones’ only change for the 2024 season. The defender has been working out extensively in the offseason and has participated in workouts with the EDGEs during minicamp.

Let’s see how this change can happen!

First things first

Dre’Mont Jones was John Schneider’s most expensive signing, but his 2023 season didn’t live up to expectations. However, I believe this was more due to Seattle’s failure to utilize him properly than the player’s performance.

An example of this was the frequency that Seattle put Jones in 1 and 2-tech alignments. This has made Jones’ life difficult against the run. He’s more of a penetrator/infiltrator than a guy who’s going to demonstrate the anchor to hold double teams.

Jones’ frame is unusual; he was listed last year at 281 pounds. That’s about 20 pounds lighter than the usual 300 pounds for a DT, but it’s also about 25 pounds heavier than what an EDGE normally weighs.

Jones’s two chapters in Seattle

Jones’s season in Seattle can be divided into two parts. From Weeks 1-9, Jones played mostly inside. After that, due to Uchenna Nwosu’s injury and the arrival of Leonard Williams, he started getting snaps in more wide positions like 5T and beyond.

Weeks 1-9

• Snaps as DT: 257
• Snaps as 5T and wider: 97
• Average Run Defense grade: 58.5
• Pressures: 19
• Hits: 5
• Sacks: 2

Weeks 10-18

• Snaps as DT: 31
• Snaps as 5T and wider: 374
• Average Run Defense grade: 64.5
• Pressures: 24
• Hits: 2
• Sacks: 3

We can see significant improvement in both the pass rush and the run game defense. However, we did see Jones’ bad usage in some snaps.

Playing inside, Jones struggled a bit against the strength of the opponents. If he didn’t beat the OL immediately, he would get stuck in the blocks and couldn’t get out. However, he also had too wide snaps and didn’t have enough speed to threaten outside.

The best way to use Jones

In my opinion, the best way to use him is by lining up the defender as a 5T. In this position he has more strength to combat the running game/ability to infiltrate and, standing up, he has a better chance of winning the pass rush, with his burst/raw strength.

Visually, Jones is lighter than the 281 lbs listed last year. However, we don’t yet know how much weight he lost and how much that loss has made him gain burst/agility.

Mike Macdonald’s pressure strategy with the Baltimore Ravens consisted of a lot of creative stunts. I think Jones will add a lot of value by either covering blockers to give his teammates space, as well as looper winning the 1-on-1s and getting in on the pressure himself.

He improvises a stunt and has enough speed to exploit the spaces created on the DL. A player with good vision and processing to execute this play that Macdonald likes so much.

Lining up as a 5T on top of the opponent gives him a better angle of attack on the guard who, needing to respect his speed, ends up falling to the ground and giving up the sack.

As mentioned above, Jones is better at running the ball by infiltrating the ball rather than absorbing blocks. Here’s an example: standing up, he has the speed and ability to get into the backfield to make an immediate tackle.

Jones’ limitations as EDGE

Every pass rusher needs to have a well-established plan. This is a complex topic for a later article, but in short, the player needs to think: “Use move X, if it fails, I’ll use Y to get away.” The lack of such a plan is one of the factors that causes DLs to get stuck in blocks so easily.

Looking inside, Jones’s plan and range of movements were subpar. He simply used power moves like the bull rush. If it worked, great, but it didn’t happen often.

On this play, lining up wider, we see Jones executing much better. He attacks the chest and outside half of the OT, causing him to commit in this way and suddenly attack with an inside move (swim move) to get to the QB.

Jones won’t beat players with speed or getting around the arc. He can win OTs with power and inside moves, so it’s a waste to ask him to get around the arc. In the play above, he comes off the screen and loses all his effectiveness. Jones has a good first step, but he’s not a fast guy.

If you go back a little bit, in Ken Norton Jr’s defense, we saw repeated criticism of the use of dropping DLs in coverage. I can already tell you that this must be something Coach Mike Macdonald uses frequently, but they should guard the short passing zones and not in more complex coverage situations.

For example, it is not common, but it can happen that an EDGE needs to cover a running back. Jones is not going to be that type of EDGE. The result of the play was disastrous because the planning was terrible. He can align like an EDGE, but cannot perform all facets of the role. A subtle but important difference to note.

Final Thoughts

This position change would allow Seattle to maximize the variety of its beefed-up DL in 2024. We could have Jarran Reed, Leonard Williams, Byron Murphy II, Dre’Mont Jones, and Uchenna Nwosu, which wouldn’t be bad.

Remember that EDGE was a problem for the team last year. Nwosu got injured and the only consistent threat we had was Boye Mafe. Darrell Taylor was only a situational piece given his disgraceful performance against the run game. Derick Hall hasn’t played enough to justify a second-round pick. The team didn’t strengthen the area in the draft or free agency, so Jones’ transition would help the depth of the roster.

Another interesting point to note is that Mike Macdonald, while at Michigan, had one of his EDGEs do more thinking than usual, with fellow Seattle player Mike Morris filling that role. This would also allow Morris to be an immediate alternative to Jones in the rotation.