Dallas Cowboys defensive coordinator candidate profile: Daronte Jones
The Dallas Cowboys are inching closer to a defensive coordinator hire, moving into the second round of interviews. The first one they brought in for the second round was Daronte Jones, the Vikings pass game coordinator. Per reports, Jones has impressed the team and been the surprise candidate of the search.
So what can fans expect from a potential Jones hire? Like Jim Leonhard, Jones has only ever coordinated a defense at the college level, but his tenure in the NFL has come alongside several impressive defensive coaches. Here’s a deep dive into what Jones could bring to Dallas.
Background
Born and raised in the Maryland area, Jones spent one season playing cornerback for Temple before transferring to Morgan State in Baltimore. He suffered an injury his junior year that ended his playing career early, which helped point Jones in the direction of a coaching career.
After a couple seasons as a graduate assistant at the FCS level, Jones became a defensive coordinator at a Louisiana high school. That led to a coordinator gig at Division II Bowie State in just his fifth season as a coach. Jones held that title for five seasons, ranking in the top 10 in total defense four of those years.
Jones was then poached by UCLA to coach cornerbacks, but he was let go a year later and joined the Canadian Football League. After one season up north, Jones was brought to Hawaii by then-defensive coordinator Dave Aranda, though Aranda left a month later for a different job. After three seasons coaching defensive backs at Hawaii, Jones reunited with Aranda as the defensive backs coach at Wisconsin, two years before Leonhard started coaching there.
After one season with the Badgers, Jones was hired in Miami. There, he worked under defensive coordinator Vance Joseph, and he assisted defensive backs coach Lou Anarumo. Two years later, when Anarumo was hired to run the Bengals defense, he brought Jones with him as the cornerbacks coach.
Jones left Cincinnati in 2020 to coach defensive backs for Mike Zimmer in Minnesota for a year before taking the defensive coordinator job at LSU, returning to college. That proved to be the final year of the Ed Orgeron era, so Jones was let go by new head coach Brian Kelly despite producing a strong defense.
That brought him back to Minnesota under new head coach Kevin O’Connell and, a year later, Brian Flores was hired. That precipitated Jones’ promotion to pass game coordinator, and Jones has become an integral part of building the Vikings’ fearsome defense alongside Flores.
Scheme
Jones has never coordinated a defense at the NFL level, but his previous stops as a coordinator suggest one thing Cowboys fans will love: he doesn’t have a scheme, but a philosophy. Jones wants to attack and disrupt the offense; how he does it depends on the players he has to work with.
His first stop as defensive coordinator – at Bowie State – saw Jones change up his scheme frequently. His head coach, Damon Wilson, later said that Jones would spend his free time driving around town to visit practices for the Commanders and Ravens, observing how their defenses game planned and taking notes for his own defense.
Wilson also described Jones’ scheme as evolving as necessary. Some years he ran a 4-3, some years he ran a 3-4, and sometimes he used both styles throughout the season. Later, at LSU, he took a similar approach. The Tigers’ defense was officially characterized as a 4-2-5, but Jones used hybrid players at multiple levels to show the offense multiple looks. LSU hired him on a recommendation from Aranda, who had previously been Orgeron’s head coach there, and Jones incorporated many of Aranda’s simulated pressure looks to confuse the quarterback (Aranda’s system was also what Leonhard built his Wisconsin defenses off of).
Jones has also been around several high profile NFL coaches. Zimmer is a master of simulated pressures and disguised coverages; Anarumo is just as scheme-agnostic as Jones, which helped him succeed in Cincinnati and now Indianapolis; Joseph, a Wade Phillips disciple, has crafted some of the more exotic blitz packages you can imagine; and Flores has revolutionized the way defenses show and conceal pressure.
For all those renowned defensive coaches, Jones has been right there, and constantly. Described by many as a film junkie, Jones has been single for the vast majority of his coaching career, not even taking the time to develop a social life outside of football. His fellow coaches made a habit of inviting him to their Thanksgiving dinner to ensure he wasn’t alone, and even then, Jones would show up late because he was spending time breaking down extra film.
During his first stint in Minnesota, veteran safety Harrison Smith had this to say about the way Jones was able to coach up a defensive backs room that was largely inexperienced:
“He’s been earning his money this year,” Smith said. “He does a really good job of communicating exactly what we need to get done and things that we can expect while also not overloading the group with things that can bog you down. There can be a balance there based on just experience levels. He’s been doing a great job of starting at the fundamentals and expanding from there and giving us enough information to grow without handicapping us.”
Jones also told a story from his Bowie State days about how his successor there was an outside hire who was asked to run the same scheme Jones had been running. As Jones was told, the players ended up teaching the scheme to the new coordinator so he could learn it, an endorsement of how good a teacher Jones is.
The obvious appeal for Jones right now is his recent years under Flores, but Jones likely wouldn’t run the same exact scheme as Flores does in Minnesota. He’ll undoubtedly keep the same philosophy – built on attacking the offense and dictating the flow of the game – but the method in which he’d do it will be largely dictated by the talent he’s working with. That’s even better than hiring a coach who simply copies the Vikings’ scheme, trying to fit square pegs into round holes.
In that sense, Jones is the anti-Eberflus. Scheme is not a rigid thing for him; he cares only about putting his players in the best position to make plays.
Roster Fit
Since Jones hasn’t typically been a proponent of any one scheme, you could argue that any roster is a fit for him because he’ll fit his scheme to whatever roster he has. Plenty of coaches talk about doing that, but Jones has the experience to suggest he’d actually do it.
Still, Jones has the mindset of attacking defensively. With his time spent under the aforementioned coaches, it’s easy to imagine a scenario where his Dallas defense would heavily feature simulated pressures and crowded defensive lines. The trio of defensive tackles – Quinnen Williams, Osa Odighizuwa, and Kenny Clark – present plenty of options for Jones to present different formations to the quarterback.
That also bodes well for a pass rush unit that didn’t exactly light the league on fire last year. Donovan Ezeiruaku showed promise as a rookie but, outside of Jadeveon Clowney and James Houston, there wasn’t much production. Clowney is a free agent, and many expect Dallas to draft an edge rusher with one of their two first-round picks. Either way, Jones would come into the building with ample experience in conjuring up a stout pass rush without having household names on the edges.
The secondary brings the biggest question mark. Jones’ background as a defensive backs coach would come in handy, for sure, but it’s hard to know how he’d lean. He’s taught press man, spot drop zone, pattern match, middle-of-field-open, middle-of-field-closed, just about everything. Outside of Shavon Revel and DaRon Bland, one of whom has yet to play a full season since his ACL tear and the other of whom just had yet another foot surgery, the Cowboys don’t have any long term pieces at cornerback or safety.
It’s hard to know what direction Jones would take this secondary, but one this is clear: he’ll have some sort of opinion on what the best solution is.
Potential Staff
Jones is well-traveled and has built lots of connections over the years. His scheme malleability also makes him less rigid when it comes to the coaches he can work with. That would make it much more likely for Jones to retain Aaron Whitecotton as the defensive line coach.
If not, Raiders pass rush specialist Andre Carter coached the defensive line for Jones at LSU, and he also assisted the defensive line while Jones was with the Dolphins. Current Vikings assistant defensive line coach Imarjaye Albury Sr. was also on the Vikings staff for Jones’ first stint there.
Teryl Austin, the Steelers defensive coordinator for the last four years, could be a candidate to coach defensive backs and even coordinate the pass game. Eagles cornerbacks coach Roy Anderson worked alongside Jones in his first stint with the Vikings and was also on Aranda’s staff with LSU.
Charlie Bullen, the Giants’ interim defensive coordinator this past season, overlapped with Jones during their time with the Dolphins as the assistant linebackers coach. Bullen has also interviewed for the Cowboys defensive coordinator job, and he might be considered for a run or pass game coordinator title under Jones.
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