Blue 88: The best way Seahawks can use DL Dre’Mont Jones

The Seattle Seahawks strayed from their usual working last offseason when they signed Dre’Mont Jones to a three-year, $51 million deal.

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The deal made the former Denver Bronco the highest-paid free agent to sign from outside the organization, but Jones didn’t make the type of splash many had hoped in his first year in Seattle.

Former Seahawks wide receiver Michael Bumpus addressed how the team could best use Jones as it transitions into a new defense under new head coach Mike Macdonald during Blue 88 on Thursday during Seattle Sports’ Brock and Salk.

“He’s an interesting one because he’s big enough to handle double teams at times, but he’s also small enough to where you can isolate him on the outside,” Bumpus said. “So I would just move him around. I would have him in a two-point (stance) to start, (and) sometimes I put him down in the three-point. But also what I would do is I would always have someone next to him, whether that be he’s inside and he has an (inside guy) next to him, or he’s outside and he has one of those edge rushers or safety is rolling down, just to cause confusion.”

Numbers won’t tell the story

Jones had 49 tackles last season but just five for a loss and 4 1/2 sacks while playing a career-high 762 snaps. He twice posted career highs of 6 1/2 sacks and nine tackles for loss with the Broncos, including his final season.

“He’s not a guy who’s going to blow up the stat sheet when it comes to getting after the quarterback, but he can do what you want defensive linemen to do, just jack stuff up in the backfield and cause chaos and confusion,” Bumpus said. “And when you listen to Mike Macdonald, the way he describes his defense, that’s exactly what he wants to do. He just wants to cause confusion. He’s not going to bring pressure a lot of the time … but he wants to give that illusion of bringing pressure, and how he does that is he walks those linebackers down, he’ll walk that safety down and he’ll team him up with his defensive linemen and run some stunts with those guys. I think that’s what Dre Jones can do. I think he’s elusive enough, he’s strong enough, he can do just about anything.”

Listen to the full Blue 88 segment with ex-NFL wide receiver Michael Bumpus at this link or in the audio player near the top of this story. Tune in to Brock and Salk weekdays from 6 to 10 a.m. or find the podcast on the Seattle Sports app.

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