Defensive tackle Benito Jones left the Dolphins as a seldom-used developmental project, a player who seemed destined to spend his career on the proverbial bubble.
He returns as an established NFL starter on a playoff team.
The question now is whether Jones can become a pretty good part-time starter for Miami, comparable in quality to former Dolphins nose tackle Raekwon Davis.
It’s not a particularly high bar; though Davis had some very good moments, metrics sites rated him middle of the road or worse among NFL starters.
Pro Football Focus ranked Davis 79th of 130 interior defensive linemen last season. Jones was ranked 124th after starting 15 games for the Lions.
So Jones returns with one season of starting now on his resume, but with a lot to prove, also.
“I think I grew a lot,” he said of his 34 games and 15 starts with Detroit in two seasons there. “Just going out and being with another organization and seeing how they play” was helpful.
One reason why Jones was viewed by the Dolphins as a better fit than Davis: Money.
Jones agreed to a one-year, $1.79 million deal (all guaranteed).
He was considerably cheaper than Davis, who landed a two-year, $16 million deal ($7 million guaranteed) with the Colts after starting seven games for Miami last season and 48 over four seasons. Davis wanted to return, but the Dolphins weren’t interested at that price tag.
How did Davis and Jones compare on the field last season?
Davis, in 69 fewer snaps, had more tackles than Jones (28 to 26) and one less tackle for loss (two, compared to three for Jones).
PFF gave Jones a poor 31.5 run defense grade last season, among the worst at his position, compared with 54.1 for Davis. That’s concerning.
They’re comparable as pass rushers. Jones had 19 pressures and a sack, Davis 23 pressures and half a sack last season. Jones played 567 defensive snaps, Davis 498.
PFF has a metric called run stops, which uses a complicated formula to award players “stops” on plays viewed as negative outcomes for the offense, based on down and distance. Davis had 15 stops and Jones had only 10, even though Jones played more snaps. So that’s worrisome from a Dolphins standpoint.
Undrafted out of Mississippi, Jones signed with Miami immediately after the 2020 draft, was elevated multiple times from the practice squad as a rookie and was signed to the active roster in December. He played 48 defensive snaps in six games that season and had two tackles.
But instead of building on that season, he stagnated, spending all of 2021 on the practice squad and not appearing in a single game that year.
Miami kept him around the following offseason and training camp but released him Aug. 30, 2021.
The Lions claimed him the next day and played him 311 defensive snaps as a backup in 2022 and 567 snaps as a starter last season.
He’s viewed as a potential replacement for nose tackle Davis, not Christian Wilkins, but said: “I’m never going to sit here and say I’m just a nose guard. I’ll play both if I have to.”
Returning to Miami is meaningful to him.
“This is the place that I [started],” he said. “I wasn’t drafted here. I was undrafted here. I made my first tackle here. Just coming back here where it all started, that’s great for me.”
He said Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel and Lions coach (and former Dolphins interim coach) Dan Campbell are both “players’ coaches. They’re some good guys that you’ll want to run through a wall for.”
He’s also happy about playing again for defensive line coach Austin Clark, whom he called a “great coach. Austin Clark stood out to me.
“He knew some of the coaches that I knew from college and just got me here. I learned a lot from him. He’d always say he would coach me here at some point someday. We just never knew I would be coming back this year. He’s going to give you every tool you need to be on the field with. I’ve got a lot of love for that guy.”
The Dolphins have three other nose guards under contract besides Jones: veteran Da’Shawn Hand, second-year player Brandon Pili and Daviyon Nixon, who played 144 defensive snaps for Carolina over the past two seasons.