The folks at ESPN continued their annual positional rankings on Tuesday, and unsurprisingly, Chris Jones earned the No. 1 spot among all defensive tackles.
Jones, who racked up 10.5 sacks and 29 quarterback hits in 16 games last season, earned the top spot in a landslide among voters according to ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler.
In terms of how the polling took place, the rankings reflected the thoughts of nearly 80 league executives, coaches and scouts who were surveyed as part of the project.
Here’s a portion of what Fowler wrote about the Chiefs’ All-Pro defensive tackle:
“Jones ranks first in the 2024 field in pass rush win rate for defensive tackles (19.6%), and the 29 incompletions created by his pass rush ranked tied for second among defensive tackles…Jones leads all defensive tackles with 35 sacks over the past three years.”
Jones ranked second among all interior defensive linemen in total pressures last season (75), trailing only the Los Angeles Rams’ Aaron Donald, and his 16 pressures during the postseason anchored a Chiefs’ defense that yielded just 15.8 points-per-game across four playoff contests.
The 30-year-old Jones ranks fourth in the NFL in total sacks since 2018 with 67, and fresh off consecutive double-digit sack campaigns, he enters 2024 as the standard at his position.
