Josh
Jones.
Josh
Jones.
Houston· 6'5"· 319 lb· 5.27s 40
"A 45-game Houston left tackle who played for four different offensive line coaches, then dominated Senior Bowl week against Power Five rushers and turned a competition-level question into a first-round conversation."Pre-draft read
Jones is a long, balanced left tackle who wins with feet and body control rather than raw violence. He sets quickly and stays square, keeping a wide base so speed rushers cannot tip him forward. Scouts in all-star practices kept using the same word: controlled.
In the run game he is more of a positional blocker than a road grader, sealing a defender away from the play and letting the back choose the lane. The length shows up when he lands his hands first, and it disappears when he does not. His anchor against pure power was the honest question, and the answers he gave against the best rushers in Mobile were why his stock climbed. He is a pass protector first and a run blocker second.
Pass-heavy offense built on quick sets and vertical protection, where a balanced tackle can mirror speed without being asked to move bodies.
Year 1 swing tackle and developmental starter while the anchor is built up, with a ceiling as a stable starting left tackle in a pass-first scheme.
A gap-power run game that demands displacement at the point of attack every down, where his positional blocking becomes a liability rather than a neutral outcome.
His floor is a valuable one: a lineman who can play both tackle spots and guard is worth a roster spot even when he never wins the starting job.
2020 NFL Draft Highlights: OT Josh Jones, Houston
Senior-season pass-protection cutup, the clearest look at the footwork and balance that carried his stock.
Josh Jones, OT Houston, 2020 NFL Draft
Draft-cycle breakdown covering the anchor question that separated him from the first-round tackles.
Breaking Down the Pick of Josh Jones
Team-produced analysis of why Arizona valued the Senior Bowl week and the four-year starting experience.
Jones was a three-star Texas recruit who flipped to Houston when Tom Herman took the job, redshirted, and then started 45 straight games at left tackle across four seasons. He played for three head coaches and four offensive line coaches in that span, an unusual amount of turnover that meant he learned several blocking systems before he ever spoke to an NFL team. He was voted second-team All-American Athletic Conference as a senior despite missing the final three games with a knee injury.
The Senior Bowl changed his draft. The question about him was competition level, and in Mobile he answered it by handling Power Five edge rushers rep after rep with speed rushes, bull rushes, rips and spins all coming back nothing. By the end of the week scouts and executives regarded him as the best offensive tackle at the game, and at least one general manager had a first-round grade on him.
He followed it with a solid combine at 6-5 and 319 pounds, running 5.27 with 24 bench reps and nearly 34-inch arms. The consensus had him late first to early second. Instead he slid into the third round, where Arizona took him at 72 as a developmental left tackle with starting traits and a knee that had cost him the end of his final season.
- 01
Pass-protection footwork
Sets fast and stays square with a wide base, which is why speed rushers rarely turned the corner on him in college or in Mobile.
- 02
Balance and body control
Almost never gets caught out of position or on the ground, giving a coaching staff a stable technical foundation to build on.
- 03
Length
Nearly 34-inch arms that let him land first and steer a rusher past the quarterback when his hand timing is right.
- 04
Experience
Started 45 consecutive games at left tackle under four different offensive line coaches, so no scheme or terminology will surprise him.
- 05
All-star proof
Regarded as the top tackle at the Senior Bowl against the best edge rushers in the class, which erased the competition-level doubt.
- 01
Anchor against power
Can be walked back by a true bull rush, which was the most persistent concern in his evaluation and the one that followed him.
- 02
Run-blocking finish
More of a positional sealer than a displacement blocker, rarely knocking a defender off the spot in the run game.
- 03
Hand timing
Lets defenders into his chest when his punch arrives late, and the length advantage evaporates entirely on those reps.
- 04
Knee injury
Missed the final three games of his senior season, a durability flag for a player whose value depends on holding one job every snap.
Relative Athletic Score (Kent Lee Platte) benchmarks combine/pro-day numbers against every measured prospect at the position since 1987. 10.00 is elite; 5.00 is average.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 5.27sp50
- Vertical
- 28.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 109inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- 24repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Houston | 13 |
| 2017 | Houston | 10 |
| 2018 | Houston | 13 |
| 2019 | Houston | 9 |
| Career | — | 45 |
Offensive linemen do not carry statistical lines, so only games and starts are recorded. Houston confirms he started all 45 games of his career at left tackle after redshirting his first year on campus. The 2019 total reflects the final three games he missed with a knee injury.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Long, athletic swing tackle who plays a full career as the valuable sixth lineman and spot starter.
The ceiling version, where clean feet and durability turn a mid-round tackle into a decade-long starting left tackle.
The version where the anchor never develops and injuries cut the career short before the traits matter.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jones never locked down the job he was drafted to win, but he has made a long career out of being useful. He played 13 games as a rookie in 2020 without a start, then appeared in all 17 games in 2021 with 12 starts, mostly at right guard with some right tackle, and started nine of Arizona's last ten games at left tackle in 2022. The Cardinals traded him to Houston in August 2023 for a pick swap, and he played 13 games with three starts for a Texans line that protected C.J. Stroud's rookie season. He signed with Baltimore in 2024 and appeared in all 16 games, mostly on special teams, then joined Seattle in 2025 and started the final three games at left tackle during the Seahawks' Super Bowl LX-winning season. Seattle re-signed him for 2026. Through seven seasons he has 27 starts in 92 games and has played both tackle spots and guard.
In hindsight this is a modest return on a pick that carried first-round buzz. The traits that made him a Senior Bowl standout, feet and balance, were real enough to keep him employed for seven years across four franchises, and the anchor concern was real enough to keep him from ever owning a starting spot. He became a valuable swing lineman, which is a legitimate NFL job and roughly what a third-round tackle who slid was actually worth.
Data note: Imported from Wikipedia 2020 NFL draft player selections table.