Nic
Jones.
Nic
Jones.
Ball St.· 6'0"· 189 lb· 4.51s 40
"A small-school corner with ball skills, Jones was a late-round dart in Kansas City — the kind of pick that needs immediate special-teams impact to survive, and never quite found it."Pre-draft read
Jones plays the football better than he plays the receiver. He has 32 and three-eighths inch arms and ten-inch hands, 95th percentile for the position, and he uses them at the catch point: 12 pass breakups and two interceptions as a senior came from timing and reach rather than from smothering coverage. He is physical through the hands and comfortable competing on the boundary.
Movement is the problem. His 4.34 short shuttle sits in the 13th percentile and it shows in transition, where he is late out of his break and gives up the inside on option routes. He converted from safety early in his college career and still carries some of those habits, so quick receivers create separation before the ball leaves the quarterback's hand.
Zone-heavy defense that keeps his eyes on the quarterback and lets him break on throws instead of mirroring routes
Year 1: special teams contributor and fifth corner; ceiling: rotational zone corner in a Cover 3 scheme
Man-heavy defense that asks him to travel with quick separators from off alignment
Kansas City and the Giants have both developed him as a depth and special teams piece.
The Ball State career took a while to arrive. Jones won the program's outstanding freshman award in 2019 with 18 tackles and two breakups, played a shortened 2020, then lost most of 2021 to injury after six games. His senior year was the one that mattered: 23 tackles, 12 pass breakups and two interceptions in 11 games, leading the team in both categories and earning second-team All-MAC honors.
The testing undercut the tape. He ran 4.51 with a 34.5-inch vertical, which is passable, but the 4.34 shuttle dragged his composite Relative Athletic Score to 3.96 out of ten. For a corner, agility scores that low are usually a hard stop.
Boards had him sixth round to seventh. The length, the hands and the 14 disruption plays in 2022 were real, and so were the recovery-speed limits, the soft-tissue injury history and the technical lapses left over from the safety conversion. Kansas City took him with the 250th pick as a developmental corner with a special teams floor.
- 01
Elite hand size
Ten-inch hands rank in the 95th percentile and are the direct reason he racked up 12 breakups as a senior.
- 02
Boundary length
Thirty-two and three-eighths inch arms let him contest throws he is not technically in position to defend.
- 03
Ball production
Fourteen disruption plays in 2022 led Ball State and were the loudest thing on his college tape.
- 04
Physical at the catch point
Competes through contact and finishes plays rather than conceding the reception.
- 05
Special teams floor
Size, willingness and coverage experience gave him an immediate path onto NFL kick and punt units.
- 01
Poor short-area agility
A 4.34 shuttle in the 13th percentile means he is late in transition against quick separators.
- 02
No recovery speed
Once a receiver stacks him he cannot make up ground, so every deep rep is a leverage bet.
- 03
Soft-tissue injury history
A 2021 season cut short and repeated availability concerns shadowed the entire evaluation.
- 04
Technical residue from safety
Converted from safety early in college and still shows footwork lapses at the line.
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
- 4.51sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 122inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- 4.34sp50
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Ball State | 11 | 18 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| 2020 | Ball State | 8 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Ball State | 6 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 |
| 2022 | Ball State | 11 | 23 | 0 | 2 | 12 | 0 |
| Career | — | 36 | 59 | 0 | 3 | 17 | 0 |
Season lines verified against cfbstats and Ball State official records. Interception totals for 2019 and 2020 are unverified and omitted rather than zero-filled.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Second-team All-MAC (2022)
- Ball State John Hodge Outstanding Freshman Award (2019)
- Team leader in pass breakups and interceptions (2022)
Length-and-hands corner who bounces between depth roles without securing a starting job.
Ball-skill corner who thrives once a zone scheme lets him read and break rather than mirror.
Agility limits get exposed the moment he faces starting NFL receivers in space.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Jones spent his first two seasons with Kansas City, appearing in 10 games with three tackles, one tackle for loss and a special teams stop. The Giants signed him on February 14, 2025; a shoulder injury sent him to injured reserve on December 13. He returned for the 2026 preseason, recording two solo tackles against the Jets on August 28, and opened the 2026 season on New York's active roster.
Two years in Kansas City produced almost nothing on defense. Jones appeared in 10 games total across 2023 and 2024, recording three tackles, one tackle for loss and one special teams stop, which is the standard file for a last-round corner in a deep secondary. The Chiefs never needed him to play meaningful snaps and he never forced the issue.
New York gave him a second chance. The Giants signed him on February 14, 2025 and he worked into the cornerback rotation before a shoulder injury put him on injured reserve on December 13. He came back for the 2026 preseason, made two solo tackles against the Jets on August 28, and opened the season on the Giants active roster. Four years and two franchises later he is still an NFL player, which almost nobody predicted for a corner with a 3.96 RAS. The catch-point skill kept finding him work even after the shuttle time told everyone it would not. Nothing about that arc was surprising given the pre-draft profile.