Denver Broncos safety Brandon Jones did not make ESPN’s top-10 safety rankings for 2026, and his was the steepest fall of anyone in the conversation. In the survey of coaches, executives and scouts published Thursday by Jeremy Fowler, Jones slipped from an honorable mention a year ago to sixth among the players who drew votes without cracking the list — the largest drop of any safety on the board.
The reason is not hard to find. Jones tore a pectoral muscle in Denver’s Week 15 win over the Green Bay Packers, landed on injured reserve, and had surgery that ended his season. He missed the final three regular-season games and the Broncos’ playoff run, and availability is the first thing evaluators weigh when they fill out a ballot. A player who isn’t on the field in January doesn’t stay fresh with the people voting in July.
That is the sober read, and it should not be mistaken for a verdict on how Jones plays. Healthy in 2025, he was one of the more dependable coverage safeties in the league, and the tape that earned him honorable-mention votes a year earlier did not vanish because of a torn pec. Pro Football Focus, which grades the snaps rather than polls the room, still rated him among the better safeties in football entering last season.
The timing is awkward for both sides. Jones is entering the final year of his contract, and re-signing him has been floated as a Denver priority before camp. A season cut short by surgery is not the platform a player wants when he is trying to reset his market, and that is not lost on the front office either.
For the defense, the stakes are simpler than the vote. Denver generated 68 sacks in 2025, four shy of the all-time record, and a pass rush that productive holds up better when the coverage behind it does too. Jones returning to form matters more to that equation than where a July poll slotted him. Rookies report July 22 and the first open practice is July 31, where his health will be the safety room’s first question to answer.
