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From the breakout senior season at Tennessee, to an impressive week at the Senior Bowl — Velus Jones Jr. is making the most of his NFL Draft season. He backed it all up on Thursday night in Indianapolis, running one of the fastest times recorded at this year’s NFL Combine.
Jones ran a blazing fast 4.32 second 40 yard dash, solidifying what everyone saw on tape during the 2021 season.
VELUS JONES JR. @Vol_Football WR @VelusJr with an INSANE 4.32u, tied for the fastest among WRs this year.
— NFL (@NFL) March 3, 2022
: #NFLCombine on @nflnetwork pic.twitter.com/8PBBkC3GJn
Jones has been talked up recently by draft media, and now everyone sees why. He’s gone from a return specialist only, to a guy that NFL teams might just end up spending a day two selection on.
You saw the flashes in 2020, but the hiring of Josh Heupel really put Jones over the top. As a senior, Jones caught 62 passes for just over 800 yards, scoring seven times. He was a nice compliment to Cedric Tillman, as Jones did a little bit of everything for the Volunteers. He’s hoping to do the same at the next level.
The former USC transfer has an immediate path to the field at the NFL level in the return game, but he’s also shown enough development to find the field pretty quickly on the offensive side. As things stand now, Jones appears set to come off of the board somewhere in rounds three or four.
The NFL Draft will begin on Thursday, April 28th and run through Saturday, April 30th.