Christian
Jones.
Christian
Jones.
Texas· 6'5"· 305 lb· 5.04s 40
"A soccer player until high school who left Texas with 48 starts, 3,219 snaps and the longest arms on the offensive line — power and patience, never a foot race."Pre-draft read
Jones is a heavy-handed right tackle who plays the position like a leverage problem to be solved with power. He sets with a wide base, lands a jolting two-hand strike, and uses 34.5-inch arms and elite grip strength to stall the rush at the corner. Once he latches, the rep is over; his hands rarely get displaced.
The run game is where he is most comfortable, working as the drive man on double teams and burying down blocks in Texas's inside-zone and pin-pull menu. Athletically he is a straight-line mover with choppy feet and marginal redirect, so speed off the edge gets him oversetting and drifting. The signature is 48 starts of experience and diagnostic calm against stunts and line games.
Gap and duo run scheme with play-action protections that keep him on a defined landmark instead of asking him to pass set in space.
Year 1: swing tackle and jumbo package blocker. Ceiling: multi-year starting right tackle in a run-first offense.
Wide-zone offense with deep dropback protections, where his heavy feet and slow redirect leave him oversetting against speed on an island.
Every rep he wins is decided in the first two steps and the first punch.
Film Room: Christian Jones Vs Alabama: All Pass Pro
Every pass-protection rep against Alabama — the anchor and the oversets both show up.
Film Room: Christian Jones Vs Texas Tech: All Snaps
All-22 cut of a full game at right tackle, run and pass.
Arizona Cardinals OL Christian Jones Highlights - Senior Bowl
Senior Bowl week in Mobile, the stretch that firmed up his Day 3 grade.
A converted soccer player who did not put on pads until his junior year of high school, Jones spent six seasons at Texas turning raw size into a functional NFL tackle. His identity is length plus grip: he wins with the first punch and the second hand, and he plays with the patience of someone who has already seen every twist a defensive front can run.
The résumé is the pitch. He appeared in 61 games with 48 starts — 35 at right tackle, 13 at left — spanning more than 3,000 snaps for Bijan Robinson's Doak Walker season and Texas's 2023 College Football Playoff run, and he did it as a Joe Moore Award semifinalist unit and a repeat honorable mention All-Big 12 pick. The tape carried real flags too: choppy lateral quickness, a habit of bending at the waist and losing balance without contact, high pad level, and 29 penalties across four starting years.
Boards had him in the fifth-round band as a developmental swing tackle whose Senior Bowl week firmed up the grade. A 5.04 forty and 8.09 three-cone at 305 pounds confirmed the athletic ceiling was modest, and Arizona took him at 162 to sit behind Paris Johnson Jr. and grow into a swing role.
- 01
Length and grip
34.5-inch arms with 10 5/8-inch hands shorten the corner, and once he latches onto a rusher the rep is effectively finished.
- 02
Jolting punch
Fires a stiff two-hand strike out of a wide base that stops bull rushers cold and buys his quarterback a clean pocket edge.
- 03
Anchor strength
Sinks his hips and absorbs power without giving ground, a trait that showed up all week against NFL rushers at the Senior Bowl.
- 04
Mental processing
Handles twists, stunts and line games with clear eyes, a byproduct of 48 starts and more than 3,000 snaps at Texas.
- 05
Run-game drive
Works as the displacing man on double teams and finishes down blocks, the exact skill Texas leaned on in its gap and inside-zone menu.
- 01
Choppy feet
Marginal lateral quickness and slow redirect; he loses ground getting to depth and cannot recover once a rusher wins the corner.
- 02
Oversets to speed
Compensating for that quickness, he opens his hips too early and hands the inside counter to any rusher with a decent swipe.
- 03
Waist bender
Plays high and folds at the midsection, so he drifts and loses balance even before contact arrives on the rep.
- 04
Penalty history
29 flags across four years of starting, a discipline problem that follows late-round linemen into their fight for a roster spot.
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
- 5.04sp50
- Vertical
- —in
- Broad jump
- —in
- Three-cone
- 8.09sp50
- Shuttle
- 4.78sp50
- Bench
- 20repp50
| Yr | Team | G |
|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Texas | 0 |
| 2019 | Texas | 13 |
| 2020 | Texas | 10 |
| 2021 | Texas | 12 |
| 2022 | Texas | 13 |
| 2023 | Texas | 13 |
| Career | — | 61 |
Offensive linemen accumulate no box-score production, so only verified games and starts are listed; nothing is zero-filled beyond the confirmed 2018 redshirt year. Games and starts cross-checked against the FootballDB career table and Texas's official bio (61 games, 48 starts, 3,219 snaps: 2,492 at RT and 688 at LT).
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Honors
- Honorable Mention All-Big 12 (2022, 2023)
- Joe Moore Award semifinalist line (2023)
- 48 career starts, 3,219 snaps
- Academic Second Team All-Big 12 (2020-2023)
Journeyman swing tackle with real power who starts in stretches and holds value as a versatile sixth lineman.
The ceiling: a powerful, length-driven right tackle who becomes a long-term starter in a gap-heavy run offense.
Athletically limited tackle who bounces between depth charts because speed rushers dictate the matchup.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Christian Jones has yet to get a full, healthy runway in the NFL. Drafted 162nd overall in 2024 to develop behind Paris Johnson Jr., he landed on injured reserve in August of his rookie year, returned in Week 17 and started the Week 18 win over San Francisco at right tackle in a game where Arizona did not allow a sack. A knee injury on August 26, 2025 wiped out most of his second season; he was activated in December and played sparingly on special teams. He remains an active Cardinal in 2026, still projected as swing-tackle depth rather than a starter.
Arizona drafted him to develop behind Paris Johnson Jr. and the plan never got a clean runway. Jones went on injured reserve with an ankle injury in August of his rookie year, returned late, debuted at the Rams in Week 17 and made his first NFL start at right tackle in the Week 18 win over San Francisco — a game in which the line did not allow a sack of Kyler Murray. He then blew up his 2025 the same way, landing on IR with a knee injury on August 26, getting activated on December 13 and playing six special teams snaps across two December appearances. He entered 2026 in Year 3 of his rookie deal at $1.075 million, still on the roster and still without a defined role.
In hindsight, the evaluation of the player has never really been tested. The tape said swing tackle with a starter's floor in a power run scheme, and the one full start he has been given supported it. Two August injuries in two years, though, have cost him the training camps a developmental Day 3 lineman needs most. This is not a bust so much as a stalled clock.
Data note: Offensive linemen accumulate no box-score production, so only verified games and starts are listed; nothing is zero-filled beyond the confirmed 2018 redshirt year. Games and starts cross-checked against the FootballDB career table and Texas's official bio (61 games, 48 starts, 3,219 snaps: 2,492 at RT and 688 at LT).