Deep within the first floor of the Broncos’ gleaming new facility is the feature that just might be Brandon Jones’ favorite.
A palatial locker room that is everything Denver’s previous locker room was not — modern, big enough for 90-plus players and legitimately comfortable? Sure, that’s great. Seamless flow from the players’ underground parking garage to the locker room, weight room, cafeteria and practice fields? Pretty sweet.
Every modern amenity, clean design line and high-end touch in the building will be buzzed about for months.
One spot, though, is so purely Jones’ jam it might as well be considered custom added for the 28-year-old safety.
“Damn right,” he said with a smile last week.
No player likes to spend too much time in the training room, but behind the meticulously designed space that houses vice president of player performance Beau Lowery and his staff — it’s twice as big as the space in their former building — is a long, thin swimming pool.
To know anything about Jones is to know that this is a well and true game-changer. Or, perhaps more accurately, a commute changer.
Jones swims most mornings of training camp, often as early as around 4 a.m. He keeps it going multiple times a week during the regular season. Now, instead of driving to a health club in the dark as a first stop, he just heads directly to the Broncos facility.
The pool in the new building already almost feels like his own.
“I told them they should put a little ‘22’ right at the bottom of the pool in the center,” Jones said. “We’ll see if that happens.”
Defensive coordinator Vance Joseph will be happy enough to put No. 22 back in the middle of the Broncos’ secondary come September. Jones tore his pectoral muscle against Green Bay on Dec. 14 and had to have surgery. He didn’t play again down the stretch or in Denver’s pair of playoff games, but said he would have tried to gut it out and play at least some snaps had the Broncos made the Super Bowl.
Originally, Jones said he thought he hurt his bicep while making a routine stop against the Packers to start a two-minute drill late in the first half.
“I still don’t know how I did it, but I got up and I had a lot of tightness in my bicep area, so I thought initially that I maybe tore my bicep,” Jones told The Post. “But it was hurry-up, they were on the ball, so I didn’t have time to come out (of the game) or anything. I was like, ‘ah,’ and of course the next play they threw the ball right in front of me and I had to come down and make a tackle. I was like, I can’t use my left arm. I just thought, ‘God gave you two for a reason’ and I just threw the right one in there.”
Jones made it to halftime, got to the locker room and told the training staff he thought he hurt his bicep. A trainer asked him to wrap his arms in a hugging motion and flex his pectoral muscle.
Jones said he was. But there was no actual reaction from the muscle.
“He just said, ‘yeah, that’s not good,’” Jones recalled.
“Had an ultrasound and they said my pec was completely off the bone. It was a complete tear.”
Jones called a Super Bowl a potential once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and said he was planning to “thug it out” and play at least partial snaps against Seattle, despite being only weeks post-op.
“I was functional,” he said. “I could run. So I just was going to say, we’ll let the rest take care of itself.”
Now as the Broncos launch full on into training camp, Jones is healthy and set to play a second season next to Talanoa Hufanga. Up until Jones got hurt in December, the pair was one of the better safety duos in the NFL. While Hufanga’s arrival made a difference to Joseph’s unit and the 25-year-old earned All-Pro honors in his first season with the Broncos, Jones has established himself as critical to Denver’s operation.
“He’s a big piece of what we do,” head coach Sean Payton said Saturday. “He’s very athletic. What we ask of our safeties relative to coverage — he’s real smart. So it’s good to see him moving around and out there full speed.”
Jones, too, is heading into the final year of the original three-year, $20 million contract he signed in free agency with the Broncos back before the 2024 season.
Payton spoke highly of Jones, but also said that considering what players may or may not get contract extensions over the coming weeks before the regular season “are like Nos. 179 and 180 on my to-do list. Those are items that, obviously will be a part of future decisions. Like I mentioned with Brandon, he’s done real well in this role. As we get started here, (general manager George Paton) and the powers that be will meet and begin discussing certain players.
“But right now there are so many other things we’re focused on.”
Jones said he’d love to sign an extension and potentially finish his career in Denver.
“I just have to do my part and be the best teammate I can be with the guys and then let my agent and all the people included handle that,” Jones said.
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