Last fall, former Broncos defensive end\u00a0John Franklin-Myers took it upon himself to mentor Jones<\/a>, despite being acutely aware that Denver may have drafted Jones to replace him. Franklin-Myers is now gone to Tennessee, a considerable loss for a defense that thrived on his and All-Pro Zach Allen\u2019s symbiotic relationship<\/a>. Jones is perhaps the highest-upside candidate of a mix of veterans and youngsters who will vie in training camp to fill Franklin-Myers\u2019 void, with no clear arrangement sorted on this defensive-line carousel.<\/p>\n \u201cWith the way we\u2019re rotating those guys \u2014 if it happens to be one individual when training camp comes, great,\u201d head coach Sean Payton said in June, when asked about replacing Franklin-Myers\u2019 snaps. \u201cIf it happens to be the sum total of the group, so be it.\u201d<\/p>\n Reserve Eyioma Uwazurike wants it<\/a>\u00a0and is the most logical immediate replacement. Third-round rookie Tyler Onyedim, the Broncos\u2019 first draft pick in 2026, turned heads externally and internally in the offseason program<\/a>. Veteran Malcolm Roach could veer away from nose tackle to fill some of the void<\/a>. And after a rookie year in which he played just 39 snaps, the Broncos still believe Jones will be \u201ca player,\u201d as general manager George Paton said in January.<\/p>\n Jones just needs to seize his spot on the board.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s developed at the right pace for us,\u201d Broncos defensive-line coach Jamar Cain told The Post in September. \u201cHe\u2019s doing everything we ask him to do. But being a quiet kid, sometimes you forget he\u2019s there. Show up. Let us know that you\u2019re there. Let us know that you\u2019re doing your job. And he is.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones has died before. Twice, actually. He still has the mark in his neck, as a reminder only his mother will truly understand.<\/p>\n At two months old, he was diagnosed with a breathing disorder called laryngomalacia, where tissue directly above an infant\u2019s vocal cords partially blocks the airway<\/a>. Not uncommon. Often harmless. But baby Jones\u2019 condition was dire enough to necessitate a tracheotomy tube in his neck to open his windpipe, and one day his babysitter heard him dead silent and noticed he\u2019d yanked the tube out of his neck.<\/p>\n Seneca was at a party when her family called her, and told her to meet them at the local hospital . She arrived to hospital staff yelling code blue. Her son flatlined. And was resuscitated. And flatlined. And was resuscitated. And airlifted by helicopter to Children\u2019s Hospital New Orleans.<\/p>\n He spent the first year of his life on a heart monitor and an oxygen machine. Sennecca said she still thinks of those days often. Impossible to forget.<\/p>\n \u201cI think about how blessed he is, and how he has a testimony to share,\u201d she told The Post last summer. \u201cHopefully, one day, he\u2019ll share it and encourage some people. Because, he\u2019s real quiet. He don\u2019t speak much. You gotta pull words out of him. But he\u2019s definitely blessed, and he came a long way.<\/p>\n \u201cHe could\u2019ve been dead and gone,\u201d she continued. \u201cBut God had other plans for him.\u201d<\/p>\n Her son doesn\u2019t remember, really. But tendrils of memory can sneak through the subconscious. Jones did speech therapy until middle school and would only speak to certain people growing up, his cousin Jontae recalled. In his senior year at St. James High in Vacherie, Jones became the first defensive lineman to win the Sportsline Player of the Year Award, presented by Baton Rouge television station WAFB.<\/p>\n He did not quite ham it up when he was announced as the winner during a live show<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was a real eye-opening experience \u2026 he wasn\u2019t comfortable with that, at the time,\u201d said former St. James defensive coordinator LaVanta Davis.<\/p>\n According to the 2020 U.S. Census, Vacherie is a town of fewer than 5,500 people. Sennecca said her son was \u201cscared\u201d when he first got to LSU. Jones barely played his freshman season. As a sophomore, he was enrolled in a public speaking class. He hated it, his mother recalled. Cain, then LSU\u2019s defensive-line coach, would call Jones\u2019 mother and tell her he was slipping. She\u2019d tell Cain to do what he needed to.<\/p>\n \u201cSai\u2019vion knew,\u201d Sennecca said, \u201cnot to play with Coach Cain.\u201d<\/p>\n Cain helped Jones through that class, Sennecca recalled. And helped him assert his voice, too, in the middle of a stacked LSU defensive line room. The Tigers had several upperclassmen and future NFL players ahead of Jones on the depth chart, and yet Cain would preach to Jones that he didn\u2019t need to simply wait his turn.<\/p>\n \u201cBe a player,\u201d Cain would tell him.<\/p>\n Jones tallied the third-most sacks (4.5) on the roster despite finishing 16th in defensive snaps and leveraged the season into a starting role for two more seasons at LSU.<\/p>\n \u201cI said, \u2018You\u2019re better than him \u2014 go take his job,’\u201d Cain recalled. \u201cLike, this is on you. Don\u2019t be happy being a backup. And then that\u2019s when he started taking off.\u201d<\/p>\n He is a different man now, after the LSU spotlight has coaxed Jones\u2019 personality out to reporters. At heart, he is not that different. At the start of last season, The Post asked Sennecca if she had any idea where her son\u2019s head was at as he entered his rookie season in Denver.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Sennecca said, laughing. \u201cI have no clue. He don\u2019t talk.\u201d<\/p>\n Jones has had a familiar ally in Cain, though, a highly touted defensive-line mind who jumped to the Broncos in 2023 after that one season with LSU. Their journey picked up right back where it left off three years ago, on a new stage but in a similar situation. And Cain has prodded Jones just the same as when he was in college \u2014 a young man who ignites, former coach Davis said, when he realizes he has a legitimate opportunity in front of him.<\/p>\n \u201c100%,\u201d Cain said last fall, asked if he\u2019s encouraged Jones to take others\u2019 jobs in Denver. \u201cI\u2019ve done that with him. \u2018Hey, Sai\u2019vion, let\u2019s get going, let\u2019s get going.’\u201d<\/p>\n The Broncos, certainly, did not expect or need Jones to fill an immediate need in 2025. Cain was the architect of a pass rush that finished tied for the fifth-most sacks in NFL history, after all, and Denver knew Jones would need some post-Louisiana seasoning after transitioning from an edge rusher to an interior defensive lineman over the course of his college career.<\/p>\n The promise, though, is simple enough: Jones has the burst of a speed rusher with the frame to put on a defensive tackle\u2019s weight. He ran a blazing 1.59-second 10-yard split in pre-draft testing in 2025 and has the height and arm length (33.5 inches) to shed blocks quickly, as his high school coach Valdez said.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a big, physical player,\u201d Patriots left tackle Will Campbell told The Post on Jones, his former LSU teammate, during the week of Super Bowl LX in February. \u201cExtremely talented \u2026 I know Sai\u2019vion will be ready when his name is called.\u201d<\/p>\n But Franklin-Myers and Jones, both, were well aware of the veteran\u2019s expiring contract amid their mentor-mentee relationship last season. The Broncos specifically chose to let the 29-year-old Franklin-Myers walk for a three-year, $63 million deal in free agency, and have made the explicit decision to turn to internal development rather than pay for external help to fill a rather sizeable hole.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got a lot of good guys, and that\u2019s going to create a lot of opportunities for people,\u201d Allen said in June. \u201cAnd we came close to the sack record last year, and we fully expect to break it this year.\u201d<\/p>\n Easier said than done without Franklin-Myers, who finished with a career-best 7.5 sacks in 2025 and had a larger impact than simple raw numbers. According to film charted by The Post, the Broncos\u2019 three best pass-rushers \u2014 Allen, Nik Bonitto and Jonathon Cooper \u2014 all had more sacks last season when Franklin-Myers was on the field as opposed to off (even as Franklin-Myers had just a 49% snap share in 2025).<\/p>\n The room is well aware, as Roach said, that it needs to find a way to fill Franklin-Myers\u2019 shoes.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter watching the cut-ups, you kind of realize what you\u2019re missing there,\u201d defensive coordinator Vance Joseph said in June. \u201cWe\u2019ve drafted to that position fairly well, so we have some young guys that we expect to step up and play. That\u2019s their job. That\u2019s why we drafted those guys \u2026 you can\u2019t pay everyone. So we chose to let JFM walk and draft to his position. So those guys have to play well.\u201d<\/p>\n In Uwazurike, Onyedim, and Jones, the Broncos have three suitors for Franklin-Myers\u2019 snaps who have completely different body types yet are cut from the same cloth. The 28-year-old Uwazurike and 23-year-old Onyedim, in fact, overlapped for a season at Iowa State in 2021. And when the Cyclones were recruiting Onyedim out of Richmond, Texas, then-Iowa State defensive line coach Eli Rasheed went to then-senior Uwazurike and told him he wanted him to serve as Onyedim\u2019s \u201cbig brother.\u201d<\/p>\n The similarities run deeper, beyond a shared Nigerian background. Uwazurike played his entire high school career at\u00a0Southfield-Lathrup, a campus in Michigan,\u00a0that was permanently shut down <\/a>after his senior season in 2016<\/a>. He left high school underdeveloped, and left Iowa State with untapped upside, as former defensive coordinator Jon Hancock would tell NFL scouts that Uwazurike\u2019s best football was still ahead of him. And Uwazurike is still raw in NFL terms, with just 637 career defensive snaps after a full-season gambling suspension in 2023<\/a>.<\/p>\n Onyedim, Hancock told The Post, is the \u201csame guy\u201d in football terms \u2014 carrying raw upside into Iowa State and beyond.<\/p>\n \u201cEnyi is, now, still tapping on the ceiling that\u2019s growing,\u201d Rasheed said. \u201cTyler is the same human in a twitched-up, faster body.\u201d<\/p>\n In June, discussing Uwazurike\u2019s development, Joseph made clear that all three in this triumvirate could cycle in to fill Franklin-Myers\u2019 absence. Sometimes, even, all within the same set of downs.<\/p>\n \u201cMaybe it\u2019s a first-and-second-down run-stopping role,\u201d Joseph said, \u201cand Sai\u2019vion takes over the pass-rush role.\u201d<\/p>\n That name-drop means something and carries expectation. Jones has always lived on his own wavelength, his cousin Jontae said. He has been a young man comfortable in his own shell, family members said, only cracking when his frame got too large for him to remain hidden away.<\/p>\n And the Broncos want him \u2014 and maybe need him \u2014 to fully break through.<\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TDP-L-SPFBNBRONCOS-0628.jpeg\")
A younger Sai’vion Jones (left) with sister Saniyah. (Courtesy of Sennecca Jones)
\n\u2018God had other plans for him\u2019<\/p>\n![\"Jaylen](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-1813457086.jpg\")
Jaylen Henderson #16 of the Texas A&M Aggies throws the ball as Sai’vion Jones #35 of the LSU Tigers defends during the first half at Tiger Stadium on November 25, 2023 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Jonathan Bachman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Sai'vion](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/TDP-L-BRONCOS-CHARGERSAO2_3304x.jpg\")
Sai’vion Jones (95) and Malcolm Roach (97) of the Denver Broncos cover the ball after Nik Bonitto (15) strip sacked Trey Lance (5) of the Los Angeles Chargers during the fourth quarter of the Broncos\u2019 19-3 win at Empower Field at Mile High in Denver, Colorado on Sunday, January 4, 2026. (Photo by AAron Ontiveroz\/The Denver Post)
\nCoveted size and speed<\/p>\n![\"Sai'vion](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2207066334.jpg\")
Sai’vion Jones of the LSU Tigers participates in drills during LSU Pro Day at LSU Football Indoor Practice Facility on March 26, 2025 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. (Photo by Tyler Kaufman\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Sai'vion](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2229781474.jpg\")
Sai’vion Jones #95 of the Denver Broncos drives against Jeremiah Byers #67 of the Arizona Cardinals in the fourth quarter during the NFL Preseason 2025 game at Empower Field at Mile High on August 16, 2025 in Denver, Colorado. (Photo by Justin Edmonds\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n![\"Denver](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AP25150181853625.jpg\")
Denver Broncos defensive end Sai’vion Jones (95) takes part in drills during an NFL football team practice Thursday, May 29, 2025, at the Broncos’ headquarters in Centennial, Colo. (AP Photo\/David Zalubowski)<\/p>\n