STORRS, Conn. —They lined up, three or four deep in a semicircle around Travis Jones. Dozens of NFL note-takers watched every move Wednesday, looking for something they didn’t already know.
Jones didn’t need to impress on UConn’s Pro Day, his performances at the Senior Bowl and the NFL Combine had already catapulted him into the stratosphere of draft projections. He did a series of drills, bursting out of a three-point stance, moving in a circle, pushing blocking them upfield as reps from all 32 NFL teams looked on. There are movements that mean little to the untrained eye, but in the maelstrom that forms in the middle of a line of scrimmage, they matter, and the trained eyes have been trained on Jones for some time.
“He’s going to be a dynamic NFL player,” said Lou Spanos, UConn’s defensive coordinator and formerly an NFL assistant. “High football instinct, measurables, length, speed, explosion, and doing what it takes on and off the field, it makes a successful professional. That’s what Travis Jones is.”
