CBS Sports ranks Cardinals’ Chandler Jones as top-3 defensive player in NFL

Coming out of a decade where Patrick Peterson was the biggest staple on defense for the Arizona Cardinals, they enter a new one with a different dominant force on that side of the football.

Pass rusher Chandler Jones has been tremendous since arriving in Arizona four seasons ago in 2016, and is getting some recognition for it.

CBS Sports’ Pete Prisco ranked Chandler Jones as the eighth-best player in the NFL and third among all defenders.

He’s had five consecutive double-digit sack seasons, getting 19 last season to finish a half-sack from leading the league. He has 32 sacks the past two seasons, second to Aaron Donald for the most of any player in the league.

In Jones’ four years playing for Arizona, he has 60 sacks, which is eight more than any other player, per Pro-Football-Reference.com.

He had 17 sacks in 2017 and 19 last season. That makes Jones one of two players to reach at least 17 sacks twice in the last 10 seasons, joining the Houston Texans’ J.J. Watt.

Jones had those seasons after signing a five-year, $83 million extension prior to the 2017 season, leaving him under contract through 2021, when he will have a cap hit just over $20 million.

New Cardinals wideout DeAndre Hopkins was also ranked on the list at No. 31.

He had another big year with 104 catches and seven touchdowns, but his yards per catch went down over two yards from the previous season. Aberration or a concern?

Speaking of Peterson, he comes in at 75th.

After being suspended for the first four games for violating the league’s policy on performance-enhancing drugs, he didn’t look like the same elite player we had seen for much of his career. But he bounced back down the stretch to play to that level.

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