Packers Sign Cornerback Who Beat Cancer – Sports Illustrated

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Former Vanderbilt cornerback Marlon Jones, an undrafted rookie, signed with the Green Bay Packers. That’s quite a feat, but not early as remarkable as the path that took him to Titletown.
Jones overcame stage-3 Hodgkin lymphoma. He went from wondering whether he’d ever play football again to getting to live his NFL dream.
From Nashville to Green Bay, CB @mjjr_6 has Signed with the Packers✍️ pic.twitter.com/nbrMRsEWdi
Jones started his career at Eastern Washington. In April 2024, just before he was set to move to Nashville for classes and football at Vanderbilt, he learned of the diagnosis. He had noticed a small lump on his neck a couple months earlier.
“I was trying not to assume the worst,” he told The Tennessean before stepping back on the field in August 2025. “But there wasn't much else it could be. It was hard to get that call. Pretty much my worst nightmare was confirmed.”
Jones endured chemotherapy sessions lasting more than 4 hours. By November 2024, he said he was cancer free. In January 2025, he was able to rejoin the team.
OFFICIALLY CANCER FREE!!!🎗️
“You have all this momentum, you’re heading to a new place, you’re hearing this vision for you and the team, so it’s obviously a little hard to have that stripped away by something you can’t control,” Jones told The Athletic.
“Of course, it crushed me. I was sad. I was scared. But at no point did I think I was going to lose my life. That’s a credit to my faith, I just believed and trusted in God’s plan. I knew He didn’t cause me to have this, but He was going to use it for good. The only thing I was really worried about was football.”
Vanderbilt stood by Jones. Commodores coach Clark Lea told him he’d see him on the field in 2025.
And sure enough, that’s what happened. It wasn’t easy, as you can imagine.
“I know the winter and spring were hard for him,” Lea told The Athletic. “But whatever his limitations are, this guy, he works around them. He works through them. He spends so much time meeting extra, meeting with coaches, with other players, asking questions, focusing on technique. He’s obsessed with it. That has put him in position quickly to be a factor for us.”
During his comeback season, Jones played in the first five games and the final two games, missing time in between with a hamstring injury. He started one game. PFF charged him with 10 completions out of 13 targets but for only 78 yards.
Marlon Jones is a CB prospect in the 2026 draft class. He scored a 8.26 RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 537 out of 3075 CB from 1987 to 2026.https://t.co/cO8S8D54Z7 pic.twitter.com/KuPAqMnVG1
Jones started his career at Eastern Washington as a walk-on. During the 2023 season, PFF charged him with a completion rate of just 43.2 percent. He returned two of his three interceptions for touchdowns.
“I’d say getting put onto full scholarship after my first year being at EWU” was the highlight of his career, he told Draft Diamonds in 2024. “I had really worked hard to come off an injury and prove that I could contribute to the team and it was nice to see the hard work pay off. Another moment would be my first interception, just being able to produce and contribute something to the rest of the team felt really nice.”
At Curtis High School in Tacoma, Wash., he won a state title in the 100 meters.
Jones is the latest fresh face at cornerback, an extreme makeover that started with the signing of Benjamin St-Juste in free agency and continued with drafting Brandon Cisse in the second round and Domani Jackson in the sixth round. The team recently added M.J. Devonshire to the group, as well.
Because tight end Luke Lachey failed his physical, the Packers had an open spot on the roster.
While Jones graduated from Eastern Washington with a degree in business, he told The Tennessean that he wants to be a nurse.
“I've always wanted to do that,” he said. “I think it's more fitting now than ever.”
That will have to wait, though, as he gets his chance to live out his NFL dream.
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Bill Huber, who has covered the Green Bay Packers since 2008, is the publisher of Packers On SI, a Sports Illustrated channel. E-mail: [email protected] History: Huber took over Packer Central in August 2019. Twitter: https://twitter.com/BillHuberNFL Background: Huber graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater, where he played on the football team, in 1995. He worked in newspapers in Reedsburg, Wisconsin Dells and Shawano before working at The Green Bay News-Chronicle and Green Bay Press-Gazette from 1998 through 2008. With The News-Chronicle, he won several awards for his commentaries and page design. In 2008, he took over as editor of Packer Report Magazine, which was founded by Hall of Fame linebacker Ray Nitschke, and PackerReport.com. In 2019, he took over the new Sports Illustrated site Packer Central, which he has grown into one of the largest sites in the Sports Illustrated Media Group.
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