Billy Heyen
Imagn Images
Marlon Jones missed the 2024 college football season because he was diagnosed with Stage 3 Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
Two years later, the cornerback is hoping to make the Green Bay Packers‘ roster.
CBS Sports reported this week that Jones has signed as an undrafted free agent with the Packers. He may be a roster long shot, but he’s already traveled a tough journey to this point, so no one is betting against him.
Jones began his college football career at Eastern Washington at the FCS level. He played well there, which earned him an offer to move up the ladder to FBS and Vanderbilt.
He didn’t get a chance to play for Vandy in 2024 due to that cancer diagnosis, though.
Once in remission, Jones returned to the field in 2025.
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It’s hard to gauge what level Jones was playing at during the 2025 campaign, but he did enough to get noticed by the Packers.
“Although he didn’t make a big impact at Vanderbilt last year, he showed signs that with enough time to recover from the ordeal that cancer treatments put his body through, he may be able to play in the NFL,” writes Michael David Smith of Pro Football Talk.
Jones is originally from Tacoma, Washington. He’s listed at 6-foot-1 and 190 pounds.
In his senior year of high school, he won the 4A state championship in the 100 meters (11.03 seconds).
Also something worth noting for his teammates: Jones’ Vandy bio says that he “enjoys baking in his free time.”
Certainly after his journey to this point, Jones is a guy everyone will be rooting for.
Billy Heyen is a freelance writer with The Sporting News. He is a 2019 graduate of Syracuse University who spent his senior year following Jim Boeheim’s basketball team around the country. His reporting work has also included extensive high school sports coverage at the Sandusky Register and Rochester Democrat & Chronicle. Adventures in sports writing have also led to in-person coverage of the Buffalo Sabres, Cleveland Guardians, U.S. men’s national soccer team and a variety of minor league baseball stories. When people ask if he’s seen a movie, the answer is usually “No, I was probably watching sports.” Even away from sports, his main hobby is running (much slower than any athlete in these pages).
