Charlotte 49ers Pro Day: Jalon Jones, QB turned WR prospect, impresses NFL scouts

It’s not uncommon for a quarterback like Jalon Jones — one with gaudy athleticism and NFL size — to transition from signal-caller to wide receiver as he prepares for his pro career.

What’s less common?

Learning from one of the best players to ever make that transition.

Jones, the former Charlotte 49ers quarterback who shined during Pro Day on Monday in Jerry Richardson Stadium as a wide receiver, spent part of his offseason training at XPE Sports in Florida with Anquan Boldin. Boldin, of course, entered Florida State as a quarterback in the early 2000s before having a long and decorated NFL career as a wideout.

The training taught Jones that “it’s never too late” to switch positions and that “great things can come from it.” It also taught him something else that might’ve helped him shine on Monday: Get ‘quarterback’ out of your head.

“Don’t over-analyze, just go out there and run,” Jones told The Charlotte Observer after his workout concluded Monday. “As a receiver, you’re just reacting; you just gotta go out there and react off of different leverages, different play-styles, different defenses. And if you’re over-analyzing, you’re going to take speed away from what you’re doing. And so he just said, ‘It’s good to have that quarterback mindset, but try to get that out of your head so you are able to run freely and relax.’”

Jones certainly looked relaxed Monday. And the 6-foot-3, 205-pound athlete had plenty of reasons to. The Richmond, Va., native — who arrived in Charlotte this year after transferring from Bethune-Cookman to reunite with former high school coach and current 49ers head coach Biff Poggi — turned heads in pretty much every drill, putting up numbers that receivers would be proud of.

He notched a 38” vertical jump and a 10’6” broad jump, numbers not-too-dissimilar from other wideouts who competed in the NFL Scouting Combine last month. Jones — who led the team in rushing with 476 yards and four touchdowns, adding to 646 passing yards and two passing scores in 2023 — also ran a sub-4.4 40-yard dash, scouts told him, a time he was proud of after the fact.

“As a quarterback, the only thing I ever really worked on was the mechanics of footwork, moving in the pocket, throwing the ball,” Jones said. “This has really been the first time where I just really trained my athleticism and trained to be in peak condition to run and do everything that I did. And so, had I been anywhere else in the country, I don’t think I would’ve been able to do what I did today. But those people down in XPE really helped me out.”

A lot of Jones’ success, beyond his offseason training program, came naturally, of course: His mother, Tanya Hughes, was a high jumper for the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team in Barcelona and a four-time NCAA champion in the event at Arizona. Jones’ father, Michael, was a standout linebacker for the 1989 Colorado team that made the Orange Bowl and nearly punctuated a perfect season. And the NFL prospect’s sister, Jocelyn, played high-level basketball at Seton Hall and North Carolina.

Jones said he’s met with a few NFL teams already and that he has faith that his representation, U.S. Sports, will help him realize his NFL dreams. He’s hoping to follow in the footsteps of 49ers wide receiver Grant DuBose, who was drafted by the Green Bay Packers in seventh round of the 2023 draft.

“I’m definitely excited to talk to a few more scouts while I’m out here,” Jones said, “and I’ve gotten pretty good feedback so far, so I’m excited to see where everything leads me.”

Julius Welschof brings ‘juice’ from Germany

Whenever Julius Welschof stepped up to do a drill, a group of his teammates or maybe a coach would cut through the anticipatory silence:

“Let’s go Juice!”

Welschof, at 6-foot-6, 265, brought the juice Monday morning, as his nickname that he earned in his hometown in Miesbach, Bavaria, Germany, would suggest. The defensive lineman recorded a 10’3” on the broad jump and was able to show that he’s healthy, in shape and still agile in the defensive end drills alongside likely draft pick Eyabi Okie, who participated in the combine last month.

The former part — showing he’s healthy — was important to him after he missed all but four games of the 2023 season due to a fractured scapula that has since fully healed, he said.

Welschof, like Jones, had a history with Poggi before arriving in Charlotte. He spent his first three years at Michigan — not long after he first started playing football in 2013 — and transferred as a graduate student last summer. He said his time in Charlotte helped him rediscover his confidence in the game — a game he’s flourished in the short time he’s been playing.

“It’s been great,” Welschof said of his time in Charlotte. “It helped me a lot, being more confident again, having a leadership role. I’m not going to say I’m the leader who’s talking in front of the group, but I try to lead more by example, just show up and work. And that’s what I was trying to do and earn my respect that way.”

Welschof also plays tennis and is a lifelong skier, he said.

Dae Dae Hollins hopes his Pro Day will create momentum

Dae Dae Hollins was one of the many prospects across the country that went into this final week of pro days without representation, without having talked to NFL teams. But he hopes his Pro Day performance might circulate some conversation.

Hollins, a safety in Poggi’s system at Charlotte who played under defensive coordinators Jay Bateman and Gene Chizik at UNC before transferring last summer, is confident that he can learn any scheme, any system, if given the chance to learn it — much like he has in college.

“I’ve kind of just taken all the coaching in, taken in all the different perspectives: the different ways of playing press, the difference way of sealing (the seal technique), different ways to re-route,” Hollins said after his workout, when asked what the biggest thing he’s learned on-field as a collegiate player. The safety then added that as far as concepts go, once he learned one, he knew he could learn them all.

All participants at Charlotte 49ers Pro Day

• Eyabi Okie, DE

• Joachim Bangda, RB

• Shadrick Byrd, RB

• Grant Gonya, P

• LaDaeson “Dae Dae” Hollins, S

• Jalon Jones, WR

• Jasper Parks, OL

• Dom Shoffner, QB

• Izaiah Taylor, CB

• Julius Welschof, DE

• Kevin Williams, OL

• Jon Alexander (2021 grad)

• Justin Jeffery, WR (2021 grad)

• Tank Robinson, S (2022 grad)

• RJ Mobley, WR (Winston-Salem State)

• Jacobe Clement, DB (Johnson C. Smith)

• Mason King, LB (Hampton)