~It was the news Brad Jones had always wanted to hear, but when his coaches with the Green Bay Packers told Jones in mid-November he would be starting at outside linebacker, Jones could only sit, stunned.

“It was a shock for about five minutes,” Jones said. “I was just like, ‘Wow. This is my shot. This is my chance to do it.’ ”

Jones said he was "ecstatic" to be joining a team like the Packers that played a 3-4 defensive scheme.

Jones made seven solo tackles in that first start against Dallas, and with veteran Aaron Kampman now on injured reserve, Jones, a rookie from the University of Colorado, has emerged as one of the Packers’ best pass rushers in the second half of the season. He has four sacks in Green Bay’s last five games and will start today for the Packers in their NFC wild-card game at Arizona.

“He’s making the most of the opportunity he has,” Colorado linebackers coach Brian Cabral said. “We always felt when he left here that his best ball was ahead of him.”

It wasn’t that Jones didn’t excel in Boulder. He was a starter for three seasons, with an increasingly diverse role over his last two years as a hybrid linebacker-defensive end.

Despite finishing his college career with 252 total tackles and 9 1/2 sacks — including seven in 2008 as a senior — Jones hadn’t come close to reaching his potential, in part because he never had substantial competition at his position in Boulder.

Jones was not among the college players invited to the NFL combine in Indianapolis last February, but he performed well enough at CU’s pro day last spring, with a time of 4.54 seconds in the 40-yard dash, to earn some draft buzz. Jones was told he was a likely second-day pick, possibly in the fourth or fifth rounds.

Instead, he lasted until the seventh round, when Packers coach Mike McCarthy called to tell Jones he would be drafted at No. 218 overall with Green Bay’s final selection.

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