Sean Jones is entering his sixth NFL season, and if he thought he was past the point of attending rookie camps and voluntary team workouts, that was before the Cleveland Browns chose not to re-sign him and before the Eagles took on Jones as part of their revamped post-Brian Dawkins safety rotation.

So, Jones was out on the field at the NovaCare Complex yesterday, learning the new system, trying to make plays and taking advantage of the opportunity to compete for a starting job.

This competition likely will last until the very end of training camp. Jones can play either the free safety or strong safety position. At the former, he finds himself behind Quintin Demps on the depth chart, and behind Quintin Mikell at the latter.

Jones isn't sure where he will fit in, but he is sure he will be fit and be in.

"I definitely like my chances," Jones said. "I'm still confident, and once I get the scheme down, get the defense down and get comfortable, it's going to be hard to keep me off the field."

If it works that way, the 6-foot-1, 225-pound Jones could beat out Demps for the free safety spot, or he could start at strong safety, with Mikell moving over to free. In some ways, there's nothing much in what name the position has.

"It's whoever Jim [Johnson] wants to bring down in the box," general manager Tom Heckert said earlier this month. "It's not a true strong safety-free safety scheme. I think we can just kind of maneuver who we want down there."

As his coverage skills eroded, the Eagles used Brian Dawkins more frequently near the line of scrimmage, employing him as a mini-linebacker and blitz threat much of the time.

Jones brings versatility, and he brings some hunger, too. The Browns didn't want to keep him, and Jones took a one-year deal from the Eagles, hoping it would turn into a lucrative showcase for him. That's the way it worked here for Shawn Barber, another client of agent Brian Mackler. If nothing else, the Eagles acquired a motivated player and a guy who knows his value won't rise as a reserve.

"It's a battle. We're going to go out there and compete. The best man wins and whoever that turns out to be is going to be a good safety," Jones said of the battle for the starting spots among himself, the two Quintins and fellow free agent Rashad Baker. "Competition raises the best out of everyone. If we have four good safeties, that's great for the Eagles."

The learning curve for Jones is steep since coming from Cleveland, his only previous NFL team. The Browns run a 3-4 defense in which the safeties have far different responsibilities, such as who covers the tight end. Terminology is also unrelated.

"Pretty much everything here is the opposite of Cleveland. That's why I'm here. I want to get everything down before training camp when the real bullets start flying," Jones said. "At the end of the day, football is football, but this is a whole 'nother defense here."

It's a whole 'nother way of approaching the game, too. The Eagles, for instance, have been winners, and there is that expectation. In Cleveland, it was merely a hope.

"I've been on winning teams my whole life," said the 27-year-old Jones, who was also a star quarterback in high school. "In Cleveland, we struggled while I was there. This organization has a different mind-set. It's nice to be with a team that wants to get to the playoffs, to the Super Bowl, and anything less is unacceptable."

All of the good things accomplished by the Eagles were done with Dawkins in the defensive backfield, and being part of the unit that replaces him won't be easy for anyone. That's the flip side of expectation - pressure. Demps didn't handle it well in the NFC championship game against Arizona when he was beaten for a touchdown and picked up a dumb late-hit penalty.

No one really knows how Jones will handle pressure yet. There wasn't a lot in Cleveland, even as he started his last 44 games for the Browns and picked off 14 passes in that stretch. Those are questions that won't be answered in May . . . or even in August, for that matter.

That is something the Eagles won't know until the regular season, and by then they will have made their decision about the starters. Jones intends to make that an easy decision in his case.

"My intention is that when training camp arrives and we put pads on and get thumping, I'm going to be playing at my highest level," he said. "If I do, that's going to be pretty good football."

Contact columnist Bob Ford at 215-854-5842 or bford@phillynews.com. Read his blog at http://philly.com/postpatterns.