KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The answer seemed hilarious at Kansas City Chiefs training camp, where defensive lineman Chris Jones was asked about his sack goal for the upcoming season.

"Lead the NFL," Jones said then without a trace of a smile. "I've been talking about it all summer. I've been voicing it to my teammates. I want to lead the NFL in sacks. I believe that wholeheartedly. You have to speak it to believe it.”

That at the time sounded like one of Jones' many jokes. In his third season out of Mississippi State, Jones has talked about, among other things, his quarterbacking skills and how he could play that position and campaigned coach Andy Reid to be a ball carrier or receiver when the Chiefs get near the goal line.

Jones is the one laughing now. He's not leading the league in sacks and won't catch the leader, Aaron Donald of the Rams, who has 16.5. But Jones has 10, which is tied for ninth and just a half-sack behind linebacker Dee Ford as the Chiefs leader.

"I just figured I [would] bet on myself," Jones said recently of his preseason prediction.

Jones has been a good player since joining the Chiefs as a second-round draft pick in 2016. He had two sacks as a rookie and 6.5 last year.

Until this season, however, he's been known more as someone who always had something to say no matter how outrageous.

"He talks a lot," Chiefs defensive lineman Allen Bailey said. "In the defensive line room, we have breaks in between meetings. He's always in there cracking jokes. He wasn't always that way when he got here. Back then, he was just kind of trying to find his way, find his comfort zone. He was a little bit, but not as loud as he is now."

The Chiefs are second in the NFL in sacks with 39 and have an interesting race shaping up between Ford and Jones to be the team leader. The Chiefs have also been getting strong contributions from Bailey, who has 6.5 sacks, and linebacker Justin Houston, who has four.

"It's a competition now," Jones said.

Jones put himself in the conversation with a big November. Jones had a coming-out party against the Rams, sacking Jared Goff twice. That was part of five sacks he had in November, earning AFC defensive player of the month. Ford had won the award in October.

Jones sacked Oakland's Derek Carr once in Sunday's victory over the Raiders and has at least one sack in each of the past eight games.

That kind of streak would put any player in the top 10. Even though Jones is far behind Donald, he hasn't given up on catching him.

"Me and him talk all the time about it," defensive line coach Britt Reid said. "But there's got to be an even balance there. You can't be rushing the passer on run [plays]. There are no sacks on run [plays]. He's gotten a lot better. I think early in the season he was probably taking too many shots when he shouldn't have been. ... Understanding you can't get a sack every play, I think that's helped."

Jones has also learned a sack isn't the only positive thing about a strong pass rush. The quarterback can be disrupted in other ways.

"That's the biggest thing, getting pressure to the quarterback, making him move off his spot, throw off his back leg. ... There are different ways to affect the quarterback other than getting the sacks," Jones said. "It kind of took me three years to realize that."

Jones is putting himself in line for a big contract. He's signed through 2019 but the Chiefs could give him an extension at the end of this season.

He's only 24, and they feel he has room to grow.

"With Chris, and I've had this conversation with him several times, his is all about consistency," defensive coordinator Bob Sutton said. "He's moving in that direction. He's blessed with a lot of skill and a lot of talent. He has some unique movement skills for a man that's that big. He can be a really good football player if he keeps working at it like he has. He can take this thing to a [higher] level."

In the meantime, Jones will keep chasing Donald. That quest no longer seems like a joke.

"There's a guy in L.A. that's pretty amazing," Bailey said of Donald. "It's going to be hard to catch him. But Chris might get close. The way he's going, averaging one or two a game, with [four] games left? You never know.

"It's pretty amazing to see from where he was two years ago to now."