 Jones in 1971 | |||||||
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| Position | Defensive end | ||||||
| Personal information | |||||||
| Born | (1938-12-09)December 9, 1938 Eatonville, Florida, U.S. | ||||||
| Died | June 3, 2013(2013-06-03) (aged 74) Anaheim Hills, California, U.S. | ||||||
| Height | 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m) | ||||||
| Weight | 272 lb (123 kg) | ||||||
| Career information | |||||||
| High school | Hungerford (Eatonville) | ||||||
| College |
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| NFL draft | 1961: 14th round, 186th overall pick | ||||||
| Career history | |||||||
| Awards and highlights | |||||||
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| Career NFL statistics | |||||||
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David D. "Deacon"Jones (December 9, 1938 – June 3, 2013) was an American professionalfootballdefensive end who played in theNational Football League (NFL) for 14 seasons. He played for theLos Angeles Rams,San Diego Chargers, andWashington Redskins. He was inducted into thePro Football Hall of Fame in 1980.
Jones specialized insacks. Nicknamed "the Secretary of Defense", Jones is considered one of the greatest defensive players ever.[1] TheLos Angeles Times called Jones the "most valuable Ram of all time", and former Rams head coachGeorge Allen called him the "greatest defensive end of modern football".[1]
Jones was born inEatonville, Florida, and lived in a four-bedroom house with his family of ten.[2] Jones attendedHungerford High School, where he playedfootball,baseball, andbasketball.[3] During high school, Jones developed a lump in histhigh and learned that it was atumor; he had surgery to remove it by Dr. Ron Alegria.[2]
Late in life, Jones toldThe San Diego Union-Tribune that when he was 14 years old, he witnessed a carload of white teenagers laughingly hit an elderly black woman with a watermelon. The woman died days later from the injury, and Jones recalls that there was never a police investigation. "Unlike many black people then, I was determined not to be what society said I was", Jones later recounted. "Thank God I had the ability to play a violent game like football. It gave me an outlet for the anger in my heart."[4]
Jones'college football career consisted of a year atSouth Carolina State University in 1958, followed by a year of inactivity in 1959 and a final season atMississippi Vocational College, now known as Mississippi Valley State University, in 1960.[5]
South Carolina State revoked Jones' scholarship after they learned that he participated in a protest during theCivil Rights Movement.[2] However, one of the assistant football coaches at South Carolina State was leaving to coach at Mississippi Vocational, and told Jones and some of the other African-American players that he could get them scholarships at the new school.[2] While he was playing at Mississippi Vocational, he and his African-American teammates had to sleep on cots in the opposing team's gym because motels would not take them on numerous occasions.[2]
Due to a lack of television coverage and modern scouting networks, Jones was largely overlooked during his college career. According to anNFL Films interview with writerRay Didinger, "Deacon was discovered kinda by accident. The Rams were scouting some running backs and they found this defensive tackle who was outrunning the running backs that they were scouting." Jones was selected in the 14th round of the1961 NFL draft by theLos Angeles Rams. He then earned a starting role as adefensive end and teamed with tackleMerlin Olsen to give Los Angeles a perennialAll-Pro left side of the defensive line.[5] He became a part of theFearsome Foursome defensive line of the Rams (along withLamar Lundy,Rosey Grier, and Olsen), which is now considered to have been one of the best defensive lines of all time.[6]
"I'm probably the toughest (expletive) here. Ain't no
question about that with me. I'm the toughest guy
here... I'm clean. I mean, I ain't got no marks on
me. I don't know nobody else who can say that
who came out of any sport. I ain't got no marks on
me, so I've got to be the baddest dude I know of."
Jones won consensus All-Pro honors five straight years from1965 through1969 and was second-team All-Pro in 1964, 1970, and 1972. He was also in seven straightPro Bowls, from 1964 to 1970, and was selected to an eighth after the1972 season with theSan Diego Chargers.[5] He was voted the team's Outstanding Defensive Lineman by the Los Angeles Rams Alumni in 1962, '64, '65, and '66. In 1971, Jones suffered a severely sprained arch, which caused him to miss four starts, and he ended the season with 4½ sacks, his career-low to that point.
Jones was traded along withLee White andGreg Wojcik from the Rams to theSan Diego Chargers forJeff Staggs, a second-rounder in1972 (30th overall) and a second and third-rounder in1973 (31st and 60th overall) on January 29, 1972.[8][9] He was named San Diego's defensive captain and led all Chargers' defensive linemen in tackles and won a berth on the AFC Pro Bowl squad. He concluded his career with theWashington Redskins in 1974.[5] In the final game of his NFL career, the Redskins allowed him to kick the point-after-touchdown for the game's last score. Along the way, Jones was named the Associated Press NFL Defensive Player of the Week four times: week 14, 1967; week 12, 1968; week 11, 1969; and week 10, 1970.
An extremely durable player, Jones missed only six games of a possible 196 regular-season encounters in his 14National Football League seasons.[5]
Jones was considered by many to revolutionize the position of defensive end.
What separated Jones from every other defensive end was his speed and his ability to make tackles from sideline to sideline, which was unheard of in his time. He also was the first pass rusher to use the head slap, a move that he said was, "to give myself an initial head start on the pass rush, in other words an extra step. Because anytime you go upside a man's head … or a woman; they may have a tendency to blink they [sic] eyes or close they eyes. And that's all I needed."[10] "The head slap was not my invention, butRembrandt, of course, did not invent painting. The quickness of my hands and the length of my arms, it was perfect for me. It was the greatest thing I ever did, and when I left the game, they outlawed it."[4]
Pro Football Weekly reported he accumulated 173.5 sacks over his career. The total would be third on the all-time sack list, which would have ranked first all-time at the time of his retirement by a substantial margin.[11]
In 1964, Jones had 22 sacks in only 14 games. If official, this would have stood as an NFL record until Al Baker's 1978 campaign in which he totaled 23 sacks. In 1967, Jones had 21.5 sacks; he again tallied 22 sacks in 14 games the following year.
(Source: Los Angeles Rams, San Diego Chargers and Washington Redskins Media Guides)
Jones worked as a television actor, and appeared in numerous TV programs since the 1970s, most often appearing incameo roles. He appeared in an episode ofThe Odd Couple where he andOscar were in a television commercial selling shaving products. He appeared as himself onThe Brady Bunch, and in aBewitched episode in 1969, he played a guard to the Giant's castle in "Sam & the Beanstalk". Jones also played himself on an episode ofWonder Woman in 1978.
In 1978, he played aViking named Thall inThe Norseman. Fellow Hall of FamerFred Biletnikoff joined Jones in the film, also portraying aNorseman.[12] That same year, Jones portrayed a fierce defensive lineman named Gorman in the filmHeaven Can Wait.
In the seriesG vs E, he played himself, but as an agent of "The Corps". He also played a role in the hit show,ALF, where he played a father figure to Alf.
Jones served as acolor analyst for Rams broadcasts onKMPC radio in the1994 season, teaming withSteve Physioc andJack Snow. In 1998, shortly beforeSuper Bowl XXXII between the Denver Broncos and Green Bay Packers, Jones correctly predicted the Broncos, 11.5-point underdogs, would win the game andTerrell Davis would be named MVP of the game.
Jones worked for many companies, including theMiller Brewing Company,Haggar Clothing, Pacific Coast Medical Enterprises, andEpson America, and represented the NFL andChampion Products as spokesman for their Throwback campaigns.[1] Jones was also chairman forAstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals in their nationalhypertension awareness program.[1]
NFL.com reported that Jones made several trips toIraq to visit the U. S. military.[1][13]
Jones served as the president and CEO of the Deacon Jones Foundation, an organization he founded in 1997 "to assist young people and the communities in which they live with a comprehensive program that includes education, mentoring, corporate internship, and community service."[1]
Jones was one of the many former L.A. Rams players who disliked the team's controversial relocation toSt. Louis in 1995. He was adamant in interviews and appearances that he played for Los Angeles, not St. Louis, and considered the Rams franchise there a different team that should have a different name.[citation needed] He participated in many grassroots efforts to bring NFL football back to L.A. and also voiced support on many new stadium proposals .[citation needed] The Rams eventually returned to Los Angeles in 2016 after Jones had died.
He was elected to thePro Football Hall of Fame in his first year of eligibility in 1980, and was named to theNFL's 75th Anniversary All-Time Team in 1994.[1] In 1999, he was ranked number 13 onThe Sporting News list of the 100 Greatest Football Players, the highest-ranked player to have played for the Rams franchise, the highest-ranked defensive end, and the second-ranked defensive lineman behindBob Lilly. The same year, he was named bySports Illustrated as the "Defensive End of the Century".[1] In 2010, he was named to the inaugural class of theBlack College Football Hall of Fame.[14]
Jones stated that he gave himself the nickname Deacon after joining the Rams because too many David Joneses were in the local phone book. "Football is a violent world and Deacon has a religious connotation", he told theLos Angeles Times in 1980. "I thought a name like that would be remembered."[25]
Jones' wife Elizabeth is the chief operating and financial officer of the Deacon Jones Foundation, based inAnaheim Hills, California,[2] the community in which the couple lived.
He was also confused withMelvyn "Deacon" Jones from Richmond, Indiana, anotherrhythm and blues singer. Jones was a rhythm and blues singer during his football days and was backed by the band Nightshift, which later became the groupWar. Jones sang onstage withRay Charles,[26] performed onThe Hollywood Palace in 1967 and 1968, and onThe Merv Griffin Show in 1970. Jones was the inspiration for the name of the 1977 song "Deacon Blues" bySteely Dan.[27]
On June 3, 2013, Jones died at his home inAnaheim Hills, California at age 74 ofnatural causes after suffering fromlung cancer andheart disease.[28][29] Jones' death leftRosey Grier as the last surviving member of theFearsome Foursome, the L.A. Rams defensive line that is widely considered the best such unit in the history of the NFL. Of the former defensive standout, NFL commissionerRoger Goodell said, "Even with his fellow Hall of Famers, Deacon Jones held a special status. He was an icon among the icons." Washington Redskins General ManagerBruce Allen, son of Jones' longtime coachGeorge Allen, called him "one of the greatest players in NFL history. Off the field... a true giant."[30]Sports Illustrated columnistPeter King noted at his death that Jones had a profound effect on the way defense was played in the NFL and cited the influence on such later NFL stars asLawrence Taylor,Deion Sanders, andMichael Strahan.[31] As a tribute to Jones, the NFL created theDeacon Jones Award, that is given annually to the league leader in sacks.[32]
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