Best NFL Players of All Time: Deacon Jones. Ranking the Top Players in History. Place a bet on an NFL football game now.

Best NFL Players of All Time: Deacon Jones

Deacon Jones’s previous coach, George Allen, referred to him as the best defensive player of the modern age because of how adept he was at rushing the quarterback. In addition to his destructiveness on the field, Jones was equally creative when he was in front of the camera. “Because nobody would ever remember a player named David Jones,” he came up with the nickname Deacon. The NFL deserves credit for having the wisdom to accept Jones’s term “sack” without adding any of its own.

From 1961 to 1971, Jones was a standout player with the Los Angeles Rams. He then played his final three years with the San Diego Chargers and the Washington Redskins. Considering that he played with Ray Nitschke, Willie Davis, Dick Butkus, and Larry Wilson, he was the best defensive player of his day, which is saying something.

Along with his now-prohibited head smack that caused concussions, he was a deadly defensive end who frequently left opposing offensive tackles powerless. Once below the line of scrimmage, Jones would pursue the quarterback and bring him down.

Jones clarified, “I called it sacking the quarterback because when they would’sack’ the city, it was like war.” “Dude, it was just devastating.” That was what I brought to the game.

The 1982 season, or about eight years after Jones had last worn a uniform, saw the sack officially become an NFL statistic. Therefore, Jones’ NFL record is officially empty of sacks. However, John Turney, a football historian, went back in time to gather sack totals for many of the great players who were active before the period, including the creator of the phrase.

Based on official NFL play-by-play charts and additional verification from NFL Films, Turney’s investigation revealed that Jones recorded 173.5 QB sacks during his playing career. With that total, he would be third all-time in the sack department, only Reggie White (198) and Bruce Smith (200).

One may argue that Jones’s four-year run was the best of any defensive player in league history. In 1964 and 1968, he recorded 106 sacks. Over the final two years of his tenure, Jones recorded a whopping fifty sacks.

He faced legendary linemen from the era, like Bob St. Clair of the San Francisco 49ers, Jim Parker of the Baltimore Colts, and Forrest Gregg of the Green Bay Packers, all of whom nearly invariably required assistance to compete with Jones’s speed. Jones remarked, “They all needed help.” “I couldn’t manage by myself. I was simply too horrible and cruel.

As time has passed, Jones has become more than willing to respond to inquiries from the media, frequently doing so in a WWE-style manner while bragging about his incredible abilities. If you pay close attention, you’ll notice that Jones almost always seems to be enjoying himself at the cost of the person asking the question, with his tongue firmly in his cheek.

Jones was an excellent member of the Rams’ “Fearsome Foursome,” which included teammates Merlin Olsen, Rosey Grier, and Lamar Lundy. He also took great delight in his role as sack specialist and team player.

“To put it in technical terms, the Fearsome Foursome was the model for the Vikings’ “Purple People Eaters,” the Steelers’ “Steel Curtain,” and the Cowboys’ “Doomsday Defense,” according to Jones. “Those clubs sought to emulate us after realizing the devastating power of a strong defensive line. We were the greatest defensive line to play, in our day or any other, and although they had their own nicknames, none of them were as good as ours.

Although Olsen was a fantastic player and a member of the Hall of Fame in his own right, Jones was the one who endowed the Rams’ defensive line with their amazing capacity to quickly turn a game around. Olsen remarked, “Deacon Jones was not just the best defensive lineman to play the game.” “In my opinion, he was the best all-around football player I have ever seen, and he was the best defensive player ever.”

Jones’s all-around defensive prowess was something that George Allen, who got his coaching start under George Halas, could not overstate. Allen claimed that “no one has ever had his combination of speed, instinct, intelligence, motivation, and drive.”

Jones never questioned his own ability to play all around. “I was very confident,” Jones remarked. “You need confidence if you want to play football well. Feeling a bit irate also helps. That was also me. At least for me, frustration increases inner motivation.

Because of such desire, he created the deadly head slap as well as the word that is now so prevalent in the game. Jones would come with his outside arm and then follow with a strike from his inside arm if he wanted to move inside the tackle. It was exactly the contrary if he wanted to go outside.

According to Jones, “many defensive ends had their own variation of the head slap.” “They would grab their arm, fire the shot, and move on.” Before someone else could hit the offensive tackle once, I could hit it twice. that’s what gave it such potency.

With a constant gleam in his eye, Jones is aware that he is anything from modest. He knows he’s telling it the way it was when he dominated for the Rams, so he doesn’t really care.

Best NFL Players of All Time: Deacon Jones Stats

Regular Season

Year	Age	Tm	Pos	No.	G	GS	Int	Yds	TD	Lng	PD	FF	Fmb	FR	Yds	TD	Sk	Sfty	AV
1961	23	RAM	LDE	75	14	6			0				0	3	10	0	9.5		4
1962	24	RAM	LDE	75	14	14			0				0	1	0	0	12		8
1963	25	RAM	LDE	75	14	14	1	0	0	0			0	1	0	0	6		7
1964*	26	RAM	LDE	75	14	14			0				0	3	0	0	22		11
1965*+	27	RAM	LDE	75	14	14			0				0	0	0	0	19	1	11
1966*+	28	RAM	LDE	75	14	14	1	50	0	50			0	1	0	0	16		16
1967*+	29	RAM	LDE	75	14	14			0				0	1	0	0	21.5	1	17
1968*+	30	RAM	LDE	75	14	14			0								22		16
1969*+	31	RAM	LDE	75	14	14			0				0	1	0	0	15		13
1970*	32	RAM	LDE	75	14	13			0				0	1	0	0	12		11
1971	33	RAM	LDE	75	11	10			0								4.5		5
1972*	34	SDG	LDE	75	14	14			0				0	2	0	0	6		8
1973	35	SDG	LDE	75	12	12			0				0	1	0	0	5		5
1974	36	WAS	DE	75	14	1			0				0	0	0	0	3		2
Career					191	168	2	50	0	50			0	15	10	0	173.5	2	134
11 yrs		RAM			151	141	2	50	0	50			0	12	10	0	159.5	2	119
2 yrs		SDG			26	26			0				0	3	0	0	11		13

Playoffs

Year	Age	Tm	Pos	G	GS	Int	Yds	TD	Lng	PD	FF	Fmb	FR	Yds	TD	Sk	Sfty
1967*+	29	RAM	LDE	1	1			0			0	0	0	0	0	0
1969*+	31	RAM	LDE	1	1			0			0	0	0	0	0	0
1974	36	WAS	DE	1	0
2 yrs		RAM		2	2			0							0	0
1 yr		WAS		1	0

 

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