Caught on NBC’s camera Sunday night, traipsing down the tunnel of Giants Stadium moments after his busiest night as a Bear, running back Thomas Jones revealed how proud he was of what his team had just done. Called it his proudest night as a Bear, in fact.
Later in the locker room, Jones turned questions about his big night into praise for his offensive line and spoke more about what the Bears’ victory meant to him than how much he had to do with it.
If they ever find a statistic to measure intangibles, Jones would be every fantasy football league owner’s dream player.
“For us to play that well as a team says a lot about our character and a lot about our heart,” Jones said.
There was no boasting or I-told-you-so’s–just the pride that Jones continues to bring quietly to a job that often gets taken for granted in this city.
Jones carried the ball 30 times against the Giants, 22 in the most important second half of a Bears regular-season game in years. His 113 yards, his third 100-yard game in the last five, gave Jones 725 this season. At that pace, he will finish with 1,289 yards after gaining 1,335 last year.
That two-year total of 2,624 would give Jones the best back-to-back production of any Bears back not named Walter Payton.
On the day in 2004 the Bears signed Jones to a four-year, $10 million contract that now looks like a pittance for a franchise running back, the NFL journeyman talked about once buying a pair of tennis shoes just because Payton endorsed them.
Who thought Jones would do such a commendable job of following in his idol’s footsteps in Chicago?
So much focus around town this season, rightfully so, tends to revolve around the development of Rex Grossman or the dominance of Brian Urlacher and his defensive friends. Coach Lovie Smith’s unresolved contract status makes good talk-show fodder when callers aren’t weighing in on Cedric Benson’s mood of the day.
Few athletes in contemporary Chicago sports history who have meant as much to their respective teams as Jones does have gone so relatively unnoticed or unappreciated.
Horace Grant with the Bulls? Magglio Ordonez with the Sox? Jon Lieber with the Cubs?
If you want a real good Bears debate, forget the silly, and now moot, argument of whether Jones needs to share more carries with Benson. How about who was a better Bears running back in his prime, Jones or Neal Anderson?
Anderson spent more time in a Bears uniform but if Jones keeps running at the current rate through the end of this season, his projected three-year yardage total of 3,572 from 2004-2006 would be slightly ahead of Anderson’s 3,459 during his best years of 1988-1990.
Even the Bears didn’t anticipate Jones keeping such lofty company or they never would have drafted Benson after Jones’ modest first season here. That was the ultimate show of no appreciation.
Benson has yet to justify that expensive leap of faith, but that’s an old story. Here is a new way of looking at it: The $16 million in bonus money paid Benson looks foolish, but maybe not if you consider it the price of an expensive motivational tool for Jones.
Jones was slogging to a slow start Sunday night, with 9 yards in his first four carries, including a holding penalty, before Benson replaced him for two series midway through the first quarter. Jones lost a fumble on his fifth carry and Benson was back the following series for a three-and-out.
When Jones returned, his next 25 carries netted 106 yards.
The Bears do not have a player more self-motivated than Jones. But it also might not be a coincidence that his career year of 2005 came months after Benson was drafted at No. 4 overall and his most durable season of 2006 started with Jones opening training camp behind an unproven second-year player on the depth chart.
Jones will start his 10th straight game Sunday against the Jets, the longest stretch of his NFL career as the featured back. He also opened the 2003 season for Tampa Bay by playing 10 games in a row without injury. But he wasn’t exactly exposed as a backup running back who carried the ball only 36 times in that 10-game span.
Nobody but Benson might complain if Jones has 36 carries in his next game alone.
The Bears’ offense, particularly the play-action passing game, functions better the more handoffs Jones receives. In the two games this season that Jones has not carried the ball 20 or more times–Minnesota and Arizona–Grossman has completed 47 percent of his passes and the offense has managed just one touchdown. Against the Giants, Grossman hit 9 of 11 passes for 139 yards and two touchdowns in the second half when Jones carried 22 times.
You also don’t have to be Jones’ agent, Drew Rosenhaus, to notice the link between Jones receiving 30 carries Sunday and the Bears having five plays of 25 or more yards for the first time this season. A quick-strike team also needs a running threat to help eat time off the clock to rest the defense, even a running threat averaging just 3.8 yards per carry.
Granted, Jones’ yards-per-carry average needs to improve. In comparison, last year with seven games left in the season, Jones had 28 more yards on 22 fewer carries. But it’s not necessarily how much Jones gains when he carries the ball as how often he gets it.
Slowly, a football city is starting to get that too.
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dhaugh@tribune.com
