One of the greatest pass rushers in NFL history

How will we be remembered when we are gone? We ask ourselves this question because being remembered after death meant that you made an impact on this world. For the game of football, Deacon Jones’ legacy is one that will never be forgotten. The “Deadly Deacon” revolutionized the way the game was played. Before defensive ends were slow, lumbering mountains whose only purpose was to stop the run. They weren’t supposed to get to the quarterback, heck there was no reward for even tackling a quarterback in those days. However, Jones changed all this  with a deadly combination of break neck speed, a ferocious head slap, and a mad man intensity. Jones destroyed offensive lines and began to introduce the destructive possibilities of what a defensive end could bring to the NFL. Now teams had to change game plans and had to come up with new methods to protect their quarterback from this new threat, the pass rush. Deacon Jones put the defensive end position on the map and made it one of the most vital pieces to great football teams. However, Jones greatest legacy wasn’t how he was pummeling  quarterbacks into the turf, but how he changed the rules. Jones will always be known for coining the term “sacking the quarterback” which has become an irreplaceable NFL statistic. Think about it. What would the NFL be today without sacks? Jones explained, “sacking the quarterback is like desolating a whole city, it’s like you put the whole offense in one bag and I just beat on the bag”. By the end of his career Jones recorded 173.5 sacks, but this is misleading since it did not account for the years where the NFL did not record sacks. In the 1967, if sacks were counted, Jones had 26 sacks in 14 games, a single season record that would still stand today. While Deacon Jones may have left this earth, the impact that he had on the game of football will never die.