Jacoby Jones, I’m sure you’ve heard of him. He’s been the Baltimore Ravens wide receiver best known for his return skills for the last three seasons. Those three years wrap around the Super Bowl victory for the Baltimore Ravens, actually Jacoby’s first season in Maryland.
This news isn’t just about a player who lost his job and will have to seek employment elsewhere this offseason if he wants to continue to provide for himself, but it’s symbolic of the Baltimore Ravens organization as a whole.
Let’s look at Jacoby’s time at Baltimore.
He was used in the air game with Joe Flacco, but he holds some prestigious return records, both franchise and NFL. First, he’s had not one, not two, but THREE 108-yard kickoff returns in 3 years with Baltimore. One of which was in Super Bowl XLVII against the San Fransisco 49ers coming back from halftime. He was so electric on that play it turned the lights out in the stadium. So we know Jacoby plays lights out — pun intended.
By the way, that play is the longest play ever in Super Bowl history, and helped him to accumulate the most all-purpose yards for a player in the Super Bowl era with 287.
How can you release a guy like that? How can you release a guy where if you DON’T have that guy, you don’t win the Super Bowl? Or even reach the Super Bowl really, because Jacoby Jones was on the receiving end of the Rocky Mountain Rainbow pass in Denver that had them advancing in the first place.
If you look at it, just two years removed from that big game, this roster is completely different. And I did look.
- Vontae Leach
- Ray Rice
- Anquan Boldin
- Jacoby Jones
- Ed Dickson
- Matt Birk
- Bryant McKinnie
- Michael Oher
- Bobbie Williams
- Terrence Cody
- Arthur Jones
- Ray Lewis
- Dannell Ellerbe
- Paul Kruger
- Bernard Pollard
- Ed Reed
- James Ihedigbo
- Cary Williams
None of those guys are part of the team anymore, for whatever reason (retirement, trade, released, left, etc).
That’s 18 guys, and they were each sufficient in the Ravens ball club that earned their Super Bowl. And who knows what it will look like with Torrey Smith and Owen Daniels on the free agent market.
You can’t even look at this team and say this squad has that championship pedigree anymore. Flacco, Suggs, Yanda, Ngata, and that’s really it, of the people who had such a significant impact on their Super Bowl run. No wonder Joe Flacco doesn’t look the same, he’s playing with strangers!
It’s bitter – for me at least – to hear that Jacoby Jones has been released from the Baltimore Ravens.
One year removed from a four-year deal signed to keep Jacoby in Baltimore and his loyalty to ink that contract worth $12 million is much appreciated by the Cowboys fans reading this. The Giants actually offered Jones more money, but he wanted to stay with the Ravens, a team he worked so hard to bring a Lombardi trophy. But loyalty doesn’t coincide with business, does it?
I wonder where Seattle will be a year from now, and then the New England Patriots two years from now. My guess is the Patriots will look very different, just for the fact that the Seahawks are trying, or have already re-signed guys like Sherman, Wilson, Chancellor, Thomas, and company. While on the other hand, the Patriots have an aging quarterback, and their secondary is up in the air as far as re-signing Revis and McCourty.
But yes, returner Jacoby Jones is now on the open market.
