There was much to admire about NFL Hall of Fame defensive end Deacon Jones. Just start with the name.
Deacon Jones. It just doesn’t get much cooler than that.
His real name was David, but that wasn’t enough to adequately describe the man who put the fear of God into so many opponents. He needed something bigger, something that announced his arrival.
And arrive, he did. Jones came out of virtually nowhere to become arguably the greatest defensive end in NFL history. A couple of hundred players had already gone ahead of him when the Los Angeles Rams picked Jones out of little Mississippi Vocational College (now Mississippi Valley State University) in the 14th round of the 1961 draft. The only reason the Rams knew anything about him is because, while studying film of a different player on an opposing team, they noticed Jones was the fastest man on the field despite being over 270s lbs.
An all around-force, Jones terrorized NFL quarterbacks, running backs, and offensive linemen from 1961-74. And like so many NFL greats past and present, he held toughness and machismo to be unquestioned virtues.
“It was a badge of courage for me to be out there when I was sick or hurt,” he later bragged. “To meet you and let you look me in the face when the press had been talking all week about how I ain’t gonna make it. And I wanted to surprise you on Sunday and look you in the eyes, because if I beat you when I’m hurt, you know what I’d done to your whole mentality.”
Over fourteen seasons, he missed only 5/196 games.
Jones is also credited with coining the term “sack” to describe tackling the quarterback for a loss. He described the inspiration of his etymological contribution thusly:
“Sacking the quarterback is like when you devastate a city, or you cream a multitude of people. You take all the offensive linemen and put them in a burlap bag, and then you take a baseball bat and beat on the bag. You’re sacking them, you’re bagging them. And that’s what you’re doing with a quarterback.”
But that attitude, so admired by many football fans, also hints at the darker side of the game.
Critics often deride the common usage of war metaphors to discuss football, because it seems at once to wrongly glorify the horrors of war and to overstate the sport’s violence. However, there is a perverse logic to it. For while football thankfully does not approach the ultimate tragedy of warfare, it is distantly located on the same continuum that warmly embraces violence and human sacrifice. And Deacon Jones personified those values.
Jones’ patented move was the head slap. Lining up opposite an offensive lineman, at the snap of the ball he would drive right at his opponent and slap him hard on the side of the helmet before moving past him.
One purpose of the head slap was to distract the lineman briefly, breaking his concentration by creating movement near the face. The other goal, however, was far more insidious. If executed properly, the head slap disoriented the player briefly. A sharp chop to the helmet actually rattled the player’s brain, putting him out of sorts for a few moments.
The NFL eventually outlawed the head slap, as much for competitive concerns as reasons of safety. But that was after Jones had retired, and until his dying day the Hall of Famer displayed little remorse about having abused opponents in this fashion. Rather, he bragged about it, even using Head Slap as the title of his autobiography.
What’s more, Jones had no qualms about sacrificing himself to maintain his dominance. When one opposing lineman sharpened the chin strap buckle that snapped onto the side of his helmet, Jones was left with a bloody palm after the first play. But that didn’t stop him.
Jones knew that if he let up, every lineman he faced would start sharpening their buckles to take away his favorite weapon. So Jones just kept head slapping all game long, rattling his opponent’s head and losing chunks of flesh from his hand.
For the rest of his life, Deacon Jones had a gouging scar on his left palm.
Things are different today, amid the growing evidence of serious brain damage suffered by countless NFL players. Yet none of the many obituaries I read and watched these past few days discussed the physical disabilities that men like Deacon Jones inflicted upon each other. Perhaps that’s out of respect for Jones.
But I don’t think it’s disrespectful to talk about this issue in the con
text of a eulogy. Indeed, Jones is one of my all time favorite players and I have nothing but respect for him. It does not diminish him to acknowledge: that as an NFL player, he was part of a business, a social system, and a culture that thrived on violence; that many men suffered permanent disabilities as a result; that the dangers of football are still present; and that only recently, after far too many years of willfully sticking its head in the sand, is the NFL beginning to take these issues seriously and consider preventative measures.
So rest in peace Deacon. May your glory be eternal, and may the worst savagery of the NFL be buried with you.