Former Packers first-round pick Datone Jones signs with Jaguars
-- A former first-round pick made by Ted Thompson has a new home -- again -- and it isn't with the Green Bay Packers.
Datone Jones is signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars, according to his agent David Canter. It's Jones' fifth landing spot since the Packers opted not to pick up his fifth-year option after the 2016 season.
Jones, drafted at No. 26 overall in 2013, never lived up to the team's lively expectations of him. He did, however, briefly fill the "elephant" role in former defensive coordinator Dom Capers' defense. The brief flashes of what he could eventually transpire to be weren't enough to pique the Packers' interest.
After signing a one-year contract with the Minnesota Vikings for the 2017 season, Jones went on record of saying that the Packers didn't have any interest in re-signing him.
He ended up on injured reserve with a shoulder injury by final roster cut-downs and was released with an injury settlement less than a week later. It was his first of two other stops in the NFC North, spending a week with the Detroit Lions that same season.
A brief stint with the San Francisco 49ers led to a prolonged tenure with the Dallas Cowboys where Jones played in five total games over the last two seasons, registering a sack and nine total tackles. His 2018 season was shortened due to a hamstring injury that landed him on injured reserve.
One of Jones' best years with the Packers came in 2015 when he played in 15 games, registered three sacks, 20 tackles and 12 quarterback hits. He had nine total sacks in four years in Green Bay despite playing in 59 of a possible 64 games.
__________________________
Zachary Jacobson is a staff writer/reporter for Cheesehead TV. He's the voice of The Leap on iTunes and can be heard on The Scoop KLGR 1490 AM every Saturday morning. He's also a contributor on the Pack-A-Day Podcast. He can be found on Twitter via @ZachAJacobson or contacted through email at [email protected].
Comments (30)
Coldworld
June 04, 2019 at 04:12 pm
Good luck to him. Good guy who did the right things but just didn’t fit the pick or scheme.
Tundraboy
June 04, 2019 at 06:54 pm
Started off on the wrong foot literally as I recall. Injury wise.
SterlingSharpe
June 05, 2019 at 05:36 am
Saying "he didn't fit the scheme" is an excuse. Four other teams have given him a chance, for much lesser $$ than our 1st rd pick $$. And each of these other teams has not been impressed enough to keep him, and shocker: he ended each season in street clothes with one injury or another.
Coldworld
June 05, 2019 at 06:00 am
That’s why I said pick or scheme. Still a high character guy.
Leatherhead
June 05, 2019 at 10:06 am
Well... I'll just say that God didn't make an awful lot of people with the kind of body you need to play defensive line in the NFL. Five guys who were taken ahead of him are already out of the league and a few others haven't really done much either.
That's why people will keep giving him a chance to make the team as long as he's healthy enough to practice.
Rashan Gary? There is absolutely nothing at this point to say he'll be better or worse. Only time will tell. That's why I'm a big fan of trading down and getting more picks because it increases the likelihood that you'll get a decent player.
Demon
June 05, 2019 at 10:26 am
And thats why i'll down vote every one of your posts that suggest trading down.
CAG123
June 05, 2019 at 02:45 pm
No it doesn’t it increases the opportunity of more JAGs in reality you’re no more likely to get a good player in the first pick than you are in 100th so much more goes into what a player will turn out to be than just where they’re taken and how many of them you can take.
Leatherhead
June 05, 2019 at 05:24 pm
Jordy Nelson, Mike Daniels, David Bakhtiari, Jaire Alexander.....all obtained as a result of an extra pick from a trade down.
CAG123
June 05, 2019 at 11:06 pm
Alexander wasn’t the extra pick Savage and they only did it because Minkah went to the Dolphins. It’s still no guarantee the pick from trading down will develop into anything those are just examples that support your argument I’m pretty sure there’s trade down picks that didn’t work out.
Leatherhead
June 05, 2019 at 10:06 am
Well... I'll just say that God didn't make an awful lot of people with the kind of body you need to play defensive line in the NFL. Five guys who were taken ahead of him are already out of the league and a few others haven't really done much either.
That's why people will keep giving him a chance to make the team as long as he's healthy enough to practice.
Rashan Gary? There is absolutely nothing at this point to say he'll be better or worse. Only time will tell. That's why I'm a big fan of trading down and getting more picks because it increases the likelihood that you'll get a decent player.
CAG123
June 05, 2019 at 02:02 pm
No that’s exactly the case with Jones he was a 4-3 DE just like Perry the difference being Perry could get to the appropriate weight for an OLB Jones came out of college close to 300 pounds and just wasn’t a fit for the Packers 3-4. You underestimate those important early developmental years he should have had as a 4-3 DE at the NFL level.
TheVOR
June 04, 2019 at 04:46 pm
Good luck wid dat!
Demon
June 04, 2019 at 05:02 pm
Yawn
NMPF
June 04, 2019 at 05:22 pm
Once again, Zach with a hard hitting piece of journalism.
IceBowl
June 04, 2019 at 10:30 pm
LOL, better than yours!
ZacharyJacobson
June 06, 2019 at 07:23 pm
Hey, NMPF. One of my duties here for the site is to publish stories regarding news and transactions with the Green Bay Packers, or, in this case, former Green Bay Packers. I felt like it was somewhat significant since he was a former first-rounder in the TT era. These kinds of stories fall outside of my usual stories/analysis, and during this time of the year, there isn't much to analyze. If you have a problem with any of that, don't read. That way you spare yourself much of the time it takes to write out such a rude and unnecessary comment. If you feel like you can't resist that urge to smear your nasty sarcasm all over the comments section and these kinds of stories truly irk you to your core, take it up with either one of Al or Aaron. I promise you, their answers won't be any nicer.
JonathanSpader
June 04, 2019 at 06:28 pm
Fans need to lighten up it's the dead season. It's not like there's much for writers to report...
IceBowl
June 04, 2019 at 09:08 pm
Jonathan Spader ,
Ain't that the truth.
Swedish Chef
June 04, 2019 at 08:56 pm
Whu cures? Bork, Bork, Bork!
IceBowl
June 04, 2019 at 09:09 pm
Swedish Chef,
Isn't that pork, pork, pork????
Leatherhead
June 05, 2019 at 01:43 am
Former Packer safety Aaron Rouse is now on the city council in Virginia Beach and was answering questions on TV after the shooting there this week.
SterlingSharpe
June 05, 2019 at 05:48 am
Wow. Horrific. I was just reading about the wonderful people, many of them, who were slaughtered by this man. So sad.
I wonder if Rouse was asked the question about why they're all ignoring the supposed fact that this man did it for Islam, as the Orlando, and San Bernardino, and Boston, and Fort Hood, and Chattanooga, and Tunisia, and Sri Lanka, and Nice, France, Cairo Egypt churches, Pakistan churches, Paris cartoonists, and London, and Mumbai, and Bali etc. all have.
I have heard from a person I trust with the FBI that he was. But the media is doing a great job of feeding us the line "struggling to find his motives" for this jihad.
flackcatcher
June 05, 2019 at 11:50 am
Had a nice conversion with Aaron Rouse about his retirement and post football career. Grateful that the Packers gave him a chance and happy to move on to his current position. Very sharp young man, happy to see him doing so well.
Rossonero
June 05, 2019 at 05:12 am
Jones will be lucky if he makes the team, but good luck to him. Very frustrating he never panned out.
Handsback
June 05, 2019 at 07:12 am
This would be a perfect story if anybody could tell why he hasn't worked out in the NFL. He hasn't and probably won't even with the Jags. He ate up the competition at the Senior Bowl, he did well in college so why not the pros? Did he not develop enough physically? Was it a mental issue? Was he on the juice in college and couldn't do it in the pros?
Why do players like him get drafted, and what is it that teams miss? That would be a great story.
Coldworld
June 05, 2019 at 07:42 am
I think he was miscast in GB. He was a tweener type. I haven’t followed since he left but an injury or two and finding a fit. For these guys, the physical step up to the NFL sometimes means that size or speed combinations that worked in college are negated.
Good guy from a tough background who showed good effort but was a bad pick in retrospect in my view at the position he was taken and for the scheme that he was to play in.
flackcatcher
June 05, 2019 at 03:04 pm
Ironic isn't it. He would be a perfect fit in the defensive system the Packers now run. (if he could stay healthy)
Doug Niemczynski
June 05, 2019 at 09:32 am
I didn't know he was still in the league. Another 1st round pick that was useless.
Ferrari Driver
June 05, 2019 at 10:08 am
What I appreciated most about the Headline to this article was the lead word "FORMER". Jones was a grave disappointment as a first round draft choice both with his play on the field and his big mouth.
JonathanSpader
June 05, 2019 at 02:56 pm
I'll always remember Datone Jones getting pulled over for purchasing a bag of marijuana and telling the officer "Do you know who I am? I was the Packers 1st round draft pick!" Class act.