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For the entire decade, there's been no question who is the best left tackle in the NFL. Just give the All-Pro award to Seattle's Walter Jones and move on.
Since 2001, Jones has headed to Hawaii at the end of the season as the NFC's Pro Bowl left tackle. He's been an All-Pro for six of the past seven years. If you're looking for the definition of a dominating left tackle, the standard for years has been Jones.
But if Jones doesn't make it back to Hawaii this year, he can blame Cowboys outside linebacker DeMarcus Ware for ruining his reputation. With a national TV audience on Thanksgiving Day, Ware beat Jones for a pair of sacks and an additional quarterback hurry. In addition to Ware's two sacks against Jones, he also recorded a tackle for a loss on a running play when Jones struggled to get any push on Ware. Greg Ellis got a quarterback hurry late in the game against Jones after Ware left the game with an injury. And Chris Canty beat Jones on a running play to make a tackle.On the first sack, Jones was slow getting off the snap, which meant that Ware already had the corner on Jones by the time the tackle got his hands on him. With Matt Hasselback taking a seven-step drop, Ware had him on a tee. On the second sack, Jones got fooled, as he prepared for Ware to take an inside move, but Ware double-crossed him and looped to the outside. Jones took a rare mistep and it was all over. For a tackle who's expected to be perfect, it was a shockingly bad game. And since tackles are rarely noticed, one game like that can make an oversized impact.
It was a bad game for Jones, but of course, it's worth mentioning that it was six bad plays in 68 snaps, so it's not like Jones is tripping over his own feet on a regular basis. Whenever Ware tried to cut back inside and attempt a power rush, Jones simply swallowed him up. Ware had no success with anything but a outside speed rush, but he was smart enough to mix in bull rushes and inside stunts to keep Jones off balance. And even when Ware turned on the jets, he often found that Jones' long arms and quick feet were enough to keep him busy.
To try to get a sense of whether Jones' bad game against the Cowboys was an aberration or a trend, I went back and watched two other games from earlier this year (the entire Dolphins game and the first half of the Seahawks game at the 49ers), plus the first half from the Steelers-Seahawks Super Bowl back in Jan. 2006, when Jones was at the height of his power.
In rewatching these games, it's clear that Jones has slipped this season. Against the Dolphins, Jones allowed half a sack (his man helped clean up on a sack that another Dolphin started) and two quarterback hurries. Against the 49ers he gave up a quarterback hurry and a couple of tackles on running plays. But what jumps out more than anything is Jones' bad body language. Maybe it's unfair, but in watching Jones on play after play, it's surprising how often he's standing around doing nothing when the whistle blows. Jones seems to be doing just enough, but he's not firing off to punish defensive linemen until the play ends.
Throughout all four games, it's clear that Jones has amazing arms and hands. Jones' long arms means that pass rushers rarely ever get a hand on his chest or shoulders to try to control him. He generally beats them to the punch, which is usually a big part of the battle. Jones' arms are the key to everything he does. He's not a overly physical player--in fact one of the difficult things to realize when watching him is that his game is not based around physically dominating his opponent. Even at his best, Jones was the kind of tackle who could end the game on a muddy field with a relatively clean jersey--he arm fights with defensive linemen and linebackers but very rarely will knock a guy to the ground. In rewatching the Super Bowl, Jones completely walled off Joey Porter and Kimo Von Oelhoffen, but even in doing so, he did it more with angles and arms than pure strength.
On running plays in the three games from this year that I watched, Jones is solid but nothing special. The Seahawks are relatively successful running at left tackle (10th in the league according to Football Outsiders), but only 27th in the league when running outside to the left. Jones is more of an oversized basketball player than a road grader. But left tackle is a position that is much more about pass blocking than driving defensive linemen to the ground, so that's not surprising.
Jones' pass blocking is still generally very good, but he's not invincible like he used to be. There are little signs that Jones' legs may be the problem. In the 49ers' game, he bent over after one play and rubbed his knee as if he was favoring his leg. And he's missed practice once this week because of a knee problem. If Jones' leg is bothering him, that would explain why Ware could beat him to the corner. It also gives the Seahawks reasons to believe the 34-year-old will return to his previous form. But it also is a reason to believe that when you're looking for an All-Pro left tackle this year, there's reason to be search for other candidates.
Between The Lines: What's Happened to Walter Jones? originally appeared on NFL FanHouse on Thu, 04 Dec 2008 10:28:00 EST . Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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