Patrick Mahomes was fortunate on Sunday to have escaped a serious head injury after absorbing a knee to the helmet in Kansas City’s loss at Tennessee. Like Jones against Dallas, Mahomes was staggered and needed help getting off the field. Unlike Jones, Mahomes passed concussion protocol and, though Coach Andy Reid held him out the rest of the game, was permitted to speak with the news media afterward.
“I feel fine now,” Mahomes said, adding later: “You get hit pretty hard. Sometimes you just want to lay there.”
It is possible Jones felt that way on Sunday, too. But he, like so many others, prides himself on his resilience — on his toughness. His football coach at Charlotte Latin School, Larry McNulty, likes sharing the story of how, as a scrawny high school sophomore, Jones was hit so hard that McNulty thought he was dead. The blow merely dislodged Jones’s helmet and mouthpiece. Rising from the grass, he looked McNulty in the eye and said, “Get me a damn helmet.”
That attitude, coupled with Jones’s athleticism, endeared him to the Giants in the 2019 draft, and it compels the team’s offensive coordinator, Jason Garrett, to call runs for him, to take advantage of his speed. Against Dallas, Jones couldn’t outrun two defenders to the end zone pylon on a keeper, and linebacker Jabril Cox drilled him with his helmet. Garrett, when asked four days later about the play, said that they would be “foolish” not to capitalize on Jones’s ability as a runner but that they had to be “certainly aware” of not putting him in dangerous situations.
“You don’t want to overdo that and put him in harm’s way,” Garrett said. “I think we’re understanding more and more. He’s understanding more and more the balance between those.”