Chandler Jones’ case for NFL Defensive Player of the Year is too strong to be ignored

Do I believe Chandler Jones has a legit shot to win NFL Defensive Player of the Year this season?

No, not really.

I’m pretty sure Patriots cornerback Stephon Gilmore already has the vote locked up by now. And to be clear, if I had a vote I’m not so sure I wouldn’t vote for Gilmore, too. He has had a fantastic year, and a lot of what the Patriots do on defense is predicated on Gilmore being able to erase the opposite team’s top wide receiver from the game every single week. So hey, I get it.

But, should a late push from Jones, who now leads the league with 19 sacks, at least put his name front and center in the conversation?

Truth is, his name should’ve already been in those conversations.

As soon as I saw the news that Seahawks left tackle Duane Brown was out last week, I immediately assumed that his absence was going to give Jones the opportunity to go TF awf. However, even I didn’t expect him to go off quite like that.

Not only did he rack up four sacks on the day, but Jones also ended up with five pressures and two forced fumbles. While some of those sacks and pressures were probably directly tied to Brown being out, the truth is that several times Jones was able to get to Russell Wilson almost off outstanding effort alone. Wilson kept trying to pull his patented “wizard” act, weaving his way around and through traffic in the backfield to give his wide receivers a chance to uncover down the field, but Jones was having none of it.

It was that constant pressure that gave Jones a huge game statistically, and with the timeliness of the plays he made, he also had a massive hand in helping Cardinals pull off the 27-13 upset win in Week 16. With so much on the line for Seattle as far as playoff implications, it felt like everybody just assumed the team would “find a way” to win. Everybody but Jones and the rest of the Cardinals, that is.

In particular, Jones was an absolute monster on third downs. The Seahawks only converted one of 12 third-downs, and Jones’ pressure was a key part of stopping them on seven out of the 11 occasions where they failed. The Seahawks were well aware of Jones’ ability to wreck a game before kickoff, and yet even though they had to know with Brown out that Jones was going to be a huge threat, they still couldn’t find a way to slow him down.

Jamarco Jones, a 2018 fifth-round pick, was the guy who drew the short straw to fill in for Brown last week. Unfortunately, the third start of his career turned out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. He was certainly overmatched, but to their credit, the Seahawks tried to send him help just about as often as they could without hamstringing the offense.

However, this was just one of those games where it just didn’t matter. Chandler Jones was simply able to outwork everybody and make sure that Wilson was uncomfortable all afternoon. Bruh had that glow like Bruce Leeroy in The Last Dragon, and I’m sure Jamarco had to be feeling a lot like Sho’nuff did at the end of that movie.

In the battle of the Joneses, Chandler gave Jamarco that work on Sunday in just about every way imaginable. He beat him with bull rushes, long arms, cross chips, and arm overs. When it was finished and the damage was all done, you might’ve mistaken Jamarco for a Burger King, because he definitely let Chandler have it his way.

Yes, I am going to be a little petty now and remind everybody that I already told y’all Jones had this kind of season in him earlier this year. I also pleaded with everyone to start paying attention because this man is criminally underrated at this point. Now, I won’t rehash all of what I said since I already said it so eloquently once, but I’m just saying that y’all should’ve listened.

While it is impressive to me that Jones doesn’t seem affected by the relative lack of notoriety his accomplishments on the field have garnered him so far, I’m starting to get downright offended. He deserves a hell of a lot better considering he just keeps showing up every week and making plays, regardless of the circumstance. Fortunately for him, his incredible day against the Seahawks is basically forcing everyone to talk about him now.

Just so you know, only 17 other players have ever even gotten to 19 sacks in a season.

Think about that. It seems like sometimes fans and maybe even some media have an unrealistic idea about how easy it is to get double-digit sacks these days, even now that the NFL has turned into a passing league for the most part. Some of your favorite pass rushers never did. Von Miller hasn’t reached 19 sacks in a season. Dwight Freeney and Julius Peppers never did, either.

Even if Jones doesn’t touch Rams quarterback Jared Goff this Sunday, he has already turned in one of the best seasons an edge rusher has ever had when it comes to sacking the quarterback.

As I said before, Gilmore has balled out too, and I don’t want to knock him, but let me play devil’s advocate. I could point out that there are currently two other players tied with him for the league lead in interceptions with six this year, while Jones has a healthy lead in the sacks category.

Of course, you could try to point to Arizona’s dismal 5-9-1 record as a reason why Gilmore deserves the award more, but ask yourself this: If J.J. Watt, for instance, had 19 sacks and eight forced fumbles this year and the Texans’ record mirrored the Cardinals’, do you really think that would’ve hindered him from being a top DPOY candidate?

Y’all probably would’ve crowned him already!

That might seem like a random question, but it actually isn’t. See, once I saw that Jones was credited with four sacks on Sunday, I went to see where that pushed Jones up the list for career sack numbers. It turns out he has now jumped up to a tie for 41st place in NFL history with a total of 96. The guy Jones is tied at 41 with?

The aforementioned Watt.

Watt is in his ninth season, while Jones is in his eighth, by the way.

Those four sacks not only vaulted Jones into the league league, it also put him within sniffing distance of the single-season record of 22.5 held by Michael Strahan. Considering that Sunday marked Jones’ fourth multi-sack game of this season, it definitely isn’t out of the realm of possibilities that he could get close to tying the record in the last week of the season. Hell, that wasn’t even his first four-sack game this year.

Furthermore, out of the first 15 games of the season so far, Jones has only had three games where he didn’t record at least a 0.5 sack. One of those three teams that held him sackless? The Seahawks in Week 4. And we all saw how that worked out for them the second time around the season.

For the record, Jones had a half-sack in the Cardinals’ first meeting against the Rams this season, their opponent for the final weekend of the 2019 regular season. With LA being eliminated from the playoffs, there is no telling what kind of effort we will get out them this week, anyway. Arizona has been eliminated for a while now, but as Seattle found out, that hasn’t affected Jones’ motivation at all.

So just remember as you look over your options of the NFL games to watch this weekend, you might want to keep your eye on that Cardinals-Rams game while you’re at it. You may well get to see history being made if things go Jones’ way, but even they don’t, you will have one last opportunity to see one of the greatest edge rushers of this era, and maybe ever, do his thing this season. That is more than enough reason to tune in, if you ask me.

Yeah, it’s more than likely Jones will not win Defensive Player of the Year no matter what kind of smackdown he puts on the Rams this weekend, but at the very least, I bet he’ll show you why he should’ve been on your short list all along.

Then hopefully, we won’t have to have this conversation about him flying under the radar again next year.