Matt Jones hype machine continues with purposeful praise

By Kevin Parvizi | May 26, 2015

The Washington Redskins have had one of the league’s best pure rushers over the past three seasons, as Alfred Morris has been a beast between the tackles and on the outside ever since taking the starting role as a rookie. Morris averaged a career-low 4.1 yards per carry last season, but that’s not bad considering the major struggles of the passing attack. It was a down year for him, though, as he averaged 0.5 yards per carry less and had more than 200 rushing yards less last season.

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More importantly, Morris has clearly been a two-down back, and the Redskins lost an excellent third-down RB this offseason when the Oakland Raiders shrewdly added Roy Helu Jr. on the cheap. It’s why the Redskins drafted former Florida Gators standout back Matt Jones with the 95th overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft (third round).

Both head coach Jay Gruden and GM Scot McCloughan have been busy hyping up Jones a great deal this offseason, and perhaps the greatest piece of praise came when the GM compared his rookie back to Marshawn Lynch.

The Redskins are keeping the buzz going, and it sounds like we can expect Jones to spell Morris quite often in 2015. It remains to be seen how many rushes Jones will be able to steal from a back who has run for over 1,000 yards in each of his three seasons, including 1,610 as a rookie, but it’s clear that he’ll play a big role in the passing game.

Injury-prone scat back Chris Thompson has the skills, but he’s the only real threat to take passing down snaps from Jones, who is undoubtedly a considerable upgrade on Morris in that facet of the game. In fact, Jones is an even bigger asset in the passing game than even the Redskins, who were bullish enough on the former Gator to draft him in the third round of a stacked RB class, anticipated.

According to the Washington Post’s Mike Jones, Gruden stated that Matt Jones is more versatile than the Redskins initially expected when they picked him up in the draft, and the WaPo reporter relays that the No. 2 back spent today’s practice as the team’s third-down back.

With the way the hype train has been rolling, I would be surprised if Jones isn’t the Redskins third-down back for the entire season. He wasn’t featured as a pass-catcher much in college, but it’s hard to trust anything that went down in the Gators offense outside of the running back position, which has been the only area of strength under those recent Gators teams.

What has been especially impressive is how positive the reports have been on Jones’s pass protection, and he seems like a solid pass blocker, pass-catcher, and rusher in between the tackles. Jones is more athletic than some think, and it’s great to hear that he’s even more versatile than the Redskins, who clearly had high expectations for Jones right off the bat, once thought.

Silas Redd and Thompson are also in the mix on third downs for the Redskins, but it looks like the gig behind Morris is Jones’s to lose. In fact, the only question remaining might be how many rushes Jones can steal, because it looks like Gruden isn’t as high on Morris as he should be, whereas he’s plenty high on the guy he and the GM decided to draft this year.

Could a committee be on the way? That remains to be seen, but today’s praise of Jones shows that the Redskins are starting to view him as the best option on third downs, and that’s an important takeaway at this early point in the offseason; it’s one of the instances in which the praise is meaningful.

Next: Redskins: How important will running game be?

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