RIP Deacon Jones

Dead at 74, according to Washington Redskins Twitter feed. (Jones played for George Allen, father of Redskins GM Bruce Allen).

https://twitter.com/Redskins/status/341775273395625985

Great player, and if you didn't believe it, all you had to do was ask him.

But every time his name comes up, I always think of this not-so-politically correct NFL Films clip:

 

Wow. RIP.

 

Sad news.
Down to the Fearsome One.

He was no sissy.

Here's the proof

Didn't realize he was a founding member of War and sang on Why Can't We Be Friends.

 

RIP.

One of my favorite Deacon stories is the one Madden told of when Jones and Bob Brown were teammates on the Rams. Jones loved to use the headslap, and Brown asked, then told him to stop doing it in practice. Jones refused, until one day that Brown took out one of the bolts in his helmet and replaced it with a longer, sharper bolt. Jones slapped him, cut his hand and howled. Brown's reply: "I told you to stop doing it."

 

RIP Deacon.

 

RIP. The angels won't know what hit 'em, especially after they get a big head slap.

 

When the leagues merged, the NFL, the old NFL teams adopted the AFL's custom of putting last names on the back of jersies ... except Jones, who just used "Deacon." RIP

And since Dan bought up music:

 

Great anecdote!

RIP, Mr. Jones...

 

RIP to The Deacon.

 

RIP to one of the greats. He was always one of the great interviews in recent years on
radio row during The Super Bowl. Loved how he described his head slap move as
a "straight lick upside the head".

The NFL of today is a lot more generic than it was back in Deacon's day. How many players can you think of today that are associated with an individual move like the head slap. The advent of the 3-4 took a lot of star quality out of D lines and made the OLB more of the stars on D.

 

Remember Deacon in the Miller Lite commercials? Classic.