NFL: Selecting the best player in each franchise’s history
By Brad Rowland
St. Louis Rams – Deacon Jones
Marshall Faulk, Isaac Bruce and others were all very good in their own right, but we’re taking it way back with this one. Deacon Jones starred in an era when the NFL didn’t keep sack statistics. If they did, his reputation would be even greater right now.
By all accounts, Jones was the best pass-rusher in the league during the 1960s, dominating the competition using a variety of “modern” techniques that he popularized. He was named to the league’s 75th Anniversary Team, and was also a picture of durability, missing only three games across his 11-year stay with the Rams.
It is fair to say that most fans today remember the “Greatest Show on Turf” Rams above any other squad in the franchise’s history, but Jones was a one-man wrecking crew during his time. He doesn’t have the statistical brilliance of the other candidates (especially Faulk, who posted video game numbers throughout his stay in St. Louis), but Jones was unquestionably the best player at his position for five-to-ten years, and that matters.
Next: Tampa Bay Buccaneers