Ronald Jones: Buy, Sell, or Hold?
Back on May 11th, fellow DLF writer Noah Hills posted a brilliantly written piece on Ronald Jones. He had charts full of numbers and Venn diagrams that showed you once and for all what you should do with Jones this off-season.
In case you are not a numbers person, I am here to show you some preseason plays that Jones ran that gives us insight as to what we can expect from him this coming season.
The Bucs are very short on talent at the running back position. Peyton Barber isn’t going to be the lead back for long, and Andre Ellington already has two fumbles in two preseason games. This job is for Jones to lose.
Week One
When I heard he was working hard in the off-season, I had some hope for his improvement. When I heard that his off-season work wasn’t film study and technique, I figured we might see more of the same old Ronald Jones. Below is a play-action play by the Bucs in week one, where his only job is to pick up the linebacker.
If you can’t make a block, you can’t stay in the game. He even had the defender fooled into thinking that he had the ball, stopping the defender in his tracks, so making the block should have been easier. Jones does a terrible job squaring up and instead lunges his body at where the defender used to be.
Let’s look at a running play…
In this screenshot above, we see the Bucs to setup blocks needed for Jones to make some positive yards. There’s no way he should be touched with a hole that size. Look at the right side downfield — there’s only one defender — so the setup of this play is an early success.
There’s one lineman getting slightly beaten (65), and that’s bound to happen once in a while, but the hole is big enough so all he has to do is run where there is nobody there to threaten him. The blocking is better than the defending, so something positive should come out of this, and a lot of great stuff if you’re any good at your job as a running back.
Not a great start. He ran into the only defender that could even touch him. His offensive lineman reset his feet and has him blocked again, so this should never have happened.
He’s free from the defender, but now his hips are turned to the sideline instead of using the great downfield blocking. There’s only one defender there to stop him and he’s in the process of being blocked by Chris Godwin, who doesn’t know that Ronald Jones has deviated from his original pathway. As long as you give the blocking some room and you use your amazing speed to get to the sideline, this is an easy pickup of an extra 5-10.
The WR was in perfect position for this play, where even if the RB bounced outside, the blocking was still good enough to allow Jones to run around the outside. Godwin had him blocked well enough for a good gain, but once again Jones got too close, allowing the defender to dive at his legs, forcing Ronald Jones to take a step backwards before he was ultimately tackled.
Week Two
Let’s jump to week two. Below we see him taking a fake handoff on a play-action play. He’s supposed to survey the linebackers and look for blitzers since the offensive line is manned-up. That’s his only job on this play, and finding the blitzer is easy, I took a screenshot. Can you spot which linebacker is charging?
His only job is to recognize the blitz and pick it up. That’s it. He can even deviate away from the handoff if he needs to. Instead, this is what happens:
There’s no way he’s going to take over that starting job with this kind of skillset. I would also like to mention that he only carries the ball in his right hand. This isn’t good if he’s running to his left, so not only is the ball exposed to the defense, it’s harder for him as a runner to turn right and go upfield.
In this next play, he’s running an outside zone. His job is to head towards the sideline and find the furthest possible lane of which to run up the field. In the picture below, he’s looking at the closest defender, and holding the ball in his right hand next to danger.
The following is the result of a play that’s supposed to go to the outside:
I have several complaints. The ball is too close to defenders. He has plenty of room to keep running laterally before turning upfield. I can’t tell if he’s trying to juke a defender to cut back inside — something he shouldn’t do on this play anyway — or if he failed to set his plant foot and tried to regain his balance.
Conclusion
In my opinion, coupled with Noah’s well-written article back in May, this is the last chance you have to sell Jones before his value diminishes to zero. He’s made no improvement on his skillset, and his talent alone isn’t enough to save him.
Below are some recent trades completed with Jones as the sole piece on one side of the trade. These trades were found using DLF’s own Dynasty Trade Finder. Feel free to play around with it and look for more possible solutions to solve your Jones dilemma.
- 2023 Dynasty Riser, Faller and Longshot Predictions: San Francisco 49ers - July 28, 2023
- The Dynasty Value of Trading a 2023 Rookie Pick for a 2024 Pick - May 19, 2023
- How and Where to Pick Running Backs - May 15, 2023
