All-Twenty Tuesday: Bucs RB Ronald Jones

In this week’s All-Twenty Tuesday portion of the column, I wanted to highlight Pro Football Focus’ top rated running back four weeks into the season. No, I’m not talking about Saquon Barkley or Ezekiel Elliott or Christian McCaffrey.

I’m talking about Ronald Jones.

Through four weeks, RoJo has amassed 234 rushing yards on 50 carries, both of which are *checks last year’s stats with a disgusted look* career highs already for a season.

Jones played in 49 percent of the team’s offensive snaps in the 55-40 win over the Rams, which was also a career high for him. He’s steadily been gaining touches as he’s split series with fellow running back Peyton Barber, but last week’s performance may have been the one that tipped the scales in RoJo’s favor for the foreseeable future.

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Jones has looked more confident this season, which is something we’ve been saying dating back to early training camp. It was reported that Jones put on a decent amount of weight this offseason, and whether it was the weight or just more time in the league and in Tampa Bay, Jones does not look nearly as hesitant this year.

As seen in the clip above, Jones was not only comfortable enough to hit the hole at his top speed, but also to let his talent do the talking instead of overthinking things to put that defensive back in the spin cycle for the extra yards.

USC RoJo was back in the Memorial Coliseum.

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We knew Jones had the speed and the agility. We saw that when he was in college. But the decisiveness is what was lacking in that rookie year. He just was not confident in his decision making and where he was looking for open space, and that showed with a yearly average of just 1.9 yards per attempt.

Check out the clip above. Does that look like a guy who is indecisive to you? Because it doesn’t to me.

Notice the quick cut from Jones right when he got the ball to get his body up into the running lane, and then a second strong step in the other direction when he faced a fork in the road. That’s running with confidence, and that’s why it was six points.

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Do you feel that? That cool breeze on your legs? How did that get there? Is there a storm coming in? Just checked the radar and it doesn’t look like it.

Oh yeah, it’s because you’re no longer wearing pants after watching that run.

That play right there was a vintage Ronald Jones run, the kind this team drafted him to make. Last season Jones was timid when taking handoffs. His fear of fumbling caused him to stay over the ball with two hands far too long, and by the time he even looked up to accelerate or find a hole it was too late. There was none of that hesitation in the play above, including making No. 43 whiff at nothing but air.

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Jones now seems comfortable inside between the tackles. Yes, he’s always going to be more of a guy who likes to bounce things to the outside, likely to find more space and make the most of his speed. But where Jones was hesitant last year, this year he is confident. That shows up in his contact balance. he’s not just looking to make it to the next down, he’s looking to make the most of every play. Not just athletically, but intelligently, too.

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Such can be summed up in Jones’ last big run of the game shown above. If you’ll recall, it was Jones who took the majority of the snaps to close out the game, not Barber. The play above was the coaches’ reward for trusting him.

That play had almost everything you’d want. Jones hit the initial hole and followed his blockers well, trucked over a defender and was able maintain most of his balance, hit the afterburners to beat the linebacker’s pursuit, have the awareness to stay in bounds and keep the clock rolling, and then fighting for every yard at the end.

If you take all the clips from Jones’ big day and roll them into one, you have a good case for him to be this team’s starting back. But I want to make it perfectly clear that being a starter does encompass a full-time workload as a running back. To get that you also have to be the closer. You have to be the back the team can trust to not fumble the ball, not go out of bounds and get as many yards as you can as you run out the clock.

If you ask me, it’s time for Ronald Jones to be the Buccaneers starter and closer.