All-Twenty Tuesday: Bucs RB Ronald Jones

The assessment of Ronald Jones’ 2018 season has to start here: you can’t do anything as a ballcarrier if the guys in front of you don’t block.

The Buccaneers offensive line was not good as a whole in 2018. They had talented players. I think right guard Ali Marpet is one of the best interior offensive linemen in the league. Center Ryan Jensen can pull his own when other around him do as well. Donovan Smith has talent – albeit a ceiling he hasn’t reached or progressed towards very rapidly. Demar Dotson is good for his age. Caleb Benenoch and Evan Smith weren’t very good last year, but that should’ve just been one spot. Instead, the whole line was never able to come together.

When it came to power blocking schemes, the Bucs were not as strong as they should have been. Power schemes should have been right up their wheel house with the type of offensive linemen they had on the team, but for whatever reason it just seemed like it was something new on each play. On one play, say the one above, Smith didn’t get enough push. On another Benenoch would get beat through a gap. On another Marpet and Jensen would fail to double and get to the second level. It was always something. And because of it, the daylight for Jones to run through early on in the year just wasn’t there.

The Bucs offensive line just got bullied up front on far too many occasions in 2018. There is an old this-and-that argument with offensive linemen where they would tell you they can play mistake free football for all but two snaps, but if they have those two bad snaps, it’s as if they had the worst game ever. I get that, and I’m not even denying the truth there. But when it came to running the ball, those one or two bad plays a game turned into three, four and five, and when you randomly spread that across five starters, well, you’re running out of good plays to show for your running backs.

The Bucs were not particularly good at zone blocking, either, and many of Jones’ designed carries came on zone blocking concepts to try to give him the opportunity to either get to the sideline with blocker or one-cut a gap before reaching the sideline. That was smart, in theory, knowing the kind of home run ability Jones has in his legs. But the execution of the concept was not good when it came to zone blocking for most of 2018.

All of that to say, if the Bucs can’t block better for Jones, they’ll never know what he’s truly capable of.

Now let’s talk about what Ronald Jones is capable of.

I believe the run above was Jones’ longest run of the season – if it wasn’t, it was close. What’s funny about that is that most of Jones’ best runs actually came from when he was running up the A gap, not when he was running to the outside.

But Jones did not attack the middle of the trenches as much as his blocking allowed him to.

The clip above shows Jones in his first regular season game in the NFL. Under such circumstances, it is expected that Jones might not have the clearest of vision, as he probably had some natural nerves, which I get. But I am just pointing out areas in which he can get better, and his vision is certainly one of them.

I am not sure if the old coaching staff just continued to tell Jones that he would get the most yards on the outside or if this was just him not seeing the NFL game at NFL speed yet, but the correct lane was right up the middle in the play above, and you can see him hesitate momentarily before bouncing it to the outside just to be tackled.

This play in the Falcons game was probably the worse miss I saw from Jones from a vision standpoint. I understand the blocking concept was to get Jones to go to more of the outside, but that A gap was as wide open as it could be, and with Marpet getting to the second level already, Jones would’ve gained at least five yards if not many more had he made one guy miss up the middle.

Just because Jones has great speed does not mean that his best carries will always come closer to the sideline. The best backs see what their blocking has for them and make the plays from there.

Even with the limited overall yards, there are flashes when you can see the lightbulb come on and the instincts come alive for Jones.

In the play above, for example, Jones made a split decision, put his foot in the ground and got straight north-to-south to pick up three yards. It’s those kinds of moves that you want to marry with more confidence and better overall ball carrying vision to get the same Jones you saw at USC out in the NFL in a Bucs uniform.

I also want to point out Jones as a blocker.

As the season went on, Jones was not near as much of a liability in the blocking game as he was in the preseason, as was the narrative that stayed with him throughout 2018. Was he a better blocker than Jacquizz Rodgers? No. Rodgers has years of experience in that role on Jones. But I did want to point out the fact that Jones was able to stand his ground on a handful of pass blocking reps that I saw.

This is important for Jones, because like I said on the first page, running backs, even the ones that you would probably think would be totally irreplaceable, are, in fact, replaceable. In 2018, Jones was only in on early downs, and Peyton Barber was well ahead of him on the priority list for carries and catches. If he can be better as a blocker, then Jones can have the opportunity to get in the game on any down and distance.

It’s something small to his game, but a detail that could help him hone his craft with in-game reps in 2019.

My parting shots for Jones, and this is a small part of his game that is just a subtlety that I picked up on, is that I would like for him to stay on his feet more.

Jones was timid in 2018. At first, it was when carrying the ball. He would get the handoff and immediately cover the ball with two hands, clearly focused more on not fumbling than reading his blocks and making the most of a play. As the season went on he got some of his confidence back, though he still has a ways to go. But the area that I didn’t see improve in as much as I wanted it to with confidence was him staying on his feet.

Name any desirable running back you want and I guarantee you they will have the trait of balance, power, toughness, and a desire to stay up and get yards after contact. They’re not looking to go down after the first hit. That’s my favorite attribute of Alvin Kamara, and something that I think makes him more irreplaceable, if you will, than other running backs who might be more “talented” than him. Kamara rarely goes down, even when you hit him out of bounds or in the end zone, he never gives you the satisfaction of bringing him down.

That is often second nature, though. Guys don’t always get that. Ronald Jones needs to get that. In an exclusive interview with PewterReport.com’s Scott Reynolds, Jones discussed his desire to hit the weight room and add some bulk this offseason, and that’s a good thing.

Just like Mike Evans needs to stop going out of bounds or going to the ground so quickly after catching the ball, Jones needs to not be so willing to give up his balance on first contact, or even allowing himself to get off balance with how he braces himself for contact. Even if he’ll never be a power guy, this will help his game immensely.

So, to recap: a better offensive line, better vision, and more confidence is the key to a successful 2019 for Jones. This new coaching staff will give him time to prove he can find all that, but don’t think his clock will tick forever. Running backs are almost always replaceable – especially if you can’t be efficient.