LITTLE ROCK — Four years after Matt Jones was a first-round NFL Draft pick, no team signed the former Arkansas star quarterback to play in 2009.
Jones was converted to receiver by Jacksonville and caught 166 passes for 2,153 yards and 15 touchdowns for the Jaguars from 2005-2008.
Those statistics should have good enough to keep Jones playing in the NFL.
But the Jaguars released Jones on March 16, 2009, a week after he was arrested for testing positive for alcohol, a violation of a plea agreement resulting from a felony arrest in Fayetteville for cocaine possession July 10, 2008.
Jones, 26, attempted to resurrect his NFL career by spending about $20,000 to train at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. The idea was for Jones to show teams his commitment to get back on an NFL roster.
“We’ve really been able to dial him in and createa sense of urgency,” IMG’s Trevor Moawad told the Miami Herald in August. “He’s an NFL player. He’s going to be in the NFL again.”
Maybe, but apparently not in 2009, unless a team makes a surprising roster addition for the final week.
The Tennessee Titans and Tampa Bay Buccaneers brought Jones in for workouts earlier this season, but neither offered him a contract.
A former NFL head coach, who is now an assistant and spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville that teams are reluctant to deal with character problems.
“Once nobody trusts you, it’s hard to get back into the league,” the coach said. “Another thing about Matt is he’s got a bit of a rep for being a lazy guy.”
It’s a rep Jones acquired at Arkansas, too, but he was so good in college, it didn’t matter.
Sports, Pages 33 on 12/27/2009