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The Cardinals behind Kyler Murray and DeAndre Hopkins look to remain undefeated as they take on the Washington Football Team in week 2. azcentral sports reporters Bob McManaman, Katherine Fitzgerald and columnist Kent Somers share their predictions and who to watch.
Arizona Republic
All Chandler Jones needs to do to reach NFL royalty is get one sack a game and find a way to get seven more over the course of a full, 16-game regular season. It sounds simple enough. The math is easy. If Jones hits those numbers, the Cardinals’ outside linebacker would finish with 23 sacks.
Except it’s never been done before, at least not officially.
Oh, there are tales of how former pass-rushing greats such as David “Deacon” Jones, Al “Bubba” Baker and Coy Bacon may have had 23 or more sacks in a single season. But there just isn’t any definitive proof on the subject because the NFL didn’t start accurately tracking the statistic until 1982.
Until someone comes along and breaks it, the record belongs to Michael Strahan, who had 22½ sacks with the Giants in 2001.
Jones has made it clear he’s trying to get the record this season. He’s led the league in sacks with 97 since entering the NFL with the Patriots in 2012. He had a career-high 19 sacks a year ago and with 61 sacks in 65 career games with the Cardinals, he’s just six sacks away from surpassing the franchise’s all-time record of 66½ set by Freddie Joe Nunn in 131 career games from 1985-93.
Jones had one sack in last week’s season-opening victory at the 49ers and he’ll be eyeing multiple sacks on Sunday when the Cardinals play their home opener at State Farm Stadium against Washington. No fans will be allowed, but Jones said he and the Cardinals still plan to get after it.
“My job is to get to the quarterback ASAP and that’s what I’m going to try to do on Sunday,” Jones said.
The more sacks he gets, the closer he gets to Strahan’s record. Washington coach Ron Rivera, for one, thinks Jones can do it, too.
“Hopefully, he’ll take this week off and he’ll get back to it,” Rivera said, laughing. “But I think he can. Believe me, with as many times as we throw the ball now in our league and the type of football player he is and the system they use on defense, they play a lot of man coverage so if they lock people down, that quarterback’s got to hold the ball.
“In fact, he got a sack the other day when the quarterback (Jimmy Garoppolo) held the ball for about five and a half, six seconds, and he just kept going and kept rushing, kept rushing. Yeah, I think he can because of who he is. He’s a dynamic pass rusher.”
Cardinals coach Kliff Kingsbury said he wouldn’t bet against Jones reaching 23 sacks, not after being around him for more than a year.
“I wouldn’t put anything past Chandler Jones,” Kingsbury said, adding, “He’s one of the toughest guys in the league to block and the numbers speak for themselves.”
Everyone has something to say about Jones and it’s impossible to find anything negative. It’s nothing but respect, whether it’s Rivera saying how high he and the Panthers were on Jones during the draft process when Rivera was still the head coach in Carolina, or 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan last week calling Jones “a freak” in terms of natural talent.
“If you love football and you’re really a student of the game,” Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray said, “… It’s pretty impressive to watch. I’m glad he’s on my team.”
“He’s probably the best pass rusher I’ve ever had the opportunity play with,” added Cardinals linebacker De’Vondre Campbell. “It’s just a great opportunity being able to be on the same side of the ball as a guy like that.”
At 6-feet-5 and 265 pounds, Chandler Jones is a unique specimen in more ways than one. Sometimes, it’s not actually to his benefit, either, as Cardinals defensive coordinator Vance Joseph recently shared with reporters during a video conference call while discussing Jones’ rather unusually long strides.
They are so long, Joseph said, that it makes it almost impossible to compare Jones to any other pass rushers in the league, past or present.
“You ask most offensive linemen when they play against Chan and that’s the issue,” Joseph said. “He can power you. He can go by you with speed. But it looks like he’s moving really slow and that’s the problem with big receivers also with those long strides. It doesn’t look fast, but when he is going by you, it is fast because it’s long.
“Chandler can take three steps and he’s at seven and a half yards. We had to change Chandler’s stance last year to actually shorten his steps because he’s so long with three steps. He’s past the quarterback. We had to change his stance to shorten it so he’s not running past the quarterback so he can get his hips turned. That’s how tall he is.”
More: Cardinals-Washington: Who has the edge?
Jones said he’s always been aware of his giant strides and how, when he’s able to free himself from double- or even triple-team blocks, he can run himself out of a potential sack. He’s learned how to change his stance and re-position his feet, however, and he is confident that will make him even more dangerous to quarterbacks in the future.
“His style is a combination of awkwardness, length, power and know-how,” Joseph said, “and he’s been a top-tier rusher in this league for about five, six years now and I’m hoping that continues, obviously. He’s got big goals this year that he wants to accomplish.”
It was Joseph referring to Jones as being one of the “most unique” pass rushers in history, though, that captured Jones’ full attention. Jones can power rush a tackle, beat him with his speed inside or out, and use his hands and his head to distract and exploit an opening.
“That actually flatters me. It feels good,” Jones said. “I actually pride myself on being unique. You guys watch film and a lot of my moves, you don’t see ’em across the league. A lot of times you see me doing unorthodox moves, jumping and twisting and turning, but I feel like that’s what makes me and that feels good to know that no one else does that.”
To hear Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald tell it, Jones should have even more opportunities to get to the quarterback in 2020 if Arizona can match everyone else’s expectations and continually play with the lead, especially in the fourth quarter of games.
“Defensive players love it when teams are in obvious passing situations,” Fitzgerald said. “That gives them a lot more opportunities to rush the passer as opposed to playing the run. You look at games last year like against the New York Giants when they got into desperation situations. This is when those guys thrive.”
Jones had perhaps his best game with the Cardinals that particular day, getting four sacks at the Giants as well as a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. Anytime the Cardinals get a lead, though, Jones feels as if he should be able to exploit his pass-rushing abilities and get to the quarterback on a regular basis.
It doesn’t matter, he said, if the Cardinals are in press-man coverage at cornerback or whether Joseph has dialed up an all-out blitz. It’s all the same, according to Jones.
“Just having the lead altogether, I feel like it’s very advantageous for our team to play ahead, knowing that the team has to throw the ball,” he said. “It gives me an opportunity to actually pin my ears back and get after the quarterback.”
Have an opinion on the Arizona Cardinals? Reach McManaman at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @azbobbymac. Listen to him live on Fox Sports 910-AM every Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 on Calling All Sports with Roc and Manuch and every Wednesday night from 7-9 on The Freaks with Kenny and Crash.
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