Drinen rambles about something having to do with:
Thomas Jones

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Thomas Jones career statistics

There seem to be three schools of thought right now (late June) on the bundle of question marks known as Thomas Jones.

  1. School of thought #1 is that Thomas Jones is poised for a breakout year, and may even sniff the top 10. People advancing this theory cite the facts that Jones is talented enough to have been a top-10 pick two years ago, that Pittman is no longer around to split time with, and that Jones' mysterious rib/breathing injury/illness is expected to be all healed by now.
  2. School of thought #2 is that Thomas Jones simply can't play. Write him off without delay.
  3. School of thought #3 is something of a middle ground: Jones may not be all that great, but he is the only serviceable running back on the Cardinals' roster. Therefore, he can't help but put up some tolerable numbers, if only by default.
School #1 requires more of a leap of faith than I'm willing to make. It would have me believe that some exotic rib disease no one has ever heard of is the explanation for Jones' being a dud for two years. That's possible. But it also sounds an awful lot like an after-the-fact rationalization. What's the saying? If you hear hooves, it's probably horses, not zebras. "Jones stinks" is the horse here and the rib thing is a zebra -- maybe even a unicorn.

I'm torn between Schools #2 and #3.

School #2 requires me to believe that the entire NFL scouting industry was not just wrong but dead wrong about Jones. That's possible too -- it wouldn't be the first time, I guess -- but if you look through the list of top-10 picks that busted, you'll find mostly injuries and headcases. You won't find too many guys that just couldn't play. And I've never heard anything indicating that Thomas Jones is a headcase.

School #3 places Jones into the class of players I talked about in the Travis Henry comment: good enough to put up some decent numbers for a short period of time in just the right situation.

My hunch right now is that Jones' 2000 and 2001 performance was a notch below that. If Jones really is as bad as he's appeared for the last two years, then he won't stay a featured back for long, regardless of what the rest of the Cardinals' roster looks like. If Jones doesn't improve his play, Marcel Shipp and/or Josh Scobey will cut into his playing time significantly. And if those two aren't any better, they'll grab someone off the scrap heap, dust the banana peels off him, and send him out there.

I've drafted Thomas Jones each of the last two years, but I won't be doing it this year.