– by Adesina O. Koiki
A Lot of Sports Talk editor-in-chief
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
CHARLOTTE — New Orleans Saints running back Tony Jones Jr. had his best day in the office as a professional on Monday night, so much so that he is able to bring mementos for everyone in the family.
Jones, the four-year veteran playing for his third team in the span of a calendar year, scored the first touchdown of his National Football League career in the third quarter during the Saints’ 20-17 victory over the Carolina Panthers, marking New Orleans’ first 2-0 start to a season since 20134. Even before breaking the plane of the goal line on his two-yard plunge late in the third quarter, Jones already envisioned everything that would unfold over the next few seconds, and few days, as he lined up in the backfield to receive that life-changing handoff from quarterback Derek Carr.
“I already knew it was a [touchdown] before the play happened,” Jones Jr. said “I was like, I don’t care what I gotta do. I’m scoring this one. It didn’t matter. I mean, four years in the league. I mean, it takes a while, but it’s here.”
The main reason Jones Jr. is a pro football player, according to him, also was on his mind once the officials came down the goal line and raised their arms aloft to confirm his score.
“I scored on my wife’s birthday, which is tomorrow,” Jones said about his longtime girlfriend and now wife, Rebecca Jones. “Technically, that ball wasn’t even for me. That ball’s for her.”
Just for safe measure, Jones, after a couple of long Carr passes on the Saints’ game-sealing drive late in the fourth, scored again, and his second-ever touchdown.
“But that second [touchdown ball], that’s mine. That’s mine right there.”
That Jones is able to bring some collectibles for his soon-to-be household of three is an amazing story on its own right. After going undrafted despite a standout career at Notre Dame, Jones signed with the Saints in 2020 as a free agent, alternating between spending time on the practice squad and on the active roster before being waived by New Orleans in October 2022.
Though Jones soon caught on with the Seattle Seahawks, he spent almost his entire time in the Pacific Northwest on the practice squad and did not get any action in a game. In March of this year, Jones signed with the Denver Broncos, but was released as part of the final cutdown before the start of the regular season.
Through the uncertainty and doubt, amid the emotional rollercoasters and physical tolls incurred to just keep an NFL dream long enough to get one’s heart broken again, there was Rebecca, who started dating Jones when he was a senior in high school at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida.
“There [were] days where I want to quit,” an emotional Jones said. “But her, she’s my rock. Without her, I don’t know where I’d be. I mean that.”
Where Jones is now is back where his peripatetic NFL career began, in New Orleans, as the Saints took a flyer on him again soon after being waived by Denver.
Follow @Koiki_Sport Follow @ALOST_Official
