He's the old man of Philly sports, but the Eagles' Donnie Jones is still kicking | Mike Sielski

This column is about an old punter. The punter is the Eagles' Donnie Jones, and he is so old that he is the oldest player on his team, and he is so old that he is almost 16 years older than the youngest player on his team, rookie defensive end Derek Barnett. He is so old that he is the second-oldest punter in the NFL — the Texans' Shane Lechler is four years older — and he is so old that he is the oldest player on any of Philadelphia's major professional sports teams, older than anyone on the Phillies, older than anyone on the 76ers or Flyers, older than anyone on the Union.

He is so old that his teammates make old jokes at his expense, lame wisecracks about how he must have played when guys wore leather helmets or single-bar facemasks. He is so old that he has punted in 205 NFL games over 14 seasons, and he has been so durable that when he punts Sunday in the Eagles' game against the 49ers, it will be the 200th consecutive game in which he has punted. He has not missed a game since November 2004, when he was 24, which means he was three years older then than Derek Barnett is now, which means Donnie Jones is pretty old.

Donnie Jones is 37.

That isn't that old, is it?

"Everybody tells me, 'How old are you, 37? Oh, you're still young,' " Jones said Friday. "NFL-wise, there are probably a handful of guys who are older than me."

He can name several of them off the top of his head: Lechler, Tom Brady, kickers Phil Dawson and Matt Bryant. Jones himself wants to play at least three more years, to join what he called the NFL's "40-and-Older Club," and based on his performance so far this season, there's little reason to think he can't. His net average over his 26 punts is 41.7, his highest mark in his five seasons with the Eagles and the best he's posted since 2009, when he was an all-pro with the Rams.

"Being able to trade out that field position is crucial," coach Doug Pederson said. "Even when you're punting around midfield and you can back a team up inside the 10 or the 5-yard line, it's huge. That just helps your defense, obviously, and eventually your offense. … The way he punts, the style of punt he can do, he really, really has helped us."

He has made concessions to age. For years, he put himself through a rigorous (for a punter) offseason weightlifting program: squatting, power-cleaning, whatever he needed to maintain the proper proportions of power and flexibility in his left leg and the rest of his body. Last summer, though, while home in Baton Rouge, La., Jones and his wife, Aubrie, went three times a week to a class in yogalates, a combination of yoga and Pilates. The stretching and balancing exercises, carried out in a hot room, allowed Jones to cut back on his usual weight training and helped him withstand a stiff training-camp challenge from rookie free-agent Cameron Johnston.

"That's just business," Jones said. "Obviously, I feel confident in my ability and know I can produce when I still go out on the field. I don't worry about any of that. My leg feels fast. I still hit balls the same way I did 10 years ago. I feel right now, through seven games, that I've kicked the ball well. I still feel like I can compete with the young guys."

Because he can, he doesn't mind being the butt of some ribbing from his younger teammates, just for the disconnect between their pop-culture tastes and his, between what's common knowledge to him and what's a mystery to them. He might reference his favorite TV shows as a kid — syndicated cartoons from the 1980s such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and ThunderCats, oldies such as Today's Special and Belle and Sebastian that he watched on Nickelodeon — and receive blank stares in return. When he mentions that he's a fan of the TV show MacGyver, he has to clarify that he's not talking about the reboot that now airs on CBS. He means the original series that ran on ABC from 1985 to 1992, featuring Richard Dean Anderson in all his mullet-clad glory.

Another example: Earlier this week, with the prospective release of government files related to John F. Kennedy's assassination a popular topic, several Eagles players were having lunch together, discussing the news. Jones asked one of his teammates if he knew who Lee Harvey Oswald was. The teammate's response: Uhhhh, no. Jones was incredulous. I'll bet, he responded, I can ask all the other guys on this team, and they'll know who Lee Harvey Oswald was. So he started asking.

"You'd be surprised. A lot of guys didn't know," Jones said. "Maybe they don't cover that in school anymore."

It was exactly the kind of thing an old man would say.