Skip to content
Sports
Link copied to clipboard

Jones keeps Bears in the running

MIAMI - So much of the talk about the Chicago Bears' chances in Super Bowl XLI seems to center on quarterback Rex Grossman, but if you've been watching the Bears in the postseason, you know Grossman isn't likely to be the reason they win.

MIAMI - So much of the talk about the Chicago Bears' chances in Super Bowl XLI seems to center on quarterback Rex Grossman, but if you've been watching the Bears in the postseason, you know Grossman isn't likely to be the reason they win.

It's easier to envision the NFL's 24th-ranked passer being the reason Chicago loses. For all the Bears' bluster about what a winner Grossman is and how unfair his critics have been, they know they're in trouble if Grossman has to be a hero Sunday against Peyton Manning and the favored Indianapolis Colts. No, Chicago needs for Grossman to avoid game-altering mistakes, as he did in playoff wins over Seattle and New Orleans, while Thomas Jones and his backfield running mate, Cedric Benson, give the team's stout defense the support it needs for victory.

"We are a running football team,'' Bears coach Lovie Smith proclaimed yesterday, when he met with reporters at the Super Bowl media center in Miami Beach. "We get off the plane running the ball.''

Jones has scored two touchdowns in each of the Bears' postseason wins, making him the first NFL player to accomplish that feat since Denver's Terrell Davis in 1997. In the NFC Championship Game victory over the Saints, Jones carried eight times in a row, every play of a touchdown drive, ending with the 2-yard scoring run that gave the Bears a 16-0 lead. His 123 yards on 19 carries that day set a franchise record.

For all that, Jones is an unlikely focal point, a 7-year veteran from Virginia who once was traded from Arizona to Tampa Bay for the immortal Marquise Walker. And even though he became the first Bears running back since Walter Payton to gain more than 1,300 yards in a season, in 2005, Jones then spent last offseason wondering if he was about to be traded, an anxiety that might arise again very soon.

The problem is, 2 years ago Chicago drafted Benson in the first round, fourth overall. Smith talked yesterday about how important it is to have two good running backs, but the fact is, it is hard to pay and keep happy two really good running backs. Sometime very soon, Benson is going to become the featured back. Jones, who has 1 year remaining, at $2.5 million, on the 4-year deal he signed with the Bears as a Tampa Bay free agent, might find more money and more carries elsewhere.

Jones, 28, said yesterday that sharing the job with Benson has helped him this season. Of course, this season, Jones has been the workhorse (296 carries, 1,210 yards, vs. Benson's 157 carries for 647 yards). If their roles were reversed, Jones might feel differently.

"It's been good for our team this year. It's kept me fresh; it's given us a nice one-two punch,'' Jones said. "I think we complement each other well with the way we run. We have different running styles . . . When I see a hole, I like to accelerate through the hole. Our offensive line does a great job staying with their guys. My style, I'm kind of shifty; if I don't see a hole inside, I'm quick to cut back, if I see a guy's out of position. Just the way our offense is set up, it's a nice mix of power plays, misdirection plays and zone plays. I think I run all three of those types of plays very well.''

Jones said Benson "is more of a downhill guy, like a bruiser kind of back. He's going to take a guy head up the majority of the time. His main thing is, when he hits the open field, is punishing guys. That's what he likes to do. That's kind of intimidating for defensive backs.''

Jones said he feels that when a defense braces itself to not get run over by Benson, Jones' more elusive style often catches defenders flat-footed.

In preseason, all the talk was about Benson, who was proclaimed the starter before he suffered a shoulder injury that let Jones get back in the saddle. Jones quickly reclaimed the role.

"I just believe in my abilities. I never gave up on my abilities, as far as what I could do for the football team,'' Jones said. "I was coming off a 1,300-yard season, so I knew what I meant to the offense and what I meant to the team. It was an unfortunate situation, with the whole offseason thing'' - Benson named the starter as Jones skipped the team's offseason conditioning program, amid the rumors of a pending trade - "but once you get into football, it's down to football. All the other stuff you kind of throw out the window . . . I didn't get caught up in what everyone was saying or what was going on. I just worried about me.''

Bears center Olin Kreutz talked the other day about Jones' strong work ethic, which might be the byproduct of having grown up with a mother and father who worked in the coal mines of Southwestern Virginia.

Jones is one of Thomas and Betty Jones' seven children, including Cowboys running back Julius Jones. The first six attended college and the seventh will start college this fall.

"Working in the coal mines, I wouldn't want to do that,'' Jones said. "I never went in the coal mine. I went to the front of the coal mine, but I never went in, because it was just too dark. It was like a cave. Growing up, that's the weird thing, it's the norm [for parents there to work in the mines], so you don't think anything about it.

"Whenever I'm going through an issue or had an issue in Arizona or in Chicago, I just think of that, and how those situations were for her and my father, and how they overcame those things. And that is motivation.''

Simon says

The Colts are in the Super Bowl but Corey Simon, the former Eagles defensive tackle they signed in 2005 to a reported 6-year, $30 million contract, is not. The Colts placed Simon on the non-football injury-illness list early this season and said they would not pay him, amid conflicting reports about what might have been wrong. The players association filed a grievance on Simon's behalf. He seems unlikely to play again for Indianapolis.

Contacted by phone yesterday, Simon said he has been working out and intends to resume his career next season.

Super snippets

Andy Reid was on the media shuttle bus yesterday. Actually, he'll be on every bus, all week - the buses are plastered with huge photos of the Eagles coach and the other two Motorola Coach of the Year candidates, the Saints' Sean Payton and the Jets' Eric Mangini. The Reid portrayal is identical to the real thing, right down to having nothing to say . . . Lovie Smith was asked about reports that Bears special-teams coach Dave Toub, who formerly worked for the Eagles, might return to Philadelphia after the Super Bowl. Toub's contract with the Bears is up after the season, and his mentor, John Harbaugh, recently became the Birds' secondary coach, leaving special teams open. Smith said he hadn't heard the reports. "Dave Toub is our special-teams coach. That's all we're concerned about . . . if things come up at the end of the season, we'll deal with them,'' Smith said, then he smiled. "I can't see why anybody would want to leave and not coach for the Chicago Bears. I'd answer it that way.'' *