Off the football field, Falcons middle linebacker Deion Jones doesn’t like to talk much.
On the field, that’s a problem for the team’s defensive signal-caller.
Jones is required to bark out the signals to make sure that the other 10 players can hear him, sometimes with 80,000 hostile folks yelling to drown him out.
Jones, who was named to the Pro Football Writers of America’s All-Rookie team last season, plans to improve his communicating skills for his second season in the NFL.
“I think it’s just building from where I left off last year, my voice,” Jones said Tuesday. “Getting things set up and, set up with communications and things like that. Just locking in on those and getting better with that each day.”
Jones impressed veterans with how quickly he picked up things and how he was a whiz at diagnosing the opposition’s plays. But if he keeps that knowledge to himself, the overall unit will suffer.
“All of the calls I have to make, I know what I have to say,” Jones said. “I know the communications. I’m just trying to learn everything so I can go to a different place with it instead of just knowing what I have to say.”
Last season, veterans Sean Weatherspoon and Paul Worrilow helped Jones. The defense, which played seven first- or second-year players, improved over the course of the season.
But Weatherspoon and Worrilow did not re-sign. Worrilow signed with Detroit as a free agent.
“It’s really about getting out of your comfort zone,” Jones said. “I don’t really talk much off the field. I guess I don’t. But, it’s just getting out of that comfortable place and making sure that everybody is on the same page. Even if it’s the wrong page, it’s the right page as (linebackers coach Jeff Ulbrich) always says.
“Just getting the message across to everyone, yelling, doing whatever you have to do to make sure the message gets across.”
Weatherspoon and Worrilow mastered this part of the job, but the speedy Jones was the team’s future.
“I was really jealous of their voice,” Jones said. “I couldn’t get my voice to project like them during training camp. … I kind of realized from watching film and talking with (Ulbrich), going over the games, that’s kind of where I needed to take it. During the bye week I took my time and went back through the games and realized that I could be louder.
“I worked on it and it wasn’t easy, trust me. It developed as the year went along.”
The louder Jones has also been assigned to mentor rookie Duke Riley.
“It’s going to take a village to raise them,” Jones said of Riley and the other rookie linebackers on the 90-man roster. “It’s going to take all of us to raise them. They looked good out there. It’s been fun watching them get after it.”
Jones is the rare second-year mentor.
“The biggest lesson that I learned was finding a routine during the week with recovery, studying and all of that,” Jones said. “Once you set that routine, it’s pretty much (sticking) to it.”
Jones and Riley are from the Algiers neighborhood in New Orleans, the 15th Ward on the west bank of the Mississippi River, and each played at LSU.
“I’ve been knowing Duke since high school,” Jones said. “We grew up in the same city on the same side of the water in Algiers, although he went to John Curtis High, and I went to Jesuit.”
Jones acknowledges there’s some awkwardness to his new role.
“It’s been kind of weird, but it’s been fun,” Jones said. “I just try to do what Worrilow did for me. Being always with those guys and helping them along the way. If they need to know where to get their helmets fixed, I know the answer. I know how it was for me. I’m not too far removed. I can kind of relate.”
In addition to becoming more vocal and guiding the youth, the Falcons want Jones to keep his weight in the range of 230 to 235 pounds. Jones weighed 222 pounds during his LSU Pro Day to run faster.
The Falcons didn’t believe that adding weight would be a problem.
“I’m taking all donations,” Jones quipped. “I’m 230 right now. That’s pretty good. That’s a little heavier that I was last year.”
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