Ernest Jones just had one of the best games of his life — in the non-Super Bowl-winning category, anyway.
It came after what he’s calling one of the most important weeks of his life.
This has been an especially challenging, tragic year for the Seahawks’ middle linebacker and signal caller, who just turned 26 years old. The former Los Angeles Rams Super Bowl champion and his wife are settling their 17-month-old son, Ernest V, into their new Seattle home. The new deal the Seahawks gave him means he’s a team and Northwest mainstay.
Then this summer, his father, Ernest III, his best friend he talked to every Tuesday every NFL week, died. He succumbed to Ewing sarcoma, a cancer that forms in bones and the soft tissue around them. Jones’ dad was 53 years old when he passed in July back at Jones’ hometown in Georgia.
Last week, his son wore cleats in Seattle’s win at Tennessee that honored his dad and the awareness of Ewing sarcoma. Each week, the younger Jones keeps a green shirt with three pictures of his father in his locker at the Seahawks’ facility in Renton. Jones brings that shirt to each game.
That way, Dad comes with him to his games.
“I miss him, man,” Jones said after week one this season. “I miss him, man. Every day, trying to find new ways to cope.”
Sunday, the younger Jones had one of the best games of his life. He had a game-high 12 tackles. He had two interceptions in a game for the first time. The first pick came when teammate DeMarcus Lawrence was throwing down Minnesota rookie quarterback Max Brosmer. Brosmer uncorked an underhanded toss to no one but Jones. It became an 85-yard touchdown when Jones sprinted from near one goal line across the other.
Jones’ first score of his five-year NFL career turned what was yards from being a 7-3 lead by underdog Minnesota (4-8) into a 10-0 lead for the Seahawks.
“Just a huge turning point in the game,” coach Mike Macdonald said after it. Seattle cruised from there. Jones and the defense pitched Seattle’s first shutout since 2015, beating the Vikings 26-0 to improve to 9-3.
After the game, in front of his jubilant teammates, coach Mike Macdonald handed the game ball to Jones.
Jones then handed his heart to his Seahawks teammates.
He gave a speech that Macdonald later called one of the best he’s ever heard in a locker room.
“I’ve been through a lot this year,” Jones told his Seahawks brothers. “But earlier this week…man, I found myself feeling stuck, bro. And I found myself feeling like I was missing something.
“And what I was missing was God, man.”
“E.J.,” Lawrence, the 32-year-old, 12th-year veteran in his first Seahawks season, said, “is special.”
Wide receiver Cooper Kupp played with Jones on the Rams, including the Super Bowl four seasons ago.
“I’ve loved Ernest since he was in L.A.,” Kupp, 32, said Sunday. “What he did when he came in as a rookie, the way he carried himself, the way he could command a locker room as a rookie middle linebacker…
“It was one of the most impressive things I’ve ever seen. “He’s one of the best leaders I’ve ever been around,” Kupp said. “And to be able to go through all the adversity, all things, just the traumas, but continue to hold fast and hold strong, and overcome, and be the same Ernest regardless of the circumstances that have been imposed on him, regardless of the things happening in his life, and just being able to hold his bearings and being there for the guys. It’s an impressive thing.
“I love ‘Ern.’ He knows he’s got everyone. All his team’s got his back.” Jones was on the side of the press conference room when Kupp said that.
He was visibly touched.
“For me, that’s what it’s all about,” Jones said.
“Once football’s over, not too many people are going to remember the football player. I want everybody to remember the person. I want everybody to know I love each and every guy that’s in that locker room.
“That meant everything to me. I’ll take that with me forever.”
Ernest Jones beyond his years
Quarterback Sam Darnold is two years older than Jones, playing with him for the first time this season. Darnold said the linebacker is “a big-time leader for us.
“He doesn’t say much. But when he does, people listen.”
“It was his birthday recently (Nov. 22), and it got put up in the team meeting,” Darnold said. “Every time there is a birthday, Coach asks, ‘How old are you? And the guy has to say their age.
“Ernest said ‘26.’ And everyone looked around like, ‘Are you serious? That’s it?’ So he is wise beyond his years just with how he speaks and just with the way he plays football, as well.
“So like I said, he’s a great leader for us and someone we can all depend on.”
More than football
Yes, Jones the player is pretty good, too.
He is vital to the Seahawks defense and their season. He missed two of three games and was hobbled in the third by a right knee he injured when a player fell on him Nov. 2 at Washington. Those next three games, the Seahawks that shutout the Vikings Sunday allowed 22 points by last-place Arizona, 24 points at one-win Tennessee — and lost to Jones’ former Rams 21-19.
Seattle has allowed more than 20 points only one time in their other nine games, with Jones.
Thirteen months ago, when Macdonald and general manager John Schneider traded for him from the Rams by way of two months with the Titans, Jones instantly transformed Seattle’s defense. The middle linebackers that had been getting blocked and/or dragged by ball carriers the first half of last season, Tyrel Dodson and Jerome Baker, yielded to a thudding, sure tackler. Guys hit by Jones go straight down. Previous, 6- and 9-yard gains stayed at 3- or 4-yard gains with Jones in the middle of the Seahawks defense.
He is the prototype for Macdonald’s defense, what Roquan Smith became for then-defensive coordinator Macdonald in Baltimore when the Ravens traded for him in 2022.
The 38-year-old Macdonald wants Jones for as long as the coach is in Seattle. With that, he is cultivating a relationship with Jones, the person, as much as the linebacker.
That’s what made what Jones said to his teammates in the locker room following this team’s ninth victory in 11 games more meaningful than winning another football game.
“He had such a great message to the team in the locker room,” Macdonald said.
“The guy has been through a lot. And it’s…you know, people, it’s just the position that we’re put in as coaches. That’s really the reason you have a team, is that you can be there for your brother when they need you.
“I know we’re in a business and there is transactions and stuff,” the second-year head coach said, “but at the end of the day these are the relationships you’re going to have for a long time, hopefully. It’s really great to see that the rest of the guys are there to support him.”
Then there’s this:
“And he’s playing great football,” Macdonald said.
“You know, playing great football and battled through some health things throughout the year, as well.
“I mean, some of the plays he’s making in the run game are just really tremendous, really great plays that allows us to really call some defenses that you normally wouldn’t call in those situations.”
Like looping Lawrence back into the edge the Vikings tried to run Brosmer around, to create Jones’ decisive play that has Seattle even with the Rams in record atop the NFC West with five games to play. That includes against L.A. in a rematch at Lumen Field Dec. 18.
“I saw DeMarcus holding him, getting ready to bring him to the ground, and when you catch these interceptions, everything slows down,” Jones said of Minnesota’s Brosmer on the pivotal play Sunday.
“I’m thinking, ‘There’s no way he’s about to throw this.’ He let it go. Then I catch it, and I’m like, ‘There’s nobody in front of me!’ So, I immediately started running.”
“I look up at the video board and I’m like, ‘Dang, somebody’s catching me.’ It was Riq (Woolen, Seattle’s speedy cornerback). Riq was trying to beat me to the end zone.
“That was my first ever defensive touchdown. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the end zone. So it’s great.”
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