Ernest Jones leads Seahawks defense to NFC Title Game

SEATTLE — What exactly were they thinking in Los Angeles and Nashville?

Those franchises must be a little sick watching their former linebacker, Ernest Jones IV, lead the 2025 Seahawks to the NFC Championship game.

Jones was sick himself in the days leading up to Seattle’s 41-6 NFC Divisional Round Playoff thrashing of the San Francisco 49ers in front of 68,579 fans at Lumen Field. Though the 26-year-old defensive signal caller missed some practice during the week with an unspecified illness, he returned in plenty of time to wreck the Niners with an interception and a forced fumble.

“This guy was not in a good spot on [Wednesday],” Seahawks coach Mike Macdonald said of Jones. “So for him to get up to speed, get ready to play, the guys follow his lead. Two tremendous plays to really change the course of the game, those takeways.”

A little more understated, but he’s the defensive Beast Mode of this iteration of the Seahawks. The team just seems to have a little more grit since Seattle general manager John Schneider gave up benched linebacker Jerome Baker and a fourth-round pick for Jones’ services in 2024.

Jones helped change the fortunes of head coach Mike Macdonald’s defense last season, and made two crucial plays on Saturday to keep this season moving.

San Francisco, trying to cut into an early 10-0 deficit, faced 2nd-and-7 at its own 31. Without star tight end George Kittle, 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy threw to tight end Jake Tonges for an apparent first down. Jones hit him head-on and began ripping at the ball as cornerback Devon Witherspoon latched on from the backside.

Jones forced the ball out, and safety Julian Love scooped it up. Five plays later, it was 17-0 Seattle.

Down 27-6 in the third quarter, the 49ers looked to crawl back into the game. After a first down completion to fullback Kyle Juszcyk, Purdy dropped back and surveyed the field. With all the deep options covered, he checked it down to tight end Luke Farrell.

But the ball never made it there. Jones, on Farrell’s hip, pulled the ball away to set up an eventual Seahawks 34-6 lead.

Ballgame.

“He’s just a weapon,” Defensive tackle Leonard Williams said. “I think, since he got here in the middle of the season last year, our run game drastically changed. He’s just a vocal leader on the defense.”

“And then he’s also — I don’t know how many takeaways he’s gotten this season — but those are like, game-changing plays. And you know, he stepped up big time today.”

It was Jones’ sixth interception of the season after recording just four regular-season picks in 79 career games.

“Purdy was looking downfield,” said Jones, who finished with six tackles. “He was getting pressured, I believe. He let it go, and I was running, and just happened to be there.”

How Jones happened to be in Seattle remains a mystery.

The Rams and the Titans both decided to move on from Jones. Seattle welcomed him with open arms in the seventh week of the 2024 season, and everything seems a little different since then.

The Rams won a Super Bowl four seasons ago with Jones at linebacker. Then, for reasons difficult to defend today, general manager Les Snead traded Jones and a 2026 sixth-round pick to the Tennessee for a fifth-round pick. The GM who was once associated with the phrase “F… them picks,” may be thinking just that unless that fifth-round pick turns out to be the Rams version of Richard Sherman or Kam Chancellor.

A couple of months later, the 1-5 Titans, on their way to another lost season, decided to get what they could for a linebacker in the final year of his deal.

Enter Seahawks GM John Schneider. Exit a pair of linebackers that began the 2024 season with rookie head coach Mike MacDonald but didn’t quite fit the plan.

For this 2025 Seattle team that earned the No. 1 seed and a spot in the NFC Championship game against either Chicago or those LA Rams, Jones is the middle linebacker who seems to be in the middle of everything.

“EJ is our captain, man,” defensive end Demarcus Lawrence said. “He holds us together. He makes sure all of us are in the right place. And shoot, he’s a dog who gets the ball for us.”

Following the teaching of Macdonald and Jones’ example on the field, the Seahawks have suffocated opponents for much of the season.

It’s not often that one Seahawks player makes a tackle alone in space. It’s sharks attacking a bucket of chum. Those who dare to enter The Dark Side defense are going to get hit 3-4 times on the way down.

“I think Mike’s the biggest thing,” Jones said. “I think, just being able to start day one, ‘Hey, this is what type of team we’re going to be, and we can’t be that team unless we work for it.’

“He’s constantly just had us working at it. And Mike’s a big reason why we’re here. And it’s a big reason why, like, these games don’t feel like, no bigger [than any other game.]”

The 49ers are the latest victims, managing a total of nine points between the regular-season finale in Santa Clara and San Francisco’s season playoff finale in Seattle.

“We play our style of play, games can look like this often,” Jones said. “We were able to do that on all three phases today, and that’s just what it was. And I think for us, after the game, job’s not done.

“We got one more game to earn an opportunity to play in the big one. I always say you can’t win a Super Bowl unless you’re in it.”

This story originally appeared at www.emeraldcityspectrum.com.