Ernest Jones sighed the exhale of a man who has dragged a bad elbow and maybe worse knee through a season. One that that went, ultimately, nowhere.
He looked like what he’s said he is: Tired. Spent.
He’s been a 24- now 25-year-old father and husband tired of moving his young family with a newborn out of the house they’d just bought in Los Angeles to Nashville this summer. Tired of moving them again less than two months later, from Tennessee to Seattle. Then of having his wife fear she and her baby were being burglarized at their new Seattle-area home while Dad played a Seahawks game.
What Jones also is? The best thing that happened to the Seahawks’ defense this season.
He’s the middle linebacker who turned what was one of the NFL’s worst units for the first half of this season before he arrived into one of its best.
So when the season ended Sunday with the Seahawks’ final fourth-down stop of the Los Angeles Rams inside the 10-yard line, when he and Seattle knew they were going to win this season finale 30-25, Jones walked to the metal bench along the Seahawks sideline. He faced it and the fans in the stands behind it. He dropped to both knees.
And he prayed.
“Just praying, man, for everything I’ve been through. This year has been tough for me,” Jones said, over his teammates’ boomin’ music. “But God saw me through. I made it out.
“And I’m just blessed to be here, honestly, if I’m being real with you.”
A national report this weekend from NFL Network said Jones and his agents “amicably paused” negotiations on a new contract with the Seahawks. That’s beyond his rookie deal he signed in 2021 with the Rams that Seattle inherited in its trade for him with Tennessee in October. His contract ended Sunday.
Bump that “pause,” Jones basically said Sunday evening.
As he stood against a wall in the visiting locker room at SoFi Stadium assessing the end of this season, his contract — and, he hopes, his personal chaos — Jones proclaimed his one certainty.
He will soon be getting a new contract done to stay in Seattle, for 2025 and beyond.
“Nah,” Jones said with a smile, “it’s heading in the right direction, for sure.
“We’re going to get it done. I’m going to be a Seahawk. I firmly believe that.”
Jones said “I believe in the guys, the agents, the front office.”
“We are going to get it figured out,” he said.
Seattle coach Mike Macdonald said in late November, when it was obvious how valuable Jones already was to improving the Seahawks’ defense, he wants Jones as the team’s middle linebacker for years.
“I can tell you that we’re really excited about Ernest,” Macdonald, the former Baltimore Ravens defensive coordinator who sought Jones singularly this midseason, said. “And I hope there’s an opportunity for him to be here for an extended period of time.
“He’s definitely one of our type of guys.
“We’re excited to have him. Hopefully he’s here for a while.”
What it will take to keep Ernest Jones
He is about to get a massive raise.
He is earning a total of $3.1 million from the Titans and the Seahawks in the final season of his contract. Seattle is paying only $1.9 million.
That’s a huge bargain with what they’ve gotten from him.
He’s been Macdonald’s signal caller, run stopper and pass interceptor in a middle of defense that has thrived the latter half of this season.
The NFL’s top 10 highest-paid middle linebackers range from $20 million per year for Roquan Smith (Macdonald’s former Jones type in Baltimore) to $10 million per season for the New York Giants’ Bobby Okereke.
Jones is younger and as accomplished as any of those top 10-paid inside linebackers. He won a Super Bowl starting for the Rams in the 2021 season. He’s likely to command up to $15 million or more per season to stay with the Seahawks. That would be a 5x increase from his 2024 salary.
This past week, Macdonald reiterated the Seahawks want to do what it takes to keep Jones in Seattle, and his wife and baby from moving again.
“We love him. He’s a great player. And there’s a poise to how he operates, which I respect.” the 37-year-old head coach and linebacker guru said. “I think the guy loves football. Those are the guys that do really well here.
“He would do great in a lot of organizations, probably every organization. But I think he’s a great fit here. We love him, and I think he loves it here, too.”
Why is Jones so certain of a new Seahawks deal?
“I just know it,” he said, on his way out of Southern California Sunday night. “I feel like the body of work I put in, it will get there. What I did for this team, I think I deserve what I deserve.”
Ernest Jones and Mike Macdonald
Macdonald sees Jones as his Roquan Smith, the middle linebacker Macdonald’s Ravens traded for in the middle of the coach’s first season as Ravens defensive coordinator in 2022. Like Jones did for Seattle this year, Smith transformed Macdonald’s Baltimore defense from bad to awesome upon arrival midseason in 2022.
Jones sees Macdonald as the coach he wants to retire playing for.
Yes, at age 25, Jones wants to play Macfdonald for the rest of his NFL career.
“Oh, man, Mike’s going to be a helluva a (head) coach. Mike’s the one,” Jones said.
“The way he leads the team, guys just...you want to play for Mike...
“I love Mike. I want him to be my coach for the rest of my career.”
The News Tribune asked Jones what encourages him about this non-playoff team this season.”
“I missed OTAs, the whole training camp. When I came here these guys just took me in, like they had known me,” he said. “And the work I’ve seen these guys putting in, I just know.
“We continue that, we are going to be a helluva team.”
