Jones' Move Inside Paying Dividends for Rams
Defense ranks second nationally in sacks, TFLs per game
Mike Brohard
Manny Jones knows Ellison Hubbard is enjoying his pain.
It’s the result of moving from defensive end to defensive tackle, where the spaces are tighter and the double teams more plentiful. That, Jones said, has been the biggest adjustment.
“For sure. That’s a big change,” Jones said. “My body feels it the most. There’s a lot more hands on me when you’re down in the trenches. That’s the only difference I feel overall. I feel like playing the position isn’t much harder than D-end. It has its perks, as does D-end, but overall, it’s not horrible.”
Neither is Jones. Since his true freshman season, he’s always been a disruptive force, but this season he’s on his best pace ever. His five tackles for loss in two games give him 26.5 for his career, just .5 outside the career top 10 in program history.
He posted two sacks among his four tackles for loss in the win over Wyoming, bumping his career total to 11. Jones and the rest of the Colorado State defensive front have been creating havoc as a group, with the 10 sacks and 23 tackles for loss ranking the Rams second nationally in both categories per game.
Applying pressure and pushing an offensive backward holds the benefits of putting an offense behind the chains and taking it out of a normal routine. It can lead to mistakes, with the Rams producing three turnovers against Wyoming.
As for defensive coordinator Chuck Heater, it opens up a myriad of options as he calls a game.
“In part, we’ve got some guys who can make plays, and your job as a coordinator is to make sure you get defenses that allow aggressive guys to be aggressive,” Heater said. “It kind of goes hand in hand. That’s all positive, and it helps you get them in third-down situations; where two weeks ago we couldn’t convert, and last week we did. Those third downs that are longer than normal, those help you. That’s how you can get off the field, and we were able to do that last week, whereas the week before we were not able to do that.”
Overall I feel the defense, we’re finding ourselves, finding what we’re good at and capitalizing on it.Manny Jones, Defensive Tackle
As a defense, the Rams are more than a third of the way to 2019’s 12-game totals (68 tackles for loss and 29 sacks) in just two games. That played a big role in the Rams’ improvement in third-down defense against Wyoming, as the Cowboys converted just 4 of 15 chances.
There are 11 different players with tackles for loss, seven with sacks. It’s been a group effort, the product, Jones said, of getting things right.
“I just feel like everybody is doing their part,” he said. “We know our assignments, we’re getting to where we’re supposed to be at, and everything else just falls in. I feel like when you can say what you’re doing and you know exactly what you’re doing, you can just go out and play ball and play a lot faster.”
Faster is a key for Jones inside. As head coach Steve Addazio pointed out, having Jones inside this year is like having a specialized package on the field for passing downs, only he’s completely adept at playing the run, too.
“I just think he brings an athletic, physical presence inside. Sometimes you get those guys that have been ends, especially on third down, and they can play inside a little bit quicker,” Addazio said. “It’s just a change up for the offensive line. Manny’s an experienced, veteran guy, a tough guy, physical, athletic. He’s tough to block. I can remember back in the day, it used to be we’d start these third-down packages, take these faster guys on the edges and the ends inside and try to change it up. Manny is one of those guys who can do both.
“Toby McBride is like that, too. We have our two inside guys Ellison Hubbard and Devin Phillips, and they’re super athletic and twitchy, even at the size they’re at. We’re pretty athlete up front. Scott Patchan is a long, athletic guy, and Brandon Hickerson-Rooks is a new addition, super-athletic guy. We have a good mix of guys who can get home and play inside or outside, and that’s a good thing.”
Jones won’t lie and tell you he doesn’t miss playing defensive end. But he’s also found the move to the interior to be to his liking, as well. Even though he’s packed on pounds and muscle since his arrival, he’s still very agile and a bit quicker than most interior defensive linemen.
Those attributes he’s learned to use to his advantage this season.
The first game was an adjustment, getting used to getting hit from all angles, but he’s gaining a feel for it and what interior offensive linemen are trying to do. Whereas his movements could be stretched at end, there’s less room to work with inside, so he’s become more concise with his motions.
“I feel like a lot of guys in the interior are susceptible to movement, so if you can move around a lot, that’s one weakness a lot of interior offensive linemen have problems with, tracking and keeping up with movement. I do think me being a defensive end helped out a lot. The transition inside and being able to shift around a lot faster than the average three-technique or defensive tackle.”
The fact he’s on the verge of joining a top-10 list caught him off guard, just the way his sophomore and junior years seemed to fly past him. The pandemic has seemed to put this season at a snail’s pace, but he’s not playing like that at all.
And he’s pretty sure the Rams are only starting to gain steam.
“I feel like we’re always learning something new every day, and that’s only going to motivate us to do more and get that No. 1 spot,” he said. “Overall I feel the defense, we’re finding ourselves, finding what we’re good at and capitalizing on it. There’s always something to build off of. I feel like we have a long ways to go. Even with that, we still are taking it one day at a time, one step at a time.”
And after games and practices, one long ice bath at a time. A veteran knows how to take care of his body during the season.
Because Hubbard wasn’t kidding, and Jones knows that now.
“They just look at me like, I told you. I told you,” Jones said with a laugh. “I’m like, ‘yeah, you told me, but I didn’t believe you, but damn.’”