Was the Deacon Jones of football an ethical defensive end?
Although Deacon Jones liked to be bullied, he was an ethical defensive end in the NFL. Deacon tried to strike fear into the quarterback’s eyes, but he was unethical in his approach to do so.
Deacon Jones coined the football word ‘sack’, which means to knock the quarterback down behind the line of scrimmage. He played left defensive end in an era when all NFL quarterbacks were right-handed. He didn’t sneak up behind the quarterbacks and surprise them, because that was below what his ethics would allow. Deacon wanted the quarterbacks to know he was coming, that No. 75 was coming and it was coming fast. He wanted to intimidate the other team and especially the quarterback, but he wasn’t the type of guy to jump up behind you. Deacon wanted to be honest about it and look that quarterback in the eye.
Why was the right offensive tackle position held by the best offensive linemen on each team during the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s? The reason was because the best defensive ends of those eras played on the left side of the defensive line. Why didn’t teams in the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s play their best defensive end on the right side like they do today? Theories vary, but one interesting theory is that the ethic was stronger in those days: you looked the opposition in your sport in the face and in the eye, instead of sneaking up behind them.
In the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s, great football players like Forest Gregg, Bob Brown, Ron Yary, Dan Dierdorf and Rayfield Wright played right tackle and had to block the best defensive ends in football in men like Deacon Jones, Bubba Smith, Willie Davis, Gerry Philbin, Carl Eller, Jack Youngblood, and LC Greenwood.
Was the ethic stronger in society and football 30 or 50 years ago than it is now? All current NFL teams play their best defensive end on the right side to attack the blind sides of right-handed quarterbacks. Today’s ethics dictate that blindsiding is the right thing to do because winning is everything, even if it means jumping someone (the quarterback) from behind.
But there are exceptions to this theory. Reggie White is considered the greatest defensive end of all time and played left back during the 1980s and 1990s. White was a deeply religious man. Did his strong ethic of him only allow him to play where most of the league’s right-handed quarterbacks could see him approach? From his wonderful interviews and the many good things that have been said about Reggie White, it would seem that he didn’t want to surprise quarterbacks. In polls of the best defensive ends in NFL history, Reggie White is number one with Deacon Jones a close second.
Shifting stronger defensive linemen back and forth between the right and left sides of the defensive line is now a common strategy in football, as coaches try to find matchups that will give their defenses an advantage. But Deacon stayed on the left side throughout his career.
A counterpoint to the theory that Deacon was ethical is that his massive ego had to be fed by seeing the fear in the quarterbacks’ eyes, something that wouldn’t have happened had he played right side. Left-handed quarterbacks were rare in the NFL during Deacon’s career: Chicago Bears left-hander Bobby Douglas’s rookie year was 1969.
Deacon Jones died on June 3, 2013. The NFL honored his passing with the Deacon Jones Award for the NFL player with the most quarterback sacks each season. This award should long ago bear the name of the man who coined the word ‘sack,’ but it took Deacon’s death to finally release this dignity in his honor.
If the ethics of society and sports have suffered in the last 40 years since Deacon Jones played football, it would not have changed the way Deacon played. Because if he were playing today, he would still insist on playing left end so he could continue to strike fear into the eyes of those quarterbacks.