Tackle-breaking Jones has Fangio saying, ‘Jeez’

Denver Broncos coach Vic Fangio doesn’t need an introduction to Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones. He got that a couple years ago.

“When I first saw him when he came up with them, I looked out and said, ‘Where’d they get this guy?’” Fangio, the former Chicago Bears defensive coordinator, told reporters in Denver on Wednesday. “I think he was a sixth-round pick [actually, fifth round], and I’m saying. ‘Jeez.’ He’s powerful. He’s got really good balance. He runs tough. He’s a capable pass receiver out of the backfield. They do everything with him. They got a steal there.”

Jones, who entered the season with the third-best rushing average in NFL history among backs with at least 200 carries, got rolling against Minnesota last week with 23 carries for 116 yards and one touchdown. He had explosive runs, like the 13-yarder that helped clinch the game, and hard-charging runs, like the 1-yard run on the second series in which he stiff-armed linebacker Anthony Barr to the turf to make something out of nothing.

“Aaron gives you that slashing mentality with the speed. He really has the speed to take it the distance every time he touches the ball,” quarterback Aaron Rodgers said. “I think where he’s grown the most is his patience, getting behind blocks, letting them set up, pressing his aiming points and then cutting and using the stiff-arm. He had a great run in the game where we basically had an unblocked guy in the hole and he bounced off the tackle and stiff-armed. It was a zero or half-yard or 1-yard gain maybe, but it was fantastic play. It should have been a 2-yard loss. That’s what he does. He has that incredible balance, which is one of the things you can’t teach.”

That shows up on the missed-tackle leaderboard. According to Sports Info Solutions, Jones has forced nine missed tackles – one off the league lead. Of 32 backs with at least 20 carries, Jones’ missed-tackle rate of 25.0 percent is tied for fifth.

The question is how much of a workload can Jones handle? Even with the limited reps given by former coach Mike McCarthy, Jones played in only 24 of a possible 32 games his first two seasons. He’s been tripped up by three MCL injuries. His 23 carries against Minnesota were a career high, as were his 27 touches. Jones said he was sore “but nothing out of the ordinary” after the game.

Even workhorse backs can handle only so much. LaFleur should know that as well as anyone. He was the offensive coordinator of the Rams in 2017, when Todd Gurley helped turn Los Angeles form pretenders into contenders. By the end of last season, though, Gurley had been worn down to such an extent that he was a nonfactor in the Rams’ run to the Super Bowl. Even now, there are questions about whether the NFL’s second-highest-paid running back will ever return to dominating form.

“All I know is this: It’s a long season,” LaFleur said. “Went through this a little last year (in Tennessee) in terms of feeling like we wore one of our guys out, and I do not want to put our team in that position moving forward. Now, granted, in the heat of the game, if one guy’s got the hot hand, you’re going to ride that hot hand. But you’d like to be – especially in that first half – a little bit more balanced to preserve (them) not only for the rest of the game but for the marathon of the season that we have.”

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