Washington Redskins: Why Matt Jones was far more than a failed draft choice

The embattled tenure of Washington Redskins running back Matt Jones came to a widely-expected end last week when the club released him as part of its 53-player roster cutdown.  Jones’ release may not have been noteworthy among the larger swath of player transactions during the League’s one and only required roster purge.

But Jones’ two-year stay in Washington was far more significant to the Redskins than many third-year busts who faced a recent date with the Turk. His bitter end with the team witnessed a coaching staff, who had long known of the folly in retaining him, at odds with General Manager Scot McCoughan, who inexplicably saw something from much of nothing.

That GM’s confounding faith in Jones proved to be a cautionary tale of lost opportunity and a reticence to accept failure. It resulted in passing on two Pro-Bowl running backs, the dismissal of a capable veteran one, and a ramshackle running game headed up by an undrafted player from a small-time program.

Jones may no longer be with the Redskins, but his ruinous legacy continues to metastisize throughout the organization. As the team begins to move on from him, it would be well-advised to examine the causes that doomed one young player to avoid repeating that for the many others on its current roster.