Julius Jones breaks tackles for Seahawks

Julius Jones breaks tackles for Seahawks
Seahawks running back Julius Jones has shown an ability to bust through tackles, which is something the Seattle running game hasn't seen in a while.
By Danny O'Neil
Seattle Times staff reporter

RENTON — The running-backs coach didn't see the end of Julius Jones' 29-yard slalom run through the St. Louis defense.

Instead, Kasey Dunn heard it when another of Seattle's assistant coaches in the skybox shouted over Dunn's headset that Jones was going to score.

"I saw him pop out and start to move, but I kind of lost track of where he was," Dunn said.

So did almost everyone else at Qwest Field who watched Jones disappear into a pile of humanity just beyond the line of scrimmage and assumed that was that for the first-quarter play.

There was no reason to expect him to come squirting out. Not after the past two years in which broken plays vastly outnumbered the broken tackles when a Seahawks running back reached a congested intersection.

So admit it, you thought Jones was tackled on his first-quarter touchdown run. It's OK. Understandable even. Heck, there were a few members of St. Louis' defense who assumed their job was done.

"There were a lot of guys that thought he was down," Dunn said. "Stopped moving."

Jones smiled when he was asked about that.

"That will teach them next time to keep their heads up," Jones said.

Three games into this season, Jones has shown he is someone worth watching.

That's not entirely a surprise. He is 5 feet 10, a chiseled 208 pounds and was the highest-profile addition in the offseason. The player signed as a free agent from Dallas to replace Shaun Alexander.

The Seahawks were looking to overhaul their running game, Jones was looking for a fresh start and a fair opportunity to compete for a role and it took less than two days to agree to a contract.

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"They'd seen what I can do, but I don't think they were really sure," Jones said. "All I wanted was an opportunity to show them."

These past two games have been that opportunity as Jones started after Maurice Morris went down with a knee injury. Jones rushed for more than 100 yards each of the past two games and scored on two touchdown runs of more than 20 yards. That's exactly how many Seattle totaled all of last season.

The Seahawks are averaging 166.3 rushing yards, second most in the league, but almost half their yards came in one game against St. Louis, which has one of the league's worst rushing defenses.

Now comes one of the league's very best defenses. The Giants have allowed only one rushing touchdown this season, and three games into Jones' second life in the NFL, the 27-year-old running back is preparing to play the NFL champions on one of the league's biggest stages: Giants Stadium.

It's the kind of showcase opportunity Jones has chased since high school.

He grew up in coal country in Big Stone Gap, Va., a town that is a downright misnomer. There's not much big about Big Stone Gap, population about 5,000.

He followed the footsteps of his older brother, Thomas, in high school, but picked his own path for college. Thomas went to Virginia and was a senior when Julius enrolled at Notre Dame as a freshman chasing a big chance.

"An opportunity to play on TV every single week, national TV," Jones said of his reason for picking Notre Dame.

He played four seasons for the Irish, was drafted in the second round by Dallas and flirted with stardom as a Cowboy. He gained 198 yards against Seattle on a Monday in 2004 and ran for 194 yards against Carolina the following year. His rushing total climbed his first three seasons from 819 to 993 to 1,084 yards in 2006.

He went from one of the country's most heralded college football programs to play for one of the NFL's most glamorous teams, but has he ever really had a chance to show all that he's capable of?

"Not at all," Jones said. "Not at all, man."

He didn't come to the Seahawks because they promised him a starting job or a certain role. He chose to sign in Seattle for the chance he saw.

"They told me I would have the opportunity to compete," Jones said. "That's really all you can ask for."

And already Jones has given the Seahawks more than they expected, running with a granite chin these past two weeks because he hasn't flinched with that first hit. He's going to try to flex his way through it, and his ability to run through contact caught his coach's eye.

"I've seen him do that a lot the last two games," coach Mike Holmgren said. "The type of runs he breaks on and the movement and how he sees things."

Quarterback Matt Hasselbeck saw that in the first quarter against the Rams when Jones spun out of the grasp of a defensive end.

"Once he escaped that tackle, I knew there was just secondary defenders left," Hasselbeck said.

So the quarterback hustled down, took out a pair of defensive backs with one headlong block and Jones scored on a touchdown run that no one really saw coming. Certainly not a city full of fans accustomed to a running game that didn't add up to much more than 2 yards and a cloud of dust the past two years.

But after three games, Jones has shown he's someone to keep an eye on even when it appears the defense has him dead to rights.





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