Jones enjoying best season of his career

by Dave Hutchinson/The Star-Ledger

Thursday December 18, 2008, 8:42 PM

Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-LedgerThomas Jones of the Jets tries to move the ball against the Buffalo Bills last week. Tuesday, Jones earned the first Pro Bowl berth of his nine-year career.

Tuesday, Jones earned the first Pro Bowl berth of his nine-year career -- recognition for his AFC-best 1,222 rushing yards and career-high and franchise-record 13 touchdowns. Thursday, he was voted the Jets' team MVP and the team's most inspirational player.

"Definitely, I've been blessed this year," Jones said. "Yes, I would say it's one of the best seasons I've ever had."

Jones' dream season -- he has scored at least one touchdown the past eight games -- continues this weekend at Seattle, when the Jets (9-5) hope to beat the Seahawks (3-11) and move one step closer to a playoff berth.

It wasn't supposed to take this long for Jones to be recognized as one of the league's elite running backs after the Cardinals drafted him with the seventh pick overall out of Virginia.

But as has been the case with so many players, his career fizzled with the bumbling (before this season) Cardinals after three uninspiring seasons in which he split time with several backs and never rushed for more than 511 yards.

In 2003, Jones was traded to Tampa Bay, where he spent one season. He then signed with the Bears, where he became the featured back for the first time in his career.

Jones spent three seasons in Chicago, leading the Bears to Super Bowl XLI with a 1,210 yards. That offseason, the Bears traded him to the Jets to make room for Cedric Benson, who has since been released. The decision to jettison Jones was made despite his back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons, including a career-high 1,335 yards in 2005.

Last season, Jones fought his way to 1,119 yards rushing -- but just one touchdown -- as the Jets finished a dismal 4-12. During the offseason, the Jets upgraded their offensive line with Pro Bowl left guard Alan Faneca and right tackle Damien Woody and Jones took off.

"That's part of the NFL, you have your ups and downs but you keep moving," said Jones, who has compiled four straight 1,000-yard seasons. "The more you work, the harder you work. If you stick to it, good things will happen. And I think this is an example of that."

Woody agreed.

"That's what makes it sweet," he said. "This cat is 30 years old and making his first Pro Bowl. How many 30-year-old running backs make it for the first time? That just shows you the work he put in."

To answer Woody's question, Jones is the fourth. But he's more than a running back, he's the "heart and soul" of the team, Woody said. His pregame speeches whip teammates into a frenzy. His weight lifting leaves them in awe. His classroom work sets an example for all.

"I saw that in Thomas all of last year," coach Eric Mangini said. "The results weren't exactly what we had hoped but this year you get a sense of how dynamic a player he is."

Off the field, Jones has a record producing company and his scholarship fund at the University of Virginia has granted 22 scholarships over the past two years to high school graduates from five coal-producing counties bordering on Jones' hometown of Big Stone Gap, Va.

Jones, who has "Coal Miner's Son" tattooed across his chest, gets his work ethic and fighting spirit from his mother, Betty, who worked in the coal mines for 19 years, and his father, Thomas Sr., who worked there one year before layoffs made him find other work. The couple raised seven children (two boys, five girls), six have graduated from college, a seventh is a sophomore at the University of Virginia.

"I can't be more proud of him. He's having a career year and he deserves it," Julius Jones, Thomas' younger brother and the Seahawks running back, said this week. "Things didn't work out at a few different places around the league but it proves that you can't hold him down. There's no quit in anyone in our family.

"All of us (are going to Hawaii for the Pro Bowl). I wouldn't miss that. The whole plane will be on lock down."

The family, of course, will be in Seattle this weekend -- yet another highlight for Thomas Jones.

"Obviously, it's a big game for us and we want to win. But that's my brother, and I always wish him the best," said Jones, whose teams have lost the first two meetings with Julius'. "I love my brother more than I love football. I want him to be healthy and have a great game, but I want to win."