Deion Jones wins third career NFC Defensive Player of the Week honor

Deion Jones was prowling the field on Sunday against Miami, ending the day with 15 tackles, a sack and three tackles for a loss. That eye-catching day won him NFC Defensive Player of the Week honors.

As AtlantaFalcons.com managing editor Scott Bair wrote, this is Jones’ third such honor, tying him with franchise greats Deion Sanders and Chuck Smith for the defender with the most Defensive Player of the Weeks honors in franchise history. He previously won in December 2017 for a 10 tackle, 2 tackle for loss effort capped off with a 41 yard interception return against Drew Brees, and again in December 2019 for his game-ending interception and touchdown return against Jameis Winston and the Buccaneers.

The honor is another feather in the cap for Jones, who is still just 26 years old and is everywhere on the franchise career leaderboard already. He’s 8th in tackles all-time, 21st in interceptions, 7th in interception return yardage, 1st in interceptions returned for a touchdown, and 7th in pass deflections for this Falcons team, and if his past couple of years have been a bit up-and-down, is penchant for making big plays has never faded.

I was genuinely a bit surprised to see Jones take this home, given that he did miss a handful of tackles on the day and allowed eight catches, but I’m not going to look a gift horse in the mouth and neither is Deion Jones. As Bair notes, he limited receiving options working against him to 4.4 yards per catch and looked like himself in a way he hasn’t on a consistent basis of late, flashing his speed and ability to impact plays that another player wouldn’t be close to getting involved in.

Congratulations to Debo on the award, and hopefully he’ll build on this effort and help Atlanta crush the Panthers this coming Sunday.