Seahawks’ Jones ends elite career
SEATTLE – Offensive tackle Walter Jones has retired, the Seattle Seahawks announced Thursday.
That ends 17 months of uncertainty after a knee injury Jones suffered on Thanksgiving 2008 in Dallas. It also ends one of the greatest careers in franchise history.
Jones played 12 seasons with Seattle, and was selected to nine Pro Bowls – most of any Seahawk. Jones will be at a news conference today at team headquarters in Renton, Wash., to discuss his decision and his career.
Jones was one of this city’s athletic superstars, though his position and his personality kept him out of the spotlight.
Talk to the people he protected, though, and you get an idea of just how dominant he was.
“It took me a year of being here before I realized this,” said Trent Dilfer, Seahawks quarterback from 2001 to 2004. “Every time we lined up, the best player on the field was my left tackle.”
Dilfer offered a unique perspective. He came to Seattle after winning a Super Bowl in Baltimore the year before behind an offensive line that included left tackle Jonathan Ogden, also considered a preeminent player at the position.
Jones was something else, though. From 2003 to 2005, he was a force.
“I truly believe that Walter Jones should have been in the discussion as the best player in football those three years,” Dilfer said. “He was the most dominant player in the National Football League.”
Seattle chose left tackle Russell Okung with the sixth pick of last week’s draft, and immediately appointed him the starter at left tackle, a position manned by four players last season when Jones was unable to return from a knee injury.
The Seahawks have changed coaches twice since Jones last played in a regular-season game. He has undergone two knee surgeries and has missed the past 20 games.
He missed four games because of injury his rookie year in 1997. He missed four games over the next 10 years. Two were because of a contract holdout in 2002, and he was held out of the regular-season finales in 2005 and 2007 because Seattle had clinched its playoff seeding.
“A great teammate,” quarterback Matt Hasselbeck said. “A pro. A guy you can count on. That’s what Walt was. A great teammate. Just happened to be that he was also the best player on the team.”
Jones suffered a knee injury before Seattle played at Dallas on Thanksgiving 2008. He gave up two sacks that afternoon to Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware. The next week, coach Mike Holmgren said Jones underwent microfracture surgery.
He tried to come back in 2009 but he was sidelined in training camp – first by back spasms and then by an arthroscopic procedure to clean up scar tissue in his left knee. He again tried to come back, but his return was compromised by the fact he cannot take many anti-inflammatory medications because of a kidney condition.