The Chris Jones holdout ended on Monday, with a one-year contract that brought him back for the Week 2 game against the Jaguars.
He played. And he played well. He had 1.5 sacks, a tackle for loss, and two quarterback hits. And he did it while on a pitch count.
After the 17-9 win, Jones spoke to PFT by phone from the bus to the airport.
He said that he played 34 or 35 snaps, and that he could have played more.
“I had the most energy on the team,” Jones said. “I felt amazing on the sidelines, but a lot of guys played a lot of snaps, and we asked a lot of guys to step up, which they did. . . . It was a hostile environment. It was very humid. The heat is serious in Florida.”
Helping his acclimation to the heat in Jacksonville was that he had been working out in Miami during his holdout. Still, he mentioned that, as he re-acclimates to football, he could be on a pitch count for “for the next two to three weeks.”
He’d prefer not to be.
“I’m ready to get off this shit,” he said.