When we think of NFL greats from the 1980s, certain names immediately spring to mind: Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor. But there's one name that should be high on that list, yet often gets overlooked: 6’9” defensive lineman Ed "Too Tall" Jones. His career was remarkable not just for its longevity and achievements, but for how it challenged our expectations of what a football player could be.
Jones played 15 seasons for the Dallas Cowboys, from 1974 to 1978 and again from 1980 to 1989. That alone is an impressive feat in a sport known for short careers. But what makes Jones fascinating is how he spent that year off in 1979: he became a professional boxer.
Imagine if Tom Brady had taken a year off in his prime to try professional baseball, like NBA GOAT Michael Jordan did in 1994. That's essentially what Jones did, and he was better at punching people than Jordan was at smashing baseballs. He went 6-0 as a heavyweight, with five knockouts. This wasn't just a publicity stunt; Jones had a modicum of boxing skill. He'd fought Golden Gloves as a teenager, knocking out an opponent in less than a minute.
But let's back up. How does someone become so athletically gifted that they can excel at the highest level in two brutally demanding sports? Jones' path to the NFL was anything but conventional. He played only three games of high school football. Three. Most NFL players have been playing since they were kids. The towering Jones was primarily a basketball player, good enough to earn All-America honors and Division I scholarship offers.
It wasn't until college that Jones switched to football, and even then, he was initially hesitant. His coach at Tennessee State University had to convince him to try out. Once he did, though, it was clear they'd found something special. Jones became a two-time All-American defensive lineman.
The Dallas Cowboys saw his potential and made him the first overall pick in the 1974 NFL draft. This was historic in itself—Jones was the first player from a historically black college to be drafted first overall. But the Cowboys didn't just draft him high; they built their Doomsday Defense around him.
Jones' impact on the field was immense, even if it wasn't always captured in the official stats. The NFL didn't start recording sacks as an official statistic until 1982, halfway through Jones' career. According to the Cowboys' unofficial records, Jones racked up 106 sacks over his career. That's third in team history, behind only DeMarcus Ware and “Manster” Randy White.
But sacks don't tell the whole story. Jones was 6'9", enormous even by today’s NFL standards. He used that height not just to pressure quarterbacks, but to swat down passes at the line of scrimmage. He was so effective at this that the NFL started keeping track of batted passes as an official stat. Think about that for a second. Jones didn't just excel in a particular area; he made them create a new stat to track his excellence.
After his boxing sabbatical, Jones returned to the Cowboys in 1980 and somehow played even better than before (he claimed that training for boxing had improved his conditioning, though who can really say?). He earned All-Pro and Pro Bowl honors three times from 1981 to 1983. In 1985, at 34, he recorded a career-high 13 sacks. Most defensive ends are well past their prime by that age. Jones was setting personal records.
So why isn't Jones more celebrated? Part of it might be timing. He played in an era dominated by the Pittsburgh Steelers' "Steel Curtain" defense. Players like "Mean" Joe Greene got more attention, even though Jones was every bit their equal. The Cowboys' "Doomsday Defense" was fearsome, but it didn't have the catchy nickname or the 1970s-spanning Super Bowl dynasty of the steroid-powered Steelers.
Another factor might be Jones' versatility. He was so good at so many things that he never became synonymous with one particular skill. He wasn't just a pass rusher or just a run stopper. He did everything reasonably well. Sometimes, paradoxically, being great at everything can make you less memorable than being the absolute best at one thing.
There's also the fact that Jones left football in his prime. That year of boxing, while impressive, probably cost him in terms of football legacy; he wasn’t in it for the long haul, even though he lasted 15 years and fought to reach 200 career starts in his final campaign, in 1989. It's hard not to wonder what his numbers would look like if he'd played that 1979 season.
But I think there's something else at play here, something more fundamental about how we view athletes. We like our sports narratives simple. Player X was great because they did Y better than anyone else. Jones doesn't fit neatly into that kind of story. He was great because he could do a little of everything, because he was an athlete in the purest sense of the word.
Think about his high school years again. He excelled at basketball, baseball, and boxing. He picked up football almost as an afterthought and became one of the best to ever play. Then, in the middle of a Hall of Fame-worthy NFL career, he completed a side quest as an undefeated professional boxer. This goes beyond being a great football player. Jones was a great athlete, full stop.
In a way, Jones was almost too gifted for football. The sport couldn't contain his massive frame. It's telling that he called boxing his favorite sport and said that his time in the ring made him a superior football player. For Jones, football wasn't an all-consuming passion; it was just one way to express his incredible athletic gifts.
This brings us to a broader point about talent and recognition. Sometimes, being too versatile can work against you. We often celebrate specialists more than generalists, even when the generalist might be more impressive overall. It's easier to understand "best quarterback" or "best pass rusher" than it is to grasp "best all-around athlete who happened to play football."
In the end, Ed "Too Tall" Jones was exactly that: too tall, too talented, too versatile to be neatly categorized. He was a football player who was great at boxing, a basketball player who dominated in football, a pass rusher who changed how we measure defensive impact. He was, an "ath-uh-lete" in the fully enunciated sense of that word.
As we look back on Jones' career, we should remember him not just as a great football player, but as an example of what's possible when extraordinary athletic talent meets opportunity. He showed us that the boundaries between sports remain more permeable than we often assume, at least for demigods, and that true athleticism can express itself in many forms.
In an era of increasing specialization, where athletes are often pushed to focus on one sport from a young age, Jones' career stands as a testament to the value of diverse athletic experiences. Perhaps, in overlooking Jones, we've also been overlooking an important lesson about athletic development and the nature of talent itself: "a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing."
So the next time you're discussing NFL greats, spare a second (or first) thought for Ed "Too Tall" Jones. Remember the player who was so good, so versatile, that he transcended easy categorization. Remember the athlete who was, in many ways, too much of himself for just one sport. In doing so, we might expand our understanding of what a phrase like "generational talent" really means.