In this series I’ll be going over who I think will be the top 20 impact players for the Lions in 2018, next up is Marvin Jones.
It often goes under the radar how good a player Marvin Jones is. He doesn’t have the physical traits of the Julio Jones types, or the route running of the Antonio Browns. But what he does have is a habit of making spectacular plays.
His 18 yards per catch ranked him 2nd in the NFL last year, nearly a whole yard ahead of 3rd place. He was also in the top 10 in receiving touchdowns with nine and came in 10th among receivers in yards with 1,101. Those three stats are the ones I think prove the value of a wide receiver. When it comes to impact plays, yards per catch shows a receiver’s big play impact and that was Marvin Jones bread and butter last season.
He wasn’t always consistent and some games he went quiet but in the upcoming season, I think this will change. The reasons for this are first, once again he’s training with Randy Moss. The impact of that was immense last season so another off-season with Moss should amplify his game even more. The second is with Kenny Golladay hopefully being fully fit he will draw the attention of the bigger-body corners away from Jones. They were his main struggle last season as getting separation from them was his Achilles heel. That being said he didn’t need separation to make big plays.
With the addition of a proficient run game, you would hope that would leave Marvin Jones without having to deal with double coverage and give him more space to work with. I can see him having a similar season to last year, if not a little better. Either way, he will be impactful to the Lions’ chances at winning games.
List so far:
Golden Tate – #9
Jarrad Davis – #8
Glover Quin – #7
Thanks for checking out the article everyone. Go Lions! Let me know what you think on Twitter @Alex_Watt_Lions and be sure to join the community on the Detroit Lions subreddit.
