FoundSF

Historical Essay

by Matt Sieger

Brent Jones

Photo courtesy of Bay Area Sports Hall of Fame

Brent Jones played for the San Francisco 49ers from 1987-1997 and was on three Super Bowl championship teams. One of the top players in franchise history, Jones helped revolutionize the concept of the pass-catching tight end. This article is based on my interview with him in 1992.

San Francisco 49er tight end, Brent Jones, caught a pass and headed up field. The 49ers were playing the Minnesota Vikings in the first round of the NFL play-offs on a fateful January afternoon in 1988. San Francisco was heavily favored to win the game, and many, including Jones, expected the 49ers to go on to capture their third Super Bowl Championship.

As Jones looked for room to run, a Minnesota defender crashed into his left knee, snapping it back, and Jones went down. He would not play again that season. The Vikings went on to beat the 49ers 36-24, eliminating San Francisco from post-season play.

Jones's knee was so badly injured that it required reconstructive surgery.

"I thought I was going to the Super Bowl. I couldn't believe it," said Jones of the injury. "I think for the most part, people thought I'd never play again."

Remarkably, his knee healed in five months. But at training camp he injured his other knee. This one required arthroscopic surgery . As Jones waited for his knee to heal, Bill Walsh, the 49ers' coach at the time, brought an unwelcome message.

"He said they were just going to keep two tight ends on the roster," Jones recalled, "and it was going to be these other two guys. I wasn't going to be around."

But, for some strange reason, the 49ers put Jones on the injured reserve list instead of cutting him from the squad. Then some even stranger things began to happen. One of the other tight ends suffered an injury, and Jones got some playing time. He did so well that he moved from third-string to second-string. After the end of the season, John Frank, the 49ers' starting tight end, announced his retirement.

Suddenly, the first-string tight end job was up for grabs. Jones grabbed it. The 29-year-old San Jose native has now been the 49ers' starting tight end for three seasons and has collected two Super Bowl rings in the process. In 1990, Jones set single-season team records for reception and yardage by a tight end.

Ironically, Walsh, who turned to broadcasting after retiring as 49ers head coach in 1990, emphasized Jones's importance to the team during; a telecast of a 49ers game last season, Jones was out with still another knee injury, and Walsh explained that, although most fans know about 49er receivers Jerry Rice and John Taylor, it is Jones, the third weapon in the team's pass-catching arsenal, who keeps defenders honest. Because of Jones's great pass-catching ability, defensive backs can't just key on Rice and Taylor . As if to make a prophet of Walsh, the 49ers, who had been struggling with a four-and-five record, went on to finish the season a respectable ten-and-six, after Jones returned to the line-up.

His biggest thrill was catching a pass for the second touchdown of the game in San Francisco's 55-10 victory over the Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV in 1990. But his best game as a 49er was in a 19-13 victory over the Atlanta Falcons the following season: He caught five passes for a career-best 125 yards, including a 67-yard touchdown pass.

Besides success, the one thing that has characterized Jones's career is adversity-and his uncanny ability to come back from it.

In the second game of the 1991 sea­ son against the San Diego Chargers, Jones tore a ligament in his left knee. The doctors said it would be eight to ten weeks before he could play again, yet after five weeks the knee had healed, and he was cleared to play. Although Coach George Seifert decided to rest his star tight end for two additional weeks to play it safe, Jones had come back from his fourth major injury in professional football.

What stands out is his attitude during those times of recovery.

"A lot of people say, 'How can you handle that? How can you be so up about having a knee injury? How come you're not down and frustrated?' “Jones related.

The answer, he said, is his faith in God.

"I can't even begin to take credit for what I've done or what I've been through," he said. "There's just no way-I would have never been able to handle it."

He said his faith has sustained him in adversity, especially in recovering from injuries. "Going through it, there's times of frustrations," he said. "But Christ has really brought me through the tough times."

Jones feels that his success as a football player is also directly related to his faith.

"I think that God had a plan for my life," Jones explained. "There's no way I could have become a professional football player had it not been for that commitment (to Christ). There were so many events in my life-having them move me to tight end in college, getting in the car accident putting me back here in San Francisco and finally getting my chance. I was a good athlete, but you could talk to any one of my friends from high school -- I was the farthest thing from a pro football player."

Jones felt that many athletes turn to God because of the emptiness they experience in the midst of success.

"A lot of times athletes have every­ thing," he explained. "They have the fast cars, the big money, all the women, if they wanted that. And I think so many guys climb that mountain and see that there's really nothing there. They realize that money and the world's view of success can't buy true happiness."

For Jones, true success is to honor God in everything he does. So his faith pervades every aspect of his life, including his actions on the football field.

"I play as hard as anybody out there," he said. "That's how Christ wants me to play. But I'll help guys up on other teams."

This article first appeared in Teen Quest, September 1992.

Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sports reporter and columnist for The Vacaville Reporter. He is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.