MARCH 15: The release is now official, according to ESPN’s Field Yates (on Twitter).
MARCH 7: The Dolphins are following through with this expected transaction. They have informed Jones they will release him on the first day of the 2023 league year (March 15), Adam Schefter of ESPN.com tweets. Miami will designate Jones as a post-June 1 cut, per Schefter. This move will create $13.6MM in cap space, though the Dolphins will not collect the savings until that June date. Teams can designate two players per year as post-June 1 releases.
FEBURARY 25: As Byron Jones‘ recovery timetable kept being pushed back, it looked increasingly likely his Dolphins tenure was coming to an end. The veteran cornerback’s comments Saturday pointed to his career being over.
Jones, who has not played since the 2021 season, underwent surgery nearly a year ago. He said Saturday he “can’t run or jump because of my injuries sustained playing this game.” Still attached to what was once a record-setting cornerback contract, Jones has made it seem likely he will not play again.
“It was an honor and privilege to play in the NFL but it came at a regrettable cost I did not foresee,” Jones said (on Twitter). “In my opinion, no amount of professional success or financial gain is worth avoidable chronic pain and disabilities. Godspeed to the draft class of 2023.”
That said, the talented cover man is not planning to submit his retirement papers, Barry Jackson of the Miami Herald tweets. The Dolphins are likely to designate Jones as a post-June 1 cut. Teams can make two of those designations per year. With the Dolphins being able to create $13.6MM in cap space — after June 1, that is — and Jones coming off a missed season, that seemed the logical endpoint here. Jones has been with the Dolphins since 2020, starting 30 games with the team.
The Dolphins gave Jones a five-year, $82.5MM contract during the 2020 free agency period. Although Jalen Ramsey, Jaire Alexander and Denzel Ward now earn north of $20MM per year, Josh Norman‘s $15MM-per-year figure resided as the position’s top AAV for three years. Xavien Howard barely topped it in May 2019. Jones’ $16.5MM-per-year pact began breaking that ice (and later prompted Howard to push for another contract), and corner salaries began rising.
Should Jones retire now, he could owe the Dolphins $4.2MM in signing bonus money, Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk notes. A smaller injury-protection sum would also stand to come Jones’ way if/once the Dolphins cut him, but the former Cowboys first-round pick has no guaranteed money remaining on his deal. Two years remain on the contract, with two void years tacked onto the end of it for cap-saving purposes. Following a successful conversion from safety to cornerback that produced a Pro Bowl and a free agency bidding war, Jones secured $40MM at signing from the Dolphins.
Jones lobbed an apparent salvo at the Dolphins in a separate tweet, advising other injured players to be leery of medications advised by team staffs. Despite that comment, Jackson adds Jones is not planning a lawsuit against the Dolphins. The surgery Jones underwent was not believed to be a procedure that threatened his 2022 season; he was initially believed to be on track to return by training camp. But he never came off Miami’s PUP list last season. The unexpected hurdles that appeared during Jones’ recovery have understandably become a sore subject with the former Pro Bowler.
His comments are tone deaf. There are plenty of people whose occupations put them at risk for chronic or even life threating injuries. And those people earn far less than Byron Jones. Injuries are tragic and I sympathize with anyone living in pain, but everyone knows the risks.
Yeah, those people you talk about are being abused for the 1%. We should raise wages and improve safety. Nobody should die or be maimed at work in 2023 in the richest country in the world.
Luxembourg is the richest country in the world.
Richest in debt. Don’t the the US will ever be able to pay back their debt.
But I get your point.
I think saying someone shouldn’t speak frankly about his experience because other people have it worse is generally unfair.
“came at a regrettable cost I did not foresee” He didn’t know football was dangerous? If a policeman gets shot and afterward claims he had no idea that danger was a part of the job, what would you say? If a UPS man claims he had no idea joint deterioration could occur while entering and exiting a delivery truck 200x a day, would you take him seriously? Jones sounds out of touch with reality.
That’s abject nonsense, Don, and you’re missing the point
Yeah, there are risks in everything, even in getting out of bed in the morning. Yeah, everyone knows the risks
But what endeavor is more glamorized than being a professional athlete, especially football? What star football player from pee wee through high school doesn’t dream of playing pro ball
I dunno. I guess I could be insensitive to his comments like you, and I guess I could look at former players who die young or endure crippling pain as being guys who knew the risks, but most human beings tend to ignore the long term risks in any job
I took his comments as being a clarion call that warns of those risks
Injuries aside, I don’t know how they would even clear enough space to operate this off-season without cutting him.
Jones’ story has unfortunately been one of obstacles. He started well at corner, soon after being moved to safety for some reason by Dallas, where his career stagnated, and then was moved back to corner as a last ditch effort where he, shocker, played very at the position that he was drafted. Then the Dolphins came calling. That switch to safety was always silly to me.
Jones was a good player, but a contract that rich was really built for a team in contention that did not have other additions to be made. Miami has a couple of spots that needed investment, and Jones was going to have to see his contract subtracted or seriously restructured this year as is. I doubt that he was the only one, too.
Why is it that NFL teams with players on the IL & PUP lists are not required to move them back onto the active roster after the Super Bowl and can only move them back to the IL & PUP once training camp begins? In MLB teams are required to operate that way.