The NFL has always been filled with dependable players who began as backups, worked their way into starting roles, and contributed steadily to their teams for years. They perform the gritty, unglamorous work, rarely putting up big statistics or collecting end-of-season honors.
Cody Jones was one of those players. Jones spent a decade with the Los Angeles Rams, starting for half of those seasons along the defensive line, both at tackle and end.
Who? It’s true—many fans don’t know or remember him. That should change. He deserves to be remembered.
Jones was someone who was able to play inside or outside on the defensive line and that gave him opportunities to play and challenges that had to be overcome, like being treated like a yo-yo, going from outside to inside to outside and back inside again.
His beginnings were humble. A three-sport athlete (standout football and basketball player) at Mission High School in San Francisco. On the grid made the second-team All-City as a tackle and defensive end as a junior and first-team defensive end as a senior (and second-team as a tackle). In hoops, he was a second-team All-City center as a senior. Clearly, he was a talented athlete.
But a major college scholarship eluded him. He left California to play football and basketball at Trinidad State Junior College in Colorado. He had to earn his bones to get to a big school.
It didn’t take long, as a freshman, he earned All-Conference honors as a defensive end while starting at blocking back during both his freshman and sophomore seasons. Yes—the lanky 6-foot-5-inch, 240-pound athlete lined up in the backfield of a single-wing offense, even catching a touchdown pass.
He caught the attention of a school closer to home, San Jose State, and returned to the Bay Area to finish his collegiate football career.
Jones quickly secured a starting role at defensive tackle and earned second-team All-PCAA honors as a junior in 1971, followed by first-team recognition as a senior. He was among the better players San Jose State produced during that era.
Rams scout Jack Faulkner evaluated Jones and urged the team to draft him, and his recommendation carried the day: Los Angeles selected Jones in the fifth round of the 1973 NFL draft.
He quickly drew the attention of new Rams coach Chuck Knox, who even mentioned Jones by name during an early press session. The issue, however, was that Jones was extremely raw — so raw that he didn’t yet know how to line up in a proper football stance.
Even so, Knox saw enough promise and steady improvement to keep Jones on the taxi squad, the group of ready reserves who could be activated in the event injuries struck. But in 1973, none of the Rams’ defensive linemen missed time, so Jones never saw the field that season.
That changed the following year. Jones served as a backup at both defensive tackle and defensive end, and late in the season, he finally got a chance to start, filling in for right defensive tackle Larry Brooks. Reports said he “played well” and hinted that he might have a chance to be a starter in the league.
That chance came in 1975.
The Rams of that era featured one of the NFL’s best defensive lines, with Jack Youngblood and Fred Dryer at defensive end and Merlin Olsen and Larry Brooks at tackle. Behind them, the team carried three reserve linemen: Bill Nelson, Mike Fanning, and Cody Jones.
Jones backed up the ends, while Nelson covered the tackles. Fanning, a first-round pick from Notre Dame expected to eventually replace Olsen, broke an ankle in the preseason. The Rams didn’t want to place him on injured reserve—once a player went on IR in those days, he was out for the entire season—so he stayed on the active roster while rehabbing.
Midway through the season, disaster struck. In a game against the 49ers, two Rams defensive tackles suffered knee injuries severe enough to require surgery, ending their seasons. That left the team with Fanning, who wasn’t yet ready to start, and Cody Jones to fill the right defensive tackle spot. The Rams chose Jones, then signed Al Cowlings to back up the ends, with Fanning serving as the reserve for the tackles.
How did Jones respond? Quite well.
Despite being undersized for a tackle—around 245 pounds at the time—he used his quickness and natural strength to hold his ground and contribute steadily throughout the season, finishing with 4-1/2 sacks and 23 tackles in six starts.
The following season, the Rams again carried six defensive linemen, with Jones backing up the ends and Fanning working on the interior. Fanning was being groomed to take over for Merlin Olsen, who had announced that 1976 would be his final year. The tall, 6-foot-6 Notre Dame product got plenty of snaps in relief of Olsen and performed reasonably well, finishing the season with four sacks. Jones, by contrast, saw only limited action—usually in lopsided games or when one of the starting ends needed a brief break.
On paper, the experience Fanning gained should have positioned him as the frontrunner to inherit Olsen’s left tackle spot. But that’s not how it unfolded. Fanning got nicked and by his own admission, he didn’t play well in the 1977 training camp, “I just played so bad ... at the time no one knew who Cody Jones was but I knew I knew how good he could be.”
As per Jones, he said, “I’d been backing up both end and tackle. Ray (Malavasi) asked me whether I wanted to play end or tackle. Since there was a vacancy at tackle, I naturally said I’d like to try that.”
Jones won the job. He didn’t just win it; he held the position for the next four seasons, proving the coaches right in their decision. Well, actually, he won the position battle each of the next four years. The Rams really wanted Fanning there, in Cody’s mind anyway, and every camp was a competition. Jones said at times he thought the Rams felt he was an "afterthought" and that Fanning "was their man" so he would never relax, never let up.
Others, Jones felt, held starting jobs until supplanted but Fanning’s draft status cast a long shadow and Jones had to win the job time and time again but you still have to give the coaches credit for going with a player like Jones (a mid-round pick) over a ninth overall pick who was a big-name All-American out of Notre Dame. It's good evidence that the coaches had final say and even though it might miff the braintrust a bit.
But Jones was steadier, more reliable. He was seen as coachable. They preferred the guy who would not leave a hole in the line on a pass rush, as Fanning would do. Fanning also had a penchant for going offside. He had the talent of a first-rounder in terms of height, weight, and speed but didn’t play like it all the time.
So, the position was Jones’s.
In 1977, he had a big game against the Bucs and finished with 3-1/2 sacks among his 63 tackles. Six of those went for losses, not including the quarterback sacks. However, some were not sold. He was called a “weak link” of the defensive line by a scout quoted in the papers. Well, what does that mean? The other three were current or former All-Pros. The question was whether he contributed or not and the answer was affirmative.
Jones truly arrived in 1978, but it wasn’t a cakewalk. Jones was not handed the job. That year, Fanning presented more of a challenge and it was also the case that George Allen, the Rams coach in the camp and two preseason games, discussed with defensive coach Bud Carson, moving Jones back outside to present options at defensive in the future. But more on that later.
But with Allen gone, Malavasi kept him at tackle. And he was certainly glad he did.
Cody’s breakout performance came in a nationally televised game against the Dallas Cowboys, a major Rams victory. Jones spent the afternoon hounding Roger Staubach in what his coach, Ray Malavasi, called the best game of his career to date. The numbers agree. Cody totaled ten total tackles and a sack and a deflected pass in a 27-14 win. Back then, the Cowboys used messenger guards to bring plays to Staubach and Jones basically "overwhelmed" both Tom Rafferty and Burton Lawless fits, according to "Los Angeles Times" writer Bob Oates.
He made such an impact in the game, Pat Summerall and Tom Brookshier, the broadcasters game repeated the memorable line: “Hold your bones, here comes Cody Jones.” It referred to a nickname Rams GM Don Klosterman had coined back in 1975 when Jones filled in for Larry Brooks.
But Jones wasn’t done. A few weeks later, Jones terrorized the Buccaneers’ interior offensive line for the second year in a row (in 1977 he had 3 sacks and was given the defensive game ball by Chuck Knox), and in 1978 he racked up nine combined tackles and 2-1/2 sacks.
And the press. Cliff Christle of the "Green Bay Press-Gazette" wrote, “Jones may be the most improved player on the defense. He has good quickness for rushing the passer and has improved against the run.” Malavasi called him “one of the most underrated players in the league.”
Players and coaches around the league also noticed—he was voted the first alternate to the Pro Bowl. Because Brooks was injured and unable to play, Jones suited up in his place for the annual NFL all-star game.
Jones finished the season with 78 combined tackles, 7-1/2 sacks (second on the team) and three forced fumbles. In addition to the sacks, he had six combined tackles behind the line of scrimmage. “Hold Your Bones” was on his way.
All was seemingly settled in Jones’s NFL career. Until it wasn’t.
The 1979 season was memorable for the Rams—but bittersweet for Cody Jones. The team was hit with a wave of early-season injuries, and Jones was among the casualties. While experimenting with a new push-off technique to improve his first step, his “get-off,” and he put excessive strain on his left leg and ruptured his Achilles tendon. He later called it a “dumb mistake,” one that cost him the entire year—tragically, the very season the Rams finally reached the Super Bowl, though they ultimately fell short.
In Jones’s absence, Mike Fanning stepped in as the starter and showed significant improvement. He recorded seven sacks and proved effective at defending trap plays. He still had flaws—playing too high at times and biting on opposing quarterbacks’ cadences—but he nonetheless became a solid contributor to the defense that reached the Super Bowl. He’d finally proven he could play in the NFL as a starter but it took a torn Achilles to do it.
After surgery and rehab, Jones reclaimed the starting left tackle job for the 1980 season, with Fanning backing him and Larry Brooks up. However, the Rams shifted to a more regular rotation at defensive tackle—something they hadn’t done at least since the pre-Fearsome Foursome days anyway. This year, Fanning would take a series from Jones, then one from Brooks, and the cycle would repeat.
However, often in passing situations, Fanning frequently replaced Jones in the Rams’ nickel and dime packages, as he’d shown in 1979, Fanning had developed into the pass rusher the team had long envisioned, recording ten sacks in 1980.
Jones totaled 33 tackles and four sacks and batted four passes and recorded a forced fumble while starting all 16 games. Not bad for someone coming off such a serious injury, someone who had to wear a lift in one of his shoes because he felt the repaired leg was a hair shorter than the other. His declaration that year, "It's been a hard, long job coming back but I can play again."
Everything back to usual, right? Nope.
Everything changed again in 1981. What was discussed in 1978 actually happened. Jones was moved to right end and he and Fred Dryer battled mightily for the job. Jones won and the Rams released veteran right Dryer with the idea of using Reggie Doss and a pair of rookies as backups—though that plan quickly ran into complications.
Greg Meisner, who would later move to nose tackle, served as the backup at left end, while the Rams were high on Mike Clark as the reserve on the right side. Clark, an undrafted free agent from Florida, was exceptionally fast and showed real promise.
But the Dryer situation turned messy. The Rams had misread his contract, believing they could waive him. In reality, Dryer had a no-cut clause, meaning he would receive his $200,000-ish salary whether he played in 1981 or not. The team balked at paying a player they had already released, so they brought Dryer back and cut Clark instead.
Eventually, the standoff ended: the Rams let Dryer go for good and paid out what remained on the final year of his six-year guaranteed deal plus a lot more to settle a lawsuit Dryer filed over the whole incident. Also, their speedy prospect Mike Clark was gone. In retrospect, Clark was not the prospect the Rams thought.
Later in the season, is when the aforementioned “complications” happened. Greg Meisner went down with an injury, and another rookie—Bob Cobb, who had been in rehab—was activated. The Rams wanted to get a look at him, so Cobb received some snaps at right end late in the year, a look to the future, you suppose.
It certainly was uncomfortable for Jones who had to listen to Rams’ fans cheering for Dryer to play. Jones as just trying to do a job. He always thought he could play the position but never got a lot of reps in games previously. Practice? Sure. Games? Not that many.
As for Cody Jones, he was playing the position he preferred and did okay, 43 tackles and 5-1/2 sacks and being credited with five passes defensed. No, it was nothing spectacular but probably better than what Dryer would have done at that point in his career. Jones, now 255 pounds, was seen as more stout against the run, though Dryer would dispute that.
But people believed in him. One was retired Rams tackle Charlie Cowan, who said the skill set, weight distribution and body type fit more with defensive end than tackle. His coaches, too. Malavasi set the whole thing in motion in May of 1981when he told both Jones and Dryer there would be competition at right end. His defensive coach, Bud Carson, had had this idea in his mind since 1978, so he was a driving force in the change.
Once the change occurred, there were problems; the main one was the Rams’ defense unraveled around midseason when Larry Brooks suffered yet another knee injury. Instead of replacing him with Cody Jones, the team moved Reggie Doss—whose career path in some ways mirrored Jones’s—to Brooks’s defensive tackle position.
Doss had been on the roster since 1978 and had backed up at tackle in practice; he had rarely taken game reps there. He’d been far more effective as an outside splitting time with Fred Dryer in 1980 and posting 6-1/2 sacks to Dryer’s 5-1/2. Before that, he’d caddy for Dryer and Jack Youngblood.
At right defensive tackle, however, Doss struggled enough for the Rams to make a change the next season. Doss never got comfortable inside.
After reviewing the 1981 game film, the Rams coaching staff made another adjustment entering the strike-shortened 1982 season. To compensate for Larry Brooks’s deteriorating knees—he was not expected to be ready for the start of the year—the staff moved Cody Jones back to defensive tackle and shifted Reggie Doss to defensive end. Jones, with more experience than any of the younger linemen on the roster, was seen as the most reliable option to stabilize the interior.
Although Jones was not pleased with the change, he accepted it, as he always had, and went about his work. Doss performed respectably at end opposite Jack Youngblood. Jones, however, felt his own performance in 1982 fell short. In the nine-game season he recorded no sacks, though he did register five passes defensed. The year proved to be his final season with the Rams—and, ultimately, the last season of his NFL career.
He was hardly the only Rams defender to struggle. The team finished 2–7, and the defense bore much of the blame, prompting a complete overhaul entering 1983. The Rams dismissed head coach Ray Malavasi and hired John Robinson, while retaining defensive coordinator Fritz Shurmur, a committed 3–4 strategist. The team’s long-standing wide 4–3 front was abandoned.
In the new scheme, the defensive end positions were set with Youngblood and Doss, but Jones (6-foot-5) and Mike Fanning (6-foot-6) were not considered good fits at nose tackle. As a result, both were traded—Fanning to the Lions and Jones to the 49ers as part of the Wendell Tyler deal.
Fanning made the Detroit roster, while Jones, returning to his hometown, was one of San Francisco’s final cuts. He believed he could contribute to the 49ers’ trademark defensive “waves,” a heavy-rotation approach that kept linemen fresh, and in the preseason, he made some plays as a tackle in the nickel defense. Ultimately, Bill Walsh opted for younger rotational players such as Jeff Stover, John Harty (before his injury), and Jim Stuckey, even though Jones had some chemistry with Fred Dean, who was a nickel rusher. For whatever reason, the two clicked in preseason games, but it was not enough for the 32-year-old to get a roster spot.
And so Jones’s career came to a close—steady, solid, occasionally brilliant, and unquestionably worth remembering.
