GREEN BAY, Wis. – The Green Bay Packers have never picked up the fifth-year option on a first-round pick’s rookie contract. They’re not about to start with Datone Jones.
Just like they did with Derek Sherrod and Nick Perry before him, the Packers will not exercise the option year with Jones, according to a source. Jones, the 26th overall pick in the 2013 draft, would become a free agent after this season.
Jones will make $1,457,264 in salary and bonuses this season, but the fifth-year would have paid him $6.757 million – or about a million less than the entire value of his first four contract years.
At this point, the fifth-year option is not fully guaranteed. Rather, it is guaranteed only in the case of injury. It would not become fully guaranteed until the start of the league year next March.
This move doesn’t necessarily ensure Jones’ time with the Packers would be over after this season. They re-signed Perry this offseason to a one-year, $5 million deal in March, less than a year after they declined his option.
An important year for Jones just got even more important. After starting just three games in 44 regular-season appearances over his first three seasons, coach Mike McCarthy and defensive coordinator Dom Capers plan to change Jones’ role. Rather than strictly playing defensive end, Jones has moved to their “elephant” group, meaning he will play both defensive end and outside linebacker.
The Packers experimented with that late last season.
“I like what he did out there,” McCarthy said last month at the NFL annual meetings. “His video was really good.”
Last season, Jones played 35.7 percent of the defensive snaps but missed the season opener while serving a suspension for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy.
Jones has just eight sacks in his first three seasons.