Vikings running back Aaron Jones is turning 30 in December and that’s long been seen as a point when players at his position start to go downhill, but Jones thinks he’s trending in the opposite direction.
Jones finished out his final season with the Packers by rushing for at least 108 yards in each of the team’s last five games, which included 39 carries for 226 yards in the team’s two playoff games. The Packers still seemed to think Jones would struggle to repeat that production as they asked him to take a pay cut after the year and he moved on to Minnesota after declining Green Bay’s request.
The Vikings would likely sign up for more of the same from Jones, but he said this week that he thinks he has even more room to climb in his eighth NFL season.
“I feel like every year, I’m getting better and better, and last year I felt like I was just about to start entering my prime . . . Those last five kind of showed, like, hey, the game’s slowing down a little more and more for me,” Jones said, via Dave Campbell of the Associated Press. “I can see different things, and I’m able to hit different holes or set dudes up the way I want to, versus maybe before I hadn’t been able to because the game was still a little fast.”
Jones said that he feels he can play eight more years, which seems unlikely but he shouldn’t be lacking options to keep going if his first season with the Vikings backs up his assertion that he’s still in peak condition.