Viral referee Nate Jones "pretty brave," college coach Greg Schiano says
Amid a busy Monday Night Football doubleheader, the biggest star of the night wore stripes.
That would be Nate Jones, a former player-turned-referee who went viral for shielding a helmet-less Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Jaxon Smith-Njigba from the fracas on the Houston Texans’ sideline, following an interception by Texans cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., on a pass intended for Smith-Njigba.
ESPN sideline reporter Peter Schrager added to the referee mania with a shoutout of Jones on X/Twitter following the game, outlining his past in college at Rutgers, then the NFL.
“I looked at it, and I was like, Man, that’s pretty brave,” Greg Schiano, Jones’ collegiate coach, said Wednesday. “And I had no idea what happened.”
A special, special-teamer
Jones found his roots in a stellar four-year stint with the Scarlet Knights under Schiano.
“Nate was a really good player,” he said. “Really good player and brilliant kid. This is a guy that could have gone to Harvard, Princeton, could have went wherever he wanted, and he chose to come to Rutgers and play Division I football. He was a joy to coach, and he made some big-time plays.”
The Newark native starred at Scotch Plains-Fanwood High School as a running back and defensive back before arriving at Rutgers in 2000, one year before Schiano was hired.
Jones had a penchant for the explosive plays, none bigger than a 2002 road trip to Knoxville to take on then-No. 11 Tennessee, during Schiano’s second season. The Volunteers won the toss and deferred, giving the Scarlet Knights the first possession.
The offense did not even step on the field.
Jones took the opening kickoff 100 yards for a score, stunning the 100,000 fans at Neyland Stadium. On the ensuing kickoff, Schiano dialed up a surprise onside kick that Rutgers managed to recover.
It did not end up mattering much in the end, as the Scarlet Knights ultimately lost 35-14 that day. Jones and the Scarlet Knights certainly put a scare into a national title contender, however.
Later on that same year, the Scarlet Knights had No. 1 Miami (FL) on the ropes. With less than a minute remaining in the first half, All-American quarterback Ken Dorsey fired a pass into the flat. Jones jumped and intercepted the pass, and took it back to the opposite end zone for a 100-yard score that would have put the Scarlet Knights up 23-8.
“Miami’s number one, and we’re 117. Do you remember how many teams there were? 117,” Schiano said with a chuckle. “So we were the last Division I team in the country in 2002. Miami’s number one, and in the fourth quarter, we have a lead with 11 minutes left.”
Jones’ second score ultimately did not stand, however, as Jones was whistled for a “phantom” holding – as Schiano put it – prior to the pass. The Hurricanes stormed back in the fourth quarter and ultimately won 42-17, although not without a raised heart rate.
Reaching the league
As a special teams ace, Jones earned two All-Big East honors (First Team in 2002 and Second Team in 2003) and was named Co-Big East Special Teams Player of the Year in 2002. He was also one of just eight Division I-A (now FBS) players named to the National Football Foundation’s National Scholar-Athlete Class of 2003.
Jones became Schiano’s second-ever draft pick, being selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the seventh round (205th overall) of the 2004 Draft.
The 5-foot-10 speedy cornerback played seven years in the NFL with five different teams. Similar to his time at Rutgers, Jones played plenty of cornerback and special teams. He spent four years in Dallas under legendary head coach Bill Parcells for the first three seasons, before signing with the Miami Dolphins in 2008. Jones played in Miami for three years over two stints, with a year in Denver with the Broncos in between in 2010.
He finished his career in a common destination for Scarlet Knights defensive backs, playing five games for Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots in 2011 before hanging up his cleats.
Finding the stripes
Following his days in the NFL, Jones found the officiating world in 2013 at the age of 31. He first joined the collegiate game in the Pac-12, and got the call-up to the NFL six years later in 2019, also getting some work in the Alliance of American Football (AAF). The advancement was a fairly quick time period to get to the highest level.
“So many of us former players, we thought that when you get off the field, we’re going to go work LSU-Alabama next year,” Jones said on the NFL Players Second Act Podcast in July. “You can’t do it. You’ve got to go back to peewee, middle school, high school, small college, big college. You have to keep working up the ladder.”
Six years after his call-up to the big leagues, he found the spotlight again.
Monday Night madness
In a largely stress-free – though still sloppy – win for the Seahawks, quarterback Sam Darnold threw an interception midway through the fourth quarter, on an impressive undercut of the route and throw by Stingley. On the return, his stiff-arm attempt on Smith-Njigba resulted in the receiver’s helmet being pushed off. The two exchanged words on the sideline, before the supporting Texans stepped in, and Smith-Njigba was shoved into the Houston bench.
Even before Jones came to his rescue, the third-year wideout sat calmly on the bench, realizing he was outnumbered.
“I was chilling. I was comfortable,” he said on SportsCenter after the game. “Two teams in the heat of the battle, sometimes it gets like that, but yeah, I felt comfortable. Honestly, it was all good.”
Jones’ college coach was almost incredulous when he first found the now-viral clip.
“Nate was a heck of a player,” Schiano added. “I don’t get to see anything, but people send me stuff that they think I should know about, and I didn’t understand. [Then] I saw it.”
After battling against wide receivers for 11 years in the Big East and the NFL, Jones caught the eye of football fans everywhere for helping protect one of his former positional opponents.
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