Texans punter, “I’m not an actual NFL ‘football’ player”

There's a long running argument, or joke depending on how you view it, that kickers in the NFL aren't actually football players. This week, the Texans' punter seemed to fall in line with that belief.

According to James Palmer of Comcast Sportsnet, Texans punter, Donnie Jones, shrugged off an injury he sustained in Houston's Monday night loss to the Patriots, saying, "I told those guys, I said, ‘Look, you guys are NFL football players, I’m not.’ So when I get a little bruise or something, it is what it is. I know my role. But it’s all in good fun."

Jones continued, "Yeah, I mean I’m not an actual NFL ‘football’ player. I mean, come on. We know our roles. I had the same type thing in 2008. I had to push DeSean Jackson out of bounds. Somehow I chased him down, don’t know how I did it, and I fell and my knee blew up. Every now and then you get one. We’re punters and kickers. We’re a different breed.

While the statement itself, being made by an NFL punter, is rather comical, it's also simply not true. Jones' notion that he's not an "actual" football player is contingent on the idea that all NFL players are athletic men. The fact is that there is no one type of person that constitutes what an NFL player really is. Linemen are different from receivers, quarterbacks generally run a slower forty time than cornerbacks, and kickers aren't generally strong tacklers like most linebackers are.

Donnie Jones may laugh off his injury as the result of a kicker trying to make a football move, but the reality is that the injury resulted from a kicker trying to make a coverage man's move and nothing more.

About Shane Clemons

Shane Clemons came from humble beginnings creating his own Jaguars blog before moving on to SBNation as a featured writer for the Jaguars. He then moved to Bloguin where he briefly covered the AFC South before taking over Bloguin's Jaguars blog. Since the inception of This Given Sunday, Shane has served as an editor for the site, doing his best not to mess up a good thing.

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