Chris Jones calls lack of Lawrence pursuit a ‘teaching point’

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Just days after his most embarrassing moment of the season, Chiefs pass rusher Chris Jones addressed why he didn’t give maximum effort on the Jaguars‘ game-winning touchdown and said his social media accounts weren’t deactivated as an attempt to avoid criticism.

With 30 seconds left Monday and the Jaguars at the 1-yard line trailing by four, quarterback Trevor Lawrence stumbled under center but was able to get up and scamper across the goal line for the winning score. Jones, who led the Chiefs’ defensive line with 48 snaps, watched the sequence from the middle of the field and didn’t make a considerable effort to pursue and tackle Lawrence.

“It’s a teaching point for me, a little adversity,” Jones said Thursday. “I can’t think the play is over. It’s a learning lesson. I thought it was over. I thought we had him down, so I kind of stopped and was about to celebrate. Then I realized he wasn’t down.”

Jones said he will do better going forward and that such an incident “won’t happen again.”

He also shared that he had deactivated his X and Instagram accounts prior to Monday’s game, the opposite of what most fans thought after the loss.

“I posted a Drake quote, ‘I’ll see you in the summer of 2026,'” Jones said. “I never run from constructive criticism. I’ve never been that guy. I’ve always addressed it head on, actually. It’s a lot you can take from criticism. It’s like fuel, like gas, for me personally.

“I guess people wanted to address me head-on on social media, and they [saw] it wasn’t active. They figured that I deleted it for [my performance]but it was deleted a couple days before.”

Next for the Chiefs is another prime-time showdown, this time Sunday night against the Detroit Lions. Jones understands he will need an elite performance for the Chiefs’ defense to slow down the NFL’s top-scoring offense led by quarterback Jared Goff and running backs Jahmyr Gibbs and David Montgomery.

“I’ve been focused on the Lions since [Monday’s] game,” Jones said. “You can’t hold your head [down] on one play or one game. You learn from it, you take notes, and you keep pushing.”