There have been edge rushers with lickety-split speed, and powerful bulldozers plowing through the mass of humanity in the middle of the line of scrimmage.
Yes, there have been some dominant defenders in the 90-plus years of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, and they have come in a variety of body types and with varying skill sets.
None of them got after the quarterback as often and with as much ferocity as Tyrone Jones and his spot as the franchise’s all-time sack leader is the subject of our latest ’10 Lists in 10 Days’ series.
“He was like a hybrid out there as a linebacker-rush end type,” said James West, a teammate of Jones and one of his best friends on the planet until the day he passed in 2008 at the age of 46 in an interview last year with bluebombers.com. “And boy, could he rush the quarterback.
“One of the best things about Tyrone is he also wanted to play on special teams and run down the field like everybody else. We used to race each other down the field just to hurt somebody. We were just so happy to play. He had so much joy on the football field.
“We also just enjoyed each other so much. I think now of some of things Mike Riley (the Blue Bombers head coach from 1987-90) let us do as players… we’d be on the field, and I’d say, ‘Ty, let’s try this.’ Sometimes we’d just trade spots on the field just to experiment.
“I’ll tell you what, I brought a lot of quarterbacks down just because they’d always be looking at where Ty was. Sometimes we’d just yell ‘Fire! Fire!’ and the whole front would just go after the quarterback and run through everybody.”
Jones came to Winnipeg in 1983 after starring at Georgia Southern and cranked out 17.5 sacks in his rookie season. A year later he upped that number to 20.5 and was the Most Outstanding Defensive Player in Winnipeg’s 1984 Grey Cup win which ended a 22-year championship drought.
He led the Blue Bombers in sacks six times, and his 98 career QB take downs is 39 more than Tony Norman, who ranks second on the list with 59.
Willie Jefferson, with 46, is the only current Blue Bomber in the Top 10.
A gifted rusher, Jones — nicknamed ‘All Gut and Butt’ or ‘The Mouth that Roared’ — was also a master trash talker.
“That was the game he and James West played,” said long-time teammate Chris Walby. “I don’t know how they got away with it. Before the game they would walk around the field behind where the other team was stretching and they start s–t talking them.
“It was priceless.”
Jones passed away after being diagnosed with inoperable brain cancer in 2005. And during his three-year battle after the diagnosis and before his death never complained publicly about his situation.
“I’m blessed. I truly am,” he said in an interview with The Globe and Mail in 2005. “I’m the three-legged dog named, ‘Lucky.’”
Jones was inducted into the Winnipeg Football Club Hall of Fame in 1999, the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2012 and the Blue Bombers Ring of Honour in 2025.
Blue Bombers Top 10 all-time quarterback sack leaders:
1 Tyrone Jones, (1983-87, 1989-91) — 98
2. Tony Norman, (1980-86) — 59
3. Doug Brown, (2001-11) — 52
T-4. Elfrid Payton, (1990-93, 2000, 2004) — 47
Gavin Walls, (2005-09) — 47
6. Willie Jefferson, (2019-) — 46
7. Mike Gray, (1987-93) — 43
8. Tom Canada, (2004-08) — 42
9. Jackson Jeffcoat, (2017-13) — 38
10. James West, (1985-92) — 37