Ravens Insider: Dan Rodricks: Jacoby Jones gave Ravens fans a golden memory | STAFF COMMENTARY

[ExtremeRavens]

On a freezing Saturday night in Denver in January 2013, Jacoby Jones sealed his legacy as the leading man in a golden Ravens memory. Most of us never knew him personally, of course, but Jones will be forever beloved for the large role he played in one of Baltimore’s greatest sports moments.

With the ball on the Ravens’ 30-yard line, quarterback Joe Flacco took the snap, dropped back to pass, then stepped up and threw a mile-high pass in Mile High Stadium. It seemed like desperation at first, a pass that might end up being intercepted by the Broncos and ending the game.

But, way downfield, waiting for the football to arrive behind two baffled Denver defenders, was Jacoby Jones.

He cradled the ball in his arms and sprinted untouched for the touchdown.

Sixteen hundred miles away, Ravens fans from Catonsville to Churchville let out a collective scream that could have awoken E.A. Poe from his grave in Westminster Burial Ground.

When Jones crossed into the end zone, completing a 70-yard play that made the score 35-34 in Denver’s favor, there were only 31 seconds left in that crazy, back-and-forth playoff game. Rookie Justin Tucker kicked for the tie, then kicked a field goal for the win in double overtime.

The Ravens went to the Super Bowl that year and won it. Jones was the star of that show, too. He ran the second-half kickoff back 108 yards for a touchdown against San Francisco, and the screams in Baltimore at that moment also could have stirred the author of “The Raven.”

But some — I think most — Ravens fans go back to the 70-yard touchdown in Denver when they want to savor a golden memory of that championship season.

It was just a few weeks ago, during the slow part of a daylong fishing trip, when I asked my son if he remembered that play. And, of course, he did. He knew exactly where he was, and who he was with, when Flacco’s pass reached Jones’ long arms.

Jacoby Jones, whose death at 40 was first reported Sunday by The Baltimore Sun’s Brian Wacker, will forever be associated with that play.

It happens in sports: Some athletes seal their legacy with one play, or a brief but brilliant period in their careers, and that’s how we remember them. Recall the unheralded defensive lineman, Keith Washington, who blocked a field goal attempt that a fellow Raven returned for a touchdown, a miraculous moment on the way to the team’s first Super Bowl. Recall the unlikely clutch hit from an unlikely hero, Delmon Young, who led the Orioles to a come-from-behind playoff win at home in 2014.

There never seemed to be anything “unlikely” about Jacoby Jones, however. He was fast, exciting and daring. As a kickoff returner, he was willing to run out of the end zone with the ball and into the charging horde, and that alone deserved our praise and our awe.

Professional sports franchises build a community conversation and enrich our shared memories. In the thick album of Baltimore sports, there’s a page devoted to Jacoby Jones and his miracles of the 2013 NFL playoffs. Tragically, he did not have the gift of a long life. But he’ll be appreciated, long and deep, by grateful Ravens fans, young and old, who remember exactly where they were when Jacoby Jones hauled in the mile-high miracle.

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