Marvin Jones, an 11-year linebacker for the New York Jets, guided the Omaha Beef to their first league championship on Saturday night.
Former New York Jets linebacker Marvin Jones helped the Omaha Beef earn a prime victory this weekend, as first noted on Twitter by ESPN’s Rich Cimini.
Congrats to former Jets LB @MarvinJonesJets, who coached the Omaha Beef to the @CIF_League championship. Defeated the Salina Liberty, 40-39, in last night’s title game. #Jets 📷Marvin Jones pic.twitter.com/EF01LuVe5J
— Rich Cimini (@RichCimini) July 18, 2021
Jones, having just wrapped his fourth year as a professional football head coach, helped Omaha win its first league championship.
The long-running indoor football league squad currently competes in the Champions Indoor Football league (CIF) and earned a 40-39 victory over the Salina Liberty in the season-ending Champions Bowl, which returned after a one-year hiatus.
Omaha (9-4) was the only team in CIF that got the best of 11-2 Salina, whose lone losses came against the Beef.
Playing on the road at Tony’s Pizza Events Center, the Beef lived up to their boss’ defensive reputation, securing the win through a blocked field goal by C.J. Bivens with 12 seconds to go. Just over 90 seconds of game time prior, receiver Andrew Jackson and Tyler Jones hooked up for a nine-yard touchdown that led to the winning points.
Jones, 49, spent his entire NFL career (1993-2003) with the Jets, chosen fourth overall out of Florida State in the 1993 draft. His 730 tackles stand as third-best in Jets history. Since retiring from NFL affairs in 2004, Jones has been a prominent, well-traveled name on the semi-professional football circuit.
He originally kept things local, working as the linebackers coach from the Brooklyn Bolts of the Fall Experimental Football League (FXFL) in 2014. Since then, Jones has stuck around on the indoor football level.
After earning his first head coach job as the interim boss of the Indoor Football League’s Colorado Crush in 2017 (no relation to the defunct Arena Football League team previously owned by John Elway), Jones took over the same league’s Cedar Rapids Titans before coming in Omaha in 2019. He was again granted interim head coach duties after coming in as a defensive coordinator before enjoying a full-time slate this season.
“‘A lot of these guys have aspirations and hopes and dreams to get where I’ve been, so who’s better to tell them what it takes to get there?” Jones said of his duties to Mike Hlas of The Gazette while coaching Cedar Rapids in 2018. “I enjoy working with young men trying to get a second opportunity, to hopefully advance themselves and get a workout with NFL, CFL, things like that. I teach my players to be coaches, not just players. I prided myself on knowing the game plan. Hell, I’d be telling my coaches what they were going to do before they did it when I was on the field.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on Twitter @GeoffJMags
