Lions' Marvin Jones will work out with Randy Moss again

Lions receiver Marvin Jones spears a touchdown catch between two defenders against Minnesota. (Mike Mulholland | MLive.com)

ALLEN PARK -- Tyreek Hill and Brandin Cooks.

That's it. That's the entire list of receivers who racked up more yards on deep balls than Marvin Jones this past season.

Single coverage? Double coverage? Pass interference? Double coverage with pass interference? The Detroit Lions receiver beat it all in 2017. He was targeted 31 times at least 20 yards downfield, and caught 16 of those balls. That led the league.

Five scored touchdowns. That was third in the league.

And he didn't drop any. That was, well, you get the idea.

It might have taken longer than the Lions would have liked, but Jones finally turned into the downfield threat they expected him to be when they gave him a $40 million contract in 2016. And he wasn't just any downfield threat, but one of the most dangerous in the league by every measure.

He finished with 1,101 receiving yards overall, which was a career high and ranked ninth overall. His nine touchdown catches were beaten by only DeAndre Hopkins, Jimmy Graham and Davante Adams.

And nobody averaged more than his 18 yards per catch.

Jones has credited his rise to a whole lot a variables, not the least of which was working with Randy Moss in North Carolina last offseason. And given the immediate payoff he reaped this year, he says he plans to go back this offseason.

"I'm probably just going to replicate what I did this offseason," Jones said. "I worked with Randy more toward the summer, so I'm going to do that. I'm going to look at the film, what I've done, and what I think I need to get better at, and then attack it just like I did last year."

Last year, that meant working on his route running. And specifically, winning at the top of the route. That's something Moss did better than almost anybody who has put on shoulder pads. Whether it was man coverage, or zones, or doubles over the top, Moss crushed it.

And this year, Jones returned with some of that in him. There was the time he split a double team midair against Minnesota, caught the ball, then landed on his feat and barreled into the end zone for a 43-yard touchdown. And one of those defenders was Xavier Rhodes, a Pro Bowl starter.

There was the time he twirled through the air, through defensive pass interference, and then caught the ball with his left hand for a 22-yard touchdown against New Orleans. "Marv is like butter," Golden Tate would later say.

And that wasn't even Jones' favorite catch of the year.

Rather, it was the time Stafford rolled out and then heaved a 58-yard pass to a waiting defender against Chicago in Week 16. Jones saw Stafford roll, then saw him throw, and knew he had a whole lot of ground to cover. Then he jumped just a moment too soon, but sort of hung in the air, and then fully extended to spear the ball right in front of Eddie Jackson.

Dare we say, it looked like he had a little Moss in him.

"I think he's the greatest receiver to ever live," Jones said. "When you have him talking to you and him saying that you're one of the best at doing it, so why don't you do it? When you have somebody like that guiding you, it's always a plus. I think I took that to heart."

So if winning at the top of the route was the goal last year, what is his focus this year?

"I'm going to be better at yards after the catch," Jones said. "When I was younger and early on, I was great at it. (But) that kind of got lost in the years. So I want to be able to take something to the house on a consistent basis. I just want to be a complete receiver in that manner.

"If I do that, then it's game's over."

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