The Panthers have released long-time special teams captain, safety Colin Jones. According to Joe Person at the Athletic, Jones wasn’t interested in sticking around for the rebuild/retool/remix and asked for his release.
Jones spent the first season of his NFL career with the 49ers after they picked him in the sixth round of the 2011 draft. Since then, he’s played for Carolina, appearing in 124 total regular season games.
Most of that time he was a core contributor on special teams, putting in a total of 2,470 special teams snaps over the years. That unit will likely feel his loss most accutely going forward.
Losing Jones also technically hurts the Panthers’ depth at safety, but he rarely played the position in any case. The bigger deal is that Tre Boston is about to become a free agent and there’s no effective free safety who’s currently on the 53-man roster who can replace him.
