Mason’s Minutes: Jones’ returns crucial

The Packers outgained the Panthers by 138 yards on Sunday. But Mark Jones made up much of that discrepancy by himself.

Three of Carolina’s five touchdown drives covered 55 or fewer yards because they were set up by a trio of kickoff-return sprints by Jones that highlighted his day — a 42-yarder in the second quarter and 50- and 45-yard runbacks in the fourth that placed the Panthers near or at midfield after three Packers kickoffs.

“Those were key,” head coach John Fox said. “At times of need, when we needed good field position and we were slumping offensively, I think that electrified our offense and gave us good field position on a couple of very critical drives.”

Jones’ 50-yard return did the most to revive an offense that had labored throughout the third quarter. While the Packers scored 18 points on their first three second-half drives — including a pair of touchdowns and a two-point conversion — the Panthers had gained only 29 yards on the two drives that were sandwiched in between those three scoring marches.

For a split-second, Jones’ burst seemed destined to end in the end zone, as he broke through the coverage with only kicker Mason Crosby separating him from the goal line. Crosby didn’t bring him down, but he did alter Jones’ path enough for Jarrett Bush to bring him down at the 50.

Carolina’s offense awoke from there. Three plays a pass-interference penalty against Tramon Williams moved the Panthers to the Green Bay 36-yard-line, Jake Delhomme located Steve Smith for the first of two big fourth-quarter receptions that set up one-yard touchdown runs by DeAngelo Williams.

The 45-yard sprint with Green Bay’s next kickoff with 1:57 remaining up the left sideline had the same galvanizing effect on the offense; on the next play Delhomme hit Smith for the 54-yard completion that set up Williams’ game-winning score.

“(Jones) played phenomenally for us all day on special teams,” Williams said.

That bore itself out in the statistics. Jones averaged 38.8 yards on his four kickoff returns, boosting his season-long average to 26.0 yards, placing him second in the league among returners with at least 20 kickoff runbacks this year. His 11.5-yard average on four punt returns Sunday left his season-long pace at 11.8 yards per punt return; that places him fourth in the league among those with at least 20 punt returns;

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