Dub Jones, Browns great who scored six touchdowns in one game, dies at 99

Dub Jones, the Cleveland Browns star who owned a share of the NFL’s record for receiving touchdowns in a game, died just a month before his 100th birthday.

After playing college football at LSU and Tulane and serving in the Navy during World War II, Jones was selected by the Chicago Cardinals with the second overall pick in the 1946 NFL draft, but gave up the NFL for the fledgling All-American Football Conference. After briefly playing for two teams in that league, the Miami Seahawks and the Brooklyn Dodgers, Jones joined the Browns and played for them for the rest of his career, first in the AAFC and then in the NFL when the AAFC closed and the Browns joined the NFL.

Hall of Fame Browns coach Paul Brown called Jones “the best middle linebacker in the game” and he became a star for the Browns as a key player on two Browns teams that won the AAFC Championship and three teams that won the NFL Championship.

Jones’ best moment came against the Bears in 1951, when he scored four rushing touchdowns and two receiving touchdowns in a 42-21 victory, becoming the second player in NFL history to throw six touchdowns in a game. Three-quarters of a century later, Jones still has a hand in breaking the record: Ernie Nevers did it before, Gale Sayers and Alvin Kamara did it later, but no player has ever scored more than six tries in a game.

Jones retired from the game after the 1955 season, but returned to the Browns in the 1960s as an assistant coach.

Dub is survived by his wife of 78 years, Schump Jones. They had seven children, 22 grandchildren and 48 great-grandchildren. One of their sons is Baltimore Colts quarterback Bert Jones, who had a 10-year NFL career and was the NFL’s most valuable player in 1976.