Chandler Jones appears unlikely to play when the Las Vegas Raiders open their season against the Denver Broncos on Sunday, but the star defensive end is trying to blackmail the team into letting him on the field.
Jones first unloaded on the Raiders in a bizarre Instagram tirade on Tuesday. He said he does not want to play for the team if Josh McDaniels is head coach and Dave Ziegler is general manager. The 33-year-old also claimed the Raiders have locked him out of the team facility and are trying to “provoke” him. You can see the screenshots here.
McDaniels told reporters on Wednesday that Jones is dealing with a “personal situation.” Later that day, Jones shared some more posts on his Instagram story claiming the Raiders sent a crisis response worker to his house.
Jones also shared a screenshot of an alleged text message conversation he had with McDaniels. It showed that Jones was having issues with the Raiders as far back as Aug. 18. Jones said he would share more private conversations if the Raiders sent another crisis response worker to his home and/or did not let him play in Sunday’s game.
“Y’all send another one over here and ima start sharing videos live from my other phone … I’m a be nice Josh … I wanted to play Sunday … If you let me play I won’t share anything else,” Jones wrote.
In a separate video, Jones told TMZ to get in touch with him and said he has pictures and videos to share with them.
It is unclear what Jones is so angry about. The star pass-rusher signed a three-year, $51M contract with the Raiders last offseason. The two sides restructured the deal back in April to create salary cap space, so it would stand to reason that things were fine between them at the time.
Jones was drafted in the first round by the New England Patriots back in 2012. He had a productive four years with the team before being traded to the Arizona Cardinals prior to the 2016 season. The move came not long after reports of some troubling off-field behavior.
In his first season with Las Vegas last year, Jones had 38 total tackles, 4.5 sacks and three fumble recoveries. He played in 15 games.
More must-reads: