Players and coaches in the NFL come and go all the time in the league. They aren’t supposed to die young. Recently, former Arizona Cardinals cornerback Chris Payton-Jones passed away after injuries he sustained in an auto accident.
Payton-Jones, just 30-years old, played for the Cardinals during the 2018, 2019, and 2020 seasons.
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He played for Steve Wilks in his only year as the head coach in 2018. Then he played for Kliff Kingsbury in his first two seasons as the new head coach. He played in 13 games with Arizona with three starts. Payton-Jones had minimal stats, including 22 tackles and six batted passes. He played on 273 defensive reps and 163 special teams snaps.
Chris Payton-Jones was killed on State Road 24 in Florida when he was seen driving eastbound in the westbound lane and then collided with a pickup truck head-on. His car overturned and burst into flames. Three people in the pickup sustained various injuries, while Payton-Jones was pronounced dead on the scene.
State Road 24 goes southwest from Gainesville, Florida, and ends just north of Tampa at the Gulf of Mexico.
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Payton-Jones grew up in Jacksonville, Florida, and then went to Nebraska, where he played in 26 games during his three-year tenure, but suffered a knee injury in his senior year, which hurt his draft status. He went undrafted and signed with the Detroit Lions.
He was a last-day cut, and then the Cardinals claimed him off waivers, where he signed to their practice squad. Over the next three seasons, he was cut, re-signed to the practice squad, elevated to the main roster, and then went through the same cycle several times. He made his NFL debut in November 2018.
In 2020, the Lions grabbed him off of Arizona’s practice squad but waived him in October. He then bounced around with the Minnesota Vikings, Tennessee Titans, and Las Vegas Raiders.
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Payton-Jones then played for the Seattle Dragons of the XFL and then the St. Louis Battlehawks of the UFL before a bad injury ended his season. He retired from the game this past January. His head coach at St. Louis, Anthony Becht, posted this tribute:
Another tragic aspect of this story is that Payton-Jones had become a father to a baby daughter less than a month before his accident. He was a beloved teammate and leader in the locker room who demonstrated the importance of hard work, determination, and resilience throughout his career.
May his family find peace.
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