The Power Of Jacoby Jones And Being An Underdog On Dancing With The Stars

Awww, didn’t these two look fabulous at the Dancing With The Stars 300th Episode party (Good morning, Jim! 🙂 ))?? Speaking of this team, there is a fun article at the Washington Post about Jacoby and him being the underdog to win Dancing With The Stars Season 16. However, he has some supporters who say don’t count Jacoby out just yet and why. Read this and see what you think. I love this and couldn’t agree more….

That makes Jones and his partner, professional ballroom dancer Karina Smirnoff, the underdogs. But like his scrappy football team, prone to heroic comebacks and close calls, Jones just might be able to pull it off. And he has some enthusiastic supporters back home who agree.

Fellow wide receiver Torrey Smith, a Stafford High School and University of Maryland graduate, flew to California along with his fiancée to watch Jones rhumba on Prom Night. “I think Jacoby and I might have just completed the first Chest Bump on #DWTS,” Smith tweeted.

First chest bump, maybe, although Jones is hardly the first football player to find success on the show. Retired running back Emmitt Smith won Season 3, and former Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward took home the mirror ball in 2011. What’s different about Jones, however, is that he’s so much taller — 6-feet-2 and 220 pounds — and at 28, he’s still in his prime, football-wise.

On the show, judge Bruno Tonioli has called Jones “a stallion at the peak of his power” and praised his recent paso doble as straight out of a Quentin Tarantino film. The effusive Italian is given to hyperbole, but professional dancers are also impressed with what Jones has accomplished in just three months.

“He is just so amazing,” said Alicia Graf Mack, a Columbia native — and huge Ravens fan — who is a star in Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater. “It’s always surprising to me when people who are so tall and big can move that quickly. That’s why [Jones] is the talent that he is for the Ravens. He has the power, but he can run quickly, and he has fast footwork.”

Graf Mack made a guest appearance on “Dancing With the Stars,” and is all for programs that bring dance to the masses, even if it’s just a minute and a half of choreography that’s mostly for show. In Jones’s case, there’s the added value of seeing a record-holding athlete say on national television that dance rehearsal is harder than football practice.

“To see a man like that move so gracefully, there’s a lot of value there,” Graf Mack said. “He sees dance as competitive and athletic, and not something that takes away from his masculinity, and that’s important.”

Whether that story line resonates with the people who pick up the phone and vote for their favorite dancer Monday night is another question, but Graf Mack is optimistic.

“There’s the appeal of seeing a guy who has never danced before,” she said. “The American public likes to see the underdog rise to the top. As we all know, Jacoby Jones knows how to perform in a clutch situation. I think my Ravens guy is going to come through, definitely.”

Pictures of Jacoby Jones and Karina Smirnoff courtesy of Zimbio Pictures. You know where to go to find more. 😉