Dave Birkett

Detroit Free Press

Marvin Jones set a career high in receiving yards in his first season as a Detroit Lion, and if not for the quad injury that kept him out of one December game, he might have topped 1,000 yards for the first time in his career.

But Jones, the Lions' top free-agent signing of last off-season, said he was disappointed with his season overall.

"In terms of my standards, it wasn't good at all," Jones said after Saturday's 26-6 wild-card loss to the Seattle Seahawks. "When you look at how I started, you wouldn't think it would end this way. Obviously, I had some uncharacteristic drops here and there and early on. I never had a season like this. I don't know what to say."

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Jones got off to a scorching hot start in the first month of the season, when he had a career-best 205-yard, two-touchdown day in a September loss to the Green Bay Packers and was second in the NFL in receiving yards to Julio Jones through four weeks.

But after the Packers game, Jones' production went into a tailspin that lasted the rest of the year.

He had more yards in the first four games of the season (482) than he did in the final 12 (448) and he finished the year with six dropped passes in 103 targets.

In the Lions' playoff loss to the Seahawks, Jones had four catches for 81 yards, but he also dropped a pass that he said would have been a touchdown had he held onto the ball.

"There was a point in the middle there, in kind of the middle of the season where I was kind of like, 'OK, what’s happening?' " Jones said. "But hey, it is what it is and I have to focus on next year."

Lions wide receivers coach Robert Prince said during the season that defenses changed the way they defended Jones as the season wore on, using their best cornerback on him in man coverage and occasionally double-teaming him deep. Some scouts thought Jones struggled to get off press man coverage, and of course there was the injury.

"That was definitely not a factor," Jones said. "I was getting hot, people start paying a little bit more attention for three, four games and after that it just went back regular. I just expect a lot more next year."

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Jones, who rarely saw double-coverage while playing opposite A.J. Green during the first four years of his career, finished the season with 55 catches for 930 yards and four touchdowns. He was second on the Lions in yards behind Golden Tate, and fourth in receptions behind Tate, Anquan Boldin and Eric Ebron.

He said he plans to "do something I’ve never done this off-season to come in and be the best" in 2017.

"In my eyes I didn’t have a good season," Jones said. "So I will come back and I will have a great season next year."

Contact Dave Birkett: dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.

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