KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Some 25 months ago, Chris Jones sat in a club-level stadium seat, sandwiched by his two agents, and spent the evening watching a football game. He and the Chiefs had been locked in a standoff, resulting in a one-game holdout that turned him into a spectator for his own team’s season opener against the Lions.

Two years later, as the Lions return to Kansas City on Sunday night, the question isn’t whether Chris Jones will suit up or show up, but rather something slightly different.

What version of him will show up?

Jones spent a Thursday afternoon news conference attempting to explain an embarrassing clip from three days earlier. In it, he’s seen occupying that same spectator role — except this time while on the field — as Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence finds the end zone for a game-winning touchdown.

“It’s a teaching point for me. A little adversity,” he said when I asked him about it. “... The teaching lesson for me is don’t stop.”

Jones said that he thought Lawrence was down when he tripped behind the line of scrimmage and fell to the ground untouched. It looks more as though Jones assumed Lawrence was going to be brought down by a teammate rather than already down, but neither case is a good excuse for letting a game-winning play unfold while walking ever-so-slowly toward the action.

He admitted Thursday, “I gotta finish. I’ll be better.”

It’s not as though Jones was in the best position to stop Lawrence from reaching the end zone, but plenty of unexpected things could’ve happened — like, say, Lawrence tripping (twice!). Think that clip looks bad now? What if Lawrence had lost the ball near the goal line?

But this conversation about an evident lack of hustle, relevant as it is, overshadows a more relevant point altogether:

This isn’t about one play.

You know what had a far greater impact on the game? The combination of the other 43 plays Jones spent on the field.

The Chiefs need Chris Jones to be popping on that film.

The Chiefs need Chris Jones to be, well, Chris Jones.

For six years running, the Kansas City defense has been better than most at point prevention — even ranking top-four in the league the last two years —for a lot of reasons, but one primarily: The man in the middle of the line has been extraordinary.

For five weeks this year, Jones has been a little more ordinary. Far from bad. Far from his best.

This Chiefs defense can only reach its peak when Jones plays at his.

He has just one sack in five games, on pace to tackle a quarterback just three times all year. If you’ve come to this space before, you know I’m not fond of using exclusively sacks as the best rubric for grading a pass rusher.

But the other rubrics aren’t kind to Jones, either. His pressure rate is 9.0%, per Next Gen Stats. It’s never been worse than 11.8% since 2018.

In each of the past six seasons, when the Chiefs’ defense performed well, Jones has finished in the top-four in pass rush win rate among interior defensive lineman, per PFF data. That’s not a coincidence. Jones has been great. The Chiefs’ defense follows suit.

This year, though, he ranks 19th among the 61 qualifiers in pass rush win rate. It’s better than most for a player who has made a living out of being better than all.

Jones has a difficult job, more so than it seems, maybe even one of the most difficult jobs among defensive linemen across the league. He is double-teamed more often than receiving one-on-one matchups, and there has to be some frustration that comes along with that.

Whether he wants to use it or not, it’s an excuse for why examining Jones’ stats alongside those of his peers has never been the apples-to-apples comparison it’s made out to be. But it doesn’t explain the comparisons to his own body of work, because the double-teams have been a thing for a long time. It’s always been part of his story.

What hasn’t been: He’s been less effective because of them.

Jones owns the second most luxurious long-term contract on the team, behind only quarterback Patrick Mahomes. He is the Mahomes of the defense. He’s earned that contract, but with it comes the never-ending responsibility.

When Jones is at his best, he’s certainly worth the money. There are fewer trophies in the Chiefs’ case without him. His teammates gravitate toward him, and not just because of his talent. After the latest Super Bowl appearance, it was Jones who spoke to the team, reminding them of an important offseason ahead.

When the production doesn’t match the contract — even for a quick five-week stretch — it shows. In some game plans, defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo has relied on high blitz rates to generate pressure. Defensive end George Karlaftis is quietly having a career year, fifth in the NFL with a 17.3% pressure rate. It wouldn’t be so quiet if Jones was wreaking his usual havoc. Having two guys put pressure on the quarterback at that rate makes a real difference.

For years, Jones has masked the team’s greatest defensive flaws. The back end was beat twice in the end zone in Super Bowl LVIII, but Jones pressured the quarterback so quickly that few even noticed.

He covers mistakes — and that includes his own.

This isn’t the first time a clip of Jones has circulated that he probably would prefer was left alone. It’s never generated this kind of attention.

Because he’s generated so much attention elsewhere during a game.

The Chiefs can live with some mistakes.

As long as the rest of the film pops, too.

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