Pressure on Felix Jones to perform this season

Felix Jones could not stay healthy last season when rookie DeMarco Murray emerged as an intriguing option moving forward for the Dallas Cowboys.

Now, Jones has a final chance to prove to the team he should be a part of the future as he enters the final year of his rookie contract. Jones didn’t get off to a good start when he failed the conditioning test at the opening of training camp, but now he’s on track and optimistic about a strong season. He missed the entire offseason program as he recovered from shoulder surgery.

“You want to be your best,” Jones said, according to the Dallas Morning News. “That just adds an added bonus to it that it is my last year. I want to show what I got. It’s going to be a fun year I believe.

“Things happen for a reason. You just have to work through the obstacles and continue to progress as a player and a person and that’s what I’ve been doing.”

Murray is a young back that can prove the job should be his moving forward but he’s had his own injury issues at Oklahoma and then last season as a rookie. It’s wait-and-see for the Cowboys, who have not ruled out the possibility of bring Jones back for the long haul.

“We’re going to see how his year goes and his health issues along the way and see where it works out,” Cowboys vide president Stephen Jones said, according to the report. “We certainly haven’t ruled out re-signing him, but we’ll see how the year takes us.”

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Brad Biggs covers the Bears for the Chicago Tribune