By Olivia Riley

It was August 2023, and Keandre Jones had just been cut from the Washington Commanders.

It was not the first time he had been cut by an NFL team. Or the second.

For the fourth time, Jones, a former Ohio State and Maryland football player, was out of the league of his dreams. Yet the familiar sting of failure couldn’t overshadow a more urgent feeling—the one telling him that this time, something had to change.

Football had been a constant in his life for as long as he could remember, even though it hadn’t always been easy.

Growing up, Jones bounced between homes. He lived in a shelter for seven months with his mother and two siblings. Often, he relied on coaches and family friends just to get to practice—or to put food on the table. The son of a single mother who worked tirelessly for her kids, Jones learned early what sacrifice and hard work meant—lessons that carried him through every tough time in football and beyond.

That August day, Jones had a choice: He could sit idle and wait for another franchise to call, or he could devote himself even further to becoming the person, the mentor, the father figure that the kid from Olney, Maryland, needed growing up.

He chose the latter.

“I knew my passion, my purpose, was bigger than sports,” Jones said.

For Jones, that passion is making an impact. His resilience led him to a life dedicated to mentorship and empowering the next generation through his educational program, Everyday A Episode, which he founded in 2023.

To him, every day in life is like an episode of a TV series. It has a beginning, middle and end. Like the plot of a story, characters may face setbacks. But one bad episode wouldn’t cancel the entire show. He takes life one day at a time, doing everything he can to live it to the fullest.

“I don’t want a kid to look at me and just see me as an NFL player,” Jones said. “I want them to see me as somebody who’s actually making a difference in the community.”

Jones got his start in football in elementary school. At 10 years old, he was already bigger than his peers and showed promise. But much like the famous story of Michael Oher in The Blind Side—to whom Jones often compares his childhood—a difficult home situation made it hard for him to get to practices and games.

Jones started living with multiple families, hoping to take stress off his mother, Lauren Middleton, so he could pursue football seriously.

“He just became a part of the family,” said John Strittmatter, the father of Jones’ late best friend, Bryan, and someone he stayed with through high school. “Instead of four kids in the house, we had five.”

After years of learning sacrifice and discipline, Jones developed into a four-star recruit and committed in January 2016 to play for Ohio State. His passion for impact came to Columbus with him, too, as he helped form Redefining Athletic Standards, a student organization fostering connections between male athletes of color and community involvement.

In 2019, after three full seasons with the Buckeyes, Jones needed a change. Coach Urban Meyer, who recruited him, was retiring, and that was the final push Jones needed to transfer closer to home, to the University of Maryland.

“Something told me just to go back home, to go back to where it all started,” Jones said. “If this was the end of my football journey, I wanted to make sure it was in front of my mom and my family in Maryland.”

Jones thrived on the football field. After a stellar season with the Terrapins, Jones declared for the 2020 NFL Draft, but he went undrafted.

He signed with the Chicago Bears as a free agent in April 2020 and was released four months later.

In September 2020, he was signed to the Cincinnati Bengals’ practice squad. Over the next two seasons, he was waived, signed, elevated and waived again three times. Eventually, in December 2021, he was promoted to the active roster and took part in the Bengals’ Super Bowl run.

What should have been one of the best times of his life turned into one of the hardest. Right after the Bengals’ first playoff win that year, Jones got the news that his best friend, Bryan, had taken his own life. Weeks later, Jones lost his sister to gun violence in Washington, D.C. And in April 2022, his close friend and Buckeye football legend Dwayne Haskins was killed.

“Even though I took all of these losses, they’re lessons,” Jones said. “You don’t ever really lose in life unless you give up.”

And he didn’t give up.

Jones kept working on his brand and embodying the mantra “Everyday A Episode”—one that had always been in the back of his mind, keeping him going when things got tough.

“Every day is different. Every day is challenging. Every day, there’s going to be something where you have to challenge yourself,” Jones said. “I want to continue every day.”

Fast forward to August 2023, after Jones was waived for the fourth time.

“I was like, you know, what am I waiting for?” he said. “Let’s not wait until after football is over for me. Our time on this earth is so brief. I thought, ‘We might as well pick up and get started now.’”

That September, Jones started visiting schools to share his story and his vision for his business, which he officially dubbed Everyday A Episode.

The program is a six-session, mentorship-driven initiative that Jones and his team take to primarily underserved schools. Activities teach kids life skills such as effective communication, financial literacy, leadership and mental health awareness—things Jones didn’t have easy access to growing up.

“This program just makes these kids, first of all, understand that you’re going to make mistakes,” said Alandes Powell, executive director and one of Jones’ mentors. “We’re here to say that mistakes should not dictate your life. They should just make you stronger.”

Jones makes sure to tie his story to football, too, reminding students that life is about more than what happens on the field, court or pitch.

“I want to show these kids that they are so much more than just an athlete,” Jones said.

Since its founding, the program has reached young people from elementary school to college seniors, and Jones said the goal is to keep growing.

“I just want to help as many people as I can before my time is up,” he said.

As for what’s next, Jones isn’t sure. Since February 2024, he has been signed and released twice from the Commanders. Currently, he is devoting his time to Everyday A Episode, waiting to see if another franchise wants to pick him up. 

He may get the call. He may not. Either way, he’s at peace.

He knows his purpose, and above all, he knows where it all started.

“Football owes me nothing,” Jones said. “But I owe football everything.”