For the life of him, Chandler Jones couldn’t understand how chasing down quarterbacks was harder for him in a video game than it was in real life.  On Thursday night, when the Miami Dolphins tried to use 320-pound tackle Branden Albert and 260-pound tight end Jordan Cameron to build a fence between Jones and quarterback Ryan Tannehill, Jones busted through it like drywall, flinging Albert and Cameron off of him and crushing Tannehill from the blindside.  When the Patriots sniffed out a screen pass and Tannehill narrowly escaped being sacked by two linemen, Jones came out of coverage, hunted Tannehill down at the line of scrimmage, and finished the job.  But in “Madden NFL 16,” it just wasn’t the same. In Madden, all Jones could do was mash buttons and hope for the best.  “For some reason I always get blocked,” Jones said. “And, I’m just like, ‘Yo, my Madden ratings are so dumb.’ For some reason I’m just tapping the X button, tapping the square button. I was like, ‘I need to get my Madden ratings up.’ ”  Before he tacked two sacks onto his league-leading total in the Patriots’ 36-7 win over the Dolphins, Jones was on the sticks.  “I played Madden before I came here,” he said postgame. “I played Madden all day today.”  Jones put together his third game this season with at least two sacks, and he figures Thursday’s performance will would be enough to earn him a video-game upgrade.  “Hopefully, I get my Madden ratings up after tonight,” Jones said. “My rating’s like a 70. I’m like, I need to be at least a 90.”  He’s more than made his case this season.  Chandler’s been a pass-rushing menace with 8½ sacks, picking up where he left off a year ago.  After recording 11½ sacks in 2013, Jones got off to a dominant start last season with 4½ sacks in his first seven games. Then a hip injury cost him six games in the heart of the season. He made his return Week 15 against the Dolphins and didn’t miss a beat, coming up with 1½ sacks.  This season, Jones can sense himself maturing.  “[The game’s] slowing down for me as far as pre-snap reads and as I’m attacking blockers,” he said.  Whether an opponent tries to hold him off with one blocker or double-teams him, Jones said he can recognize and react.  It’s not necessarily a matter of confidence, he said.  “Just awareness is the word I would use,” he said.  He has no problem fighting through two bodies, if need be.  “There were two guys on me [Thursday], but I didn’t really think about two guys being on me. I was just trying to get to the quarterback, honestly,” Jones said. “You never really know what’s going to happen that play. You never know what blocks you’re going to get.”  His teammates along the defensive line can see Jones’s growth.  “That man has the heart of a lion,” said tackle Sealver Siliga. “He goes out there, he practices hard and he deserves all his success because he puts the work in. He’s a beast.”  The reward for hounding the quarterback comes when Jones sees a bad throw turn into an interception.  “What you call that is just the coverage matching the rush,” Jones said. “The guys are doing a good job covering, and it’s matching the rush. Every play you want the coverage to match the rush. If guys cover and guys rush, that’s what happens: sacks and interceptions.”  With the Patriots’ frontline constantly swarming him Thursday, Tannehill threw two picks.  “It feels great because then you feel like your whole defense is rolling, everybody’s feeding off each other,” Siliga said. “It feels good to go out there and feed of each other.”  Jones has the Patriots season sack record (18½ by Andre Tippett in 1984) in his crosshairs, but he’s also spearheading one of the best pass rushes in the league. With five sacks Thursday, the Patriots tied the Denver Broncos for the league lead with 26. They’re on pace to finish with 59 sacks, which would be one more than the team record set in 1977.  How this affects Jones’s Madden rating is still up in the air.  The matter could have been squared away with a simple conversation with the video game franchise’s “ratings czar” Donny Moore. In 16 years assigning virtual attributes, Moore hashed it out with players before. Panthers quarterback Cam Newton once begged him to increase his speed.  “I’m going to hit him up for sure, like ‘You’re tripping right now,’” Jones said.  But it probably won’t help. In July, Moore stepped down in July to take a job at FanDuel.  So he will have to settle for making real life look like a video game.
With two sacks Thursday night, Jones tied for the league lead and showed his maturity as a pass rusher.