HE can be questioned on his original taste in football clubs.
"I barracked for the Crows," he says of his childhood allegiances. Today, he knows better - much better.
He can be challenged for his view on the mental capacity of his peers in AFL football - or his attempts at humour at media conferences.
"We are not the sharpest tools in the shed, us footballers. We just want to get out there and chase the footy and have a bit of fun," he says. He is a lawyer. He will speak out on racism, climate change and social injustices.
He can be held to account for his mistakes. But he also needs to be admired for how he has owned them.
"We all learn - I know I have," he says of that moment when crossing that fine line between being uncompromising as a defender and staying with the "spirit of the game" (as he put it) led to a six-game ban for striking West Coast midfielder Andrew Gaff in a marking contest at Adelaide Oval in May 2016. That moment - as clumsy as it was - did highlight how he hates to be beaten.
But there is no element of doubt on how to judge Tom Jonas in his quest to chase greatness at the Port Adelaide Football Club. Nor is there any misgiving on how Jonas has carried his team on that mission to make Port Adelaide great.
"To stand next to Tom and support him as captain - and see the leader he has become - is something I am incredibly proud of," says Brownlow Medallist Ollie Wines, who shared the captaincy with Jonas in 2019.
Jonas and Wines were the "ying and yang" partnership, almost the "good cop, bad cop" pair in the leadership team at Alberton when Port Adelaide wanted to be "progressive" rather than "traditional". And there was no question who was drawing the immovable lines in the sand at Port Adelaide in 2019.
"He used to be the real tough one, Tommy," adds Wines. "He did not show a lot of empathy. He did not have that softer side. To see him grow in that area, to be able to really care for his team-mates. We know how hard and tough he is during games, but off the field Tom will throw the arm around someone and really care and listen. It is a growth (in his leadership that) he is proud of. I look at him as a leader - and there are not many areas where he has a deficiency these days."
Jonas and Wines no longer share the captaincy. But they keep being tied together in significant moments.
Jonas - and Wines, as destiny would have it - plays his 200th AFL game at the weekend, at the MCG against Collingwood. He shared his 150th milestone moment with Wines as well in round 11, 2020 against Richmond.
Jonas (and Wines) becomes the 10th player to reach this AFL milestone at Port Adelaide - following former captain Travis Boak (323 games), Kane Cornes (300), Justin Westhoff (280), Robbie Gray (268), 2004 premiership captain Warren Tredrea (255), Peter Burgoyne (240), Chad Cornes (239), Brendon Lade (234) and former captain Dom Cassisi (228).
In his self-deprecating way, Jonas will say he stands out in this roll call of champions - as the odd one. He has come from the furthest point back in the draft order when compared with how the other 200 Club members were recruited to Port Adelaide's AFL list. Jonas was the No. 16 call in the 2011 AFL rookie draft (effectively 130 players were picked in the national and pre-season drafts before Jonas had his name called by Port Adelaide on December 7, 2010). Ben Jacobs, Aaron Young and Cam O'Shea were all seen as more promising options to be at Alberton before Jonas in that recruiting shuffle. They are all gone today. Jonas not only remains, he is the leader of the pack.
From that far corner in the changerooms - at the No. 42 locker - Jonas has followed Brownlow Medallist Gavin Wanganeen, the imposing ruckman of a generation Matthew Primus, Australian Football Hall of Famer Warren Tredrea, 2004 premiership midfielder Dom Cassisi and Boak to the treasured No. 1 guernsey of the Port Adelaide captaincy.
"My journey has been unconventional, challenging ...," says Jonas, "and extremely fulfilling."
It also is a grand reminder that, as some sage men repeatedly say, the game does not know your age (Jonas was a "mature-age" recruit a month short of his 20th birthday when he was drafted) nor does it remember your draft number. But it does judge you by your approach to the Sherrin. Here, the schoolboy footballer from Rostrevor College has lived up to the "Port Adelaide way" of being dedicated to the team, uncompromising in his approach to the contest and true to Fos Williams' Creed by giving all and then doing even more, on and off the field.
Jonas will not claim to be the game's best player. But he will strive - and has worked hard - to be the best team player when the game calls him to action, even when he is outnumbered by opponents at an unguarded goal. The highlights reel is not short of such moments - and gained another this season from the time-on period of the round 14 clash with Sydney at Adelaide Oval in mid-June. Caught behind two Sydney forwards running onto Lance Franklin's pass from outside 50, Jonas moved past Isaac Heeney to mow down Will Hayward creating a turnover quickly turned into a rushed behind rather than a goal that would have wiped out Port Adelaide's advantage on the scoreboard.
Jonas leads by his commitment, his almost-kamikaze approach to every contest, usually against players who are left to regret finding false comfort in thinking they had the advantage of better position, more height, more speed or more "talent". As John Kennedy would admire, Jonas will "do" - and do as if he is approaching his last-ever act in football with a manic intent so that no-one ever questions if he had something else to offer.
Jonas proves it is not what you have that determines a player's merit. It is what you give. It is all about what you do.
The tributes, the accolades go beyond three All-Australian nominations (2017, 2018 and 2020), the Fos Williams Medal as best team man in 2017 and 2018 and the podium finishes in the John Cahill club champion award in 2018 (runner-up to Justin Westhoff) and third (2017 and 2020). There is more pride for Jonas in being repeatedly described as courageous, determined, selfless and committed to be being the best player he can be - and being part of the best Port Adelaide team that there can be.
Already it is a Port Adelaide Football Club that embraces all, even a kid who played for Norwood in the SANFL and thought red, yellow and navy blue made for a better totem than black, white, teal and silver.
Be it from his view along the long path from pick No. 16 in the 2011 AFL rookie draft to the No. 1 locker at Alberton - or just his understanding of how clubs and teams are built as a collective - Jonas is the inclusive leader.
"At Port Adelaide," says Jonas, "if you’re here for a day, a week or 10 years, once you’re a Port Adelaide player, you’re part of the Port Adelaide family for life."
Jonas passes his 200-game milestone on this journey where it all began - on the MCG, on August 13, 2011 against Hawthorn. But he is part of a different Port Adelaide on and off the field. That Port Adelaide team of his first game - in which Jonas made his introduction to AFL football against Hawthorn captain Luke Hodge - collapsed to a 165-point loss. His first three games were marked by losses (very un-Port Adelaide). His first win in AFL company was in the symbolic return to Adelaide Oval for the season-closing game against Melbourne in 2011 when Port Adelaide had to win to avoid its first wooden spoon in 111 years.
On reflection, such a tough introduction to the AFL scene seems so appropriate for a player - and man - who would have stared down such adversity with the thought, "You are not going to beat me!"
It is such a combative and assertive attitude that allows Jonas' Port Adelaide of his 200th AFL game to be a team living to the highest expectations rather than questioning if it will survive on the national stage. It is the Port Adelaide that has not given up after being 0-5 this season.
Jonas, 31, will lead Port Adelaide for the 79th time as captain. The kid who did not inspire recruiting scouts to write enthusiastic notes from his schoolboy football games has written an important chapter in the Port Adelaide Football Club story. And it is not finished yet.
