Donald Jones beginning baseball career

Former NFL receiver Donald Jones was forced to give up the game of football due to a kidney disease.

But his dreams of being a longtime professional athlete didn't stopped there. With football taken away, Jones has turned his attention to the baseball diamond.

Jones is attempting a baseball career and is currently with the Somerset Patriots of the independent Atlantic League. He was a standout football and baseball player at Plainfield High School, giving him the option of trading in shoulder pads for a baseball bat at this stage of his life.

“I played Little League, and I played all the way through high school," Jones told MyCentralJersey.com. "But I just loved the football atmosphere, so I really stuck with football. Plus, it was a faster route to the NFL than baseball would have been getting to the big leagues. I liked scoring touchdowns and I liked dancing in the end zone, so I stuck with it. But I always loved baseball.”

Since his retirement from football, Jones has had to have kidney transplant surgery, which took place this past Dec. 3. He suffers from an autoimmune disorder called Berger's Disease.

Jones played three years in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills, catching 82 passes for 887 yards and six touchdowns during that span.

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This story originally appeared on Nationalfootballpost.com