Former Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones reflects on his spectacular career

“I was ready to retire,” Jones told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Just being with my family. Enjoying my family at the end of the day. Football, I’d played football, at that time, it was 13 years. Now, I have the ability to be home, be with the family post-career.”

Jones said his family was very supportive and that allowed him to focus on football.

“I feel like that was very important for me and showed the love and care for me to go out and play the game, they allowed me to do such by figuring things out and not putting that extra stress on me,” Jones said. “You know how it is with family and stuff like that, when things go on. It was truly a blessing for me that they took it upon themselves, so now it’s just (cool) for me to hang out with them and kick back and enjoy life with my family.”

Jones was acquired in a bold move by former Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff, who traded six picks to Cleveland to move up 21 spots in the 2011 draft.

“We really realized at the end of the day that we needed a guy like Julio Jones,” Dimitroff said. “Strong, big, fast and athletic. We knew he was the guy.”

The Patriots reportedly were trying to move up and could have derailed the deal, which had been agreed to in principle two weeks before draft day with then-Cleveland GM Tom Heckert.

The Browns stayed true to their agreement with the Falcons.

“Our draft room was buzzing (after the trade was announced),” Dimitroff said. “I’m telling you it was buzzing.”

Jones appreciated the move.

“Thomas Dimitroff, what he did for me, believing in me, trusting in me, to trade up 21 picks to see the value in me,” said Jones, who played at Alabama and had a rash of drops in college. “For me coming from college, people didn’t really understand what type of receiver that I was or that I would become because at Alabama I had, I guess, I had moments.

“But again it was just more so the way I loved to block. It was like we ran the ball first. Pass, second. So, it wasn’t like a West Coast offense. For them to see what type of person I was and what type of player I would be in the sense of a team-first guy, a guy that will go out and give his all in the running game, and then just try to be the best teammate. I think that shows a lot of what TD and the guys seen in me at that time.”

Dimitroff shared that owner Arthur Blank was skeptical after they started showing Jones’ college drops on draft day. Dimitroff told Blank that Jones would be a first-ballot Pro Football Hall of Famer.

“A lot of people wouldn’t have known what type of receiver I was because I didn’t really have the film to really kind of showcase, outside of what other people (were) doing at other universities at the time,” Jones said.

Then-Falcons wide receivers coach Terry Robiskie and offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey knew what they had in Jones, a big receiver with speed and power.

“I couldn’t ask for a better situation with having T-Ro as my receivers coach,” Jones said. “He was a straight-shooter. I’m a straight-shooter. It was just fun. The transition from college to the pros, he made it so much easier.”

Mularkey preached to Jones about making the most of his immense skills and not to waste his opportunities.

“He was real adamant about plucking and tucking that ball,” Jones said. “Pluck to the tuck. Pluck to the tuck. ... He’s preaching, and we’re practicing it over and over to help you with the transition of getting north and south with the football.”

Falcons wide receiver Roddy White and quarterback Matt Ryan immediately embraced Jones.

“Roddy welcomed me with open arms,” Jones said. “He really gave me the blueprint. I think it’s big now. It was big then and it should be big now where you know veteran guys should welcome younger guys with open arms because at the end of the day you want to win football games.”

Jones, White and Harry Douglas bonded from their years together with the Falcons. They recently started a podcast, the Legacy Locker-Room.

“We bowl together,” Jones said. “We hang out together. We pull up at each other’s houses. We watch the (NBA) games. We go on trips together. It goes on and on. Those are my brothers. We’ve been knowing each other 14 years now. I love those guys. We’ve been rocking every since.”

After he was drafted, Jones couldn’t go into the locker room because there was a lockout. Ryan took Jones under his wing, and they were among the group of players who held their own practices at Buford High School.

“Just tried to get the chemistry started,” Jones said. “You couldn’t be in the building. Matt brought me to his home. We went over the playbook. Getting the playbook from Matt early on, because I couldn’t get it from the facility. We couldn’t go in the facility. Just being able to go out on the field, work and run routes was great.”

Jones learned what Ryan was looking for in how he ran his routes and how he came out of his breaks.

“All of that stuff, building that chemistry early, early, early on before we were actually going to be in the building,” Jones said. “Helped us out tremendously.”

Jones enjoyed playing with Ryan.

“He had a very catchable ball,” Jones said. “His anticipation was very, very good in everything that he did. You knew where the ball was going to be at. With Matt Ryan, he practiced the way he was going to play. He was just a true pro at what he did.”

Jones reflected on a few of Ryan’s spectacular performances.

There was the game when he plucked a high-pass from Ryan away from Panthers linebacker Luke Kuechly.

“He had a helluva game when we played Carolina,” Jones said. “He went for 500 (yards passing) in one game. That’s crazy.”

In the NFC title game against the Packers on Jan. 27, 2017, Jones took a shallow crossing route and raced 73 yards up the right sideline to make the score 31-0 early in the third quarter.

 “(Ryan) sat on his back foot,” Jones said. “He waited on me because the guy was holding me. He believed in me that I was going to win at the top of the route and get open. He waited on me. I popped open and I took it down the right sideline for a touchdown.”

With the Falcons trying to hold on to a 28-20 lead in Super Bowl 51, Jones made a spectacular catch along the right sideline for a 27-yard gain down to the Patriots’ 22-yard line.

The Falcons could have run three dive plays and kicked a field goal, but then-offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan got too fancy with his play-calling after the first-down run was stuffed.

 “In the Super Bowl, (Ryan) threw a hell of a ball on the sideline,” Jones said. “But I worked on those type of catches and plays throughout my career and every day at practice. I’m just constantly just working on that skill set.”

Indeed, it was one of the first routes Ryan taught Jones in a practice at Buford High in 2011.

The Falcons went back to the playoffs in the 2017 season, but things starting to slide in Flowery Branch after that season.

There was Jones’ contract situation that was followed by his trade to the Titans on June 6, 2021.

He played one season each with the Titans (2021), Bucs (2022) and Eagles (2023). He sat out last season before deciding to turn in his retirement paper work.

“We realized he was going to be impossible to cover in one-on-one situations,” said former Falcons coach Mike Smith recently on Betway.com. “If you were game-planning and you said you weren’t going to double Julio Jones, you were getting ... beat that day. Plain and simple. He was going to dominate the game if you didn’t roll the coverage his way or double him. He was a dominant player.”

In addition to hanging with family, Jones will look after his many business interests including the Julio Jones Kia car dealership in Tuscaloosa, Alabama.

“My cars are doing very well,” said Jones, who’s had to learn about tariffs lately. “I have some other stuff, I don’t like to talk about that kind of stuff, but I’m doing really, really good. I have a farm, too. I’m out in Douglasville farming.”

Credit: ccompton@ajc.com

Credit: ccompton@ajc.com