FLOWERY BRANCH -- The Falcons put injured wide receiver Julio Jones through a rehabilitation run on Monday, but his playing status remains unclear.
Coach Mike Smith said he watched the run by Jones, who missed Sunday's game against the Panthers with a left hamstring injury.
“We’ve got to wait and see where Julio is,” Smith said. “He was working with our athletic performance department and hopefully we’ll have a better idea on Wednesday.”
Jones is second among NFL rookies with 358 receiving yards.
Smith said he expects defensive backs Christopher Owens (concussion) and James Sanders (hamstring) to practice Wednesday, the team's first day back on the field. Both were inactive against the Panthers.
Without being specific, Smith said several other players were “banged up” and likely will be held out of Wednesday's practice.
The coach also indicated that the team will begin holding a number of players out of practices as part of a maintenance regimen.
“We’ll see how some guys come through the next couple of days,” Smith said. “We’ll have some guys that won’t practice on Wednesday. We’ll also have some guys that won’t practice on Thursday simply because we want to give them some rest time. We are going to start over the next seven or eight weeks of the season going through that process.”
Trade deadline
The NFL trade deadline is Tuesday but the Falcons are not expected to make a move.
The Rams acquired Pro Bowl wide receiver Brandon Lloyd from the Broncos on Monday in what is expected to one of a handful of moves around the league.
Penalty-free second half
After committing four penalties for 57 yards in the first half, the Falcons were flag free the remainder of the game.
“The first half of the ballgame we did not play penalty free,” Smith said. “We had some major penalties that we were able to overcome offensively. Defensively, we did not overcome the penalties in the second half. It was a big part of the things we talked about at halftime. We had to make sure we played smarter than we did in the first half.”
The Falcons are 15th in the NFL with 36 penalties. Last season they were the least-penalized team in the league with 57 infractions.
One of the costly offensive penalties on Sunday was an unnecessary-roughness call on wide receiver Roddy White in the second quarter. It wiped out part of a 33-yard run by Michael Turner.
“I had a conversation,” Smith said. “I just really wanted to know what happened in the game. It was a block behind the ball. The ball was already down the field. … We all understand it, we’ve got to play smart and we can’t have those types of penalties.”
Two in a row for Edwards
Ray Edwards, the Falcons' big offseason free-agent acquisition, has a sack in each of the past two games. The defensive end dropped Panthers quarterback Cam Newton on Sunday for an eight-yard loss.
“I really think Ray is becoming more comfortable in our scheme,” Smith said. “His get-off the last couple of games has been very impressive. He’s been able to win the snap. His first snap has been very quick and he’s been able to get on some edges.”
Turner on the edge
The Falcons thought they would be able to exploit the Panthers defense by running the ball. According to Smith, getting Turner to the outside was part of the game plan.
Turner ran for 139 yards on 27 carries (5.1 yard average) with two touchdowns. Several of his runs came on the perimeter.
“When people try to defend us, they are going to tell us where we are going to run the football,” Smith said. “We felt like we were going to be able to get to the second level on the perimeter. When you have Michael coming around the corner at 245 pounds, there are some guys that don’t necessarily want to take a clean shot at him.”
Smith said establishing the run was one of the Falcons’ pre-game priorities. He also credited the blocking of the team’s wide receivers in helping Turner get yardage on the edge.
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