There is a mindset that goes with playing football at a high level. Pain will be a part of it. There are going to be broken bones and torn ligaments and collisions that rattle a player’s cranium to such an extent that the field will seem like jello and everybody around him will look like they’re standing in front of one of those funhouse mirrors.
“A hundred tackles a season for eight years. That’s like 800 train wrecks,” Doug Plank, the former Chicago Bears’ safety, told me years ago when asked to describe what his body had endured.
Wide receivers aren’t recognized for their toughness like safeties because they’re known more for the acrobatic catch before the train wreck than standing up after it. But Julio Jones has reaffirmed his worth and his toughness down the stretch this season. The Falcons’ receiver has three consecutive 100-yard-plus games, and led the way in last week’s win in New Orleans with seven catches for 107 yards despite a significant strain in his lower hip that had sidelined him for a week and left his status in doubt until game day.
“Honestly, I’ve seen him play through even worse than what he’s playing through now,” teammate Roddy White said. “You commend guys like that. You’re ready to go out and roll for the guys who sacrifice like that.”
Jones’ strength is fueled partly by his perspective. In younger days, particularly at Alabama, he would visit hospitals and see children who had lost limbs or were diagnosed with serious illnesses.
“You go to hospitals and you see these kids and you realize how blessed you are,” Jones said. “You’ve got your limbs. You’ve got your health. That’s why I don’t complain too much. That’s what drives me. You see these kids and they’ve got a smile on their face. They don’t have an arm or a leg but they’re having a great day. How am I going to complain about being hurt after I see that?”
Jones was in the seventh grade the first time he was injured playing football.
“Broke my thumb,” he said. “I fell or something, don’t really remember. Got a cast put on, no big deal. Then I went back. My mom was more worried than me. You know, I was like her baby.”
Jones once broke his hand in his junior season at Alabama. He had surgery, with a plate and a screw inserted to hold the bone together. Two weeks later, he set an Alabama record with 221 receiving yards against Tennessee.
The problem for Jones in the NFL hasn’t been toughness, it has been luck. He suffered a broken foot late in rookie season and missed three games. Then he re-fractured the same foot in the fifth game last season when the screw attached during the first surgery broke.
“When it’s physically impossible for me to go, that’s when it hurts most,” he said.
Jones already has broken five franchise records despite missing 15 games in four years. He ranks third in the NFL with 100 receptions and second with 1,535 receiving yards. He has 28 catches for 555 in his last three games, including 11 for 259 at Green Bay before being forced to leave with a strain in the lower oblique area. He could barely walk after that game, missed practice all week and was forced to sit out the Pittsburgh game.
He missed practice all of New Orleans week, was activated just before the game, then caught a 23-yard pass on the Falcons’ first offensive play to set the tone for the day.
He’s officially questionable for Sunday’s game against Carolina. That designation now looks like a punchline.
“A lot of it has to do with how you grow up, and I just felt like I had to be tough,” he said. “You want someone to think they can whoop you?”
Did anybody ever whoop you?
“Who? Me? Come on, man. Don’t make me cuss.”
Some still criticize Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff for his five-for-one draft pick trade in 2011, which enabled the team to move up from 27th to sixth and take Jones. There are two problems with that position: 1) Jones is the best player on this roster, save possibly quarterback Matt Ryan; 2) Contrary to the popular narrative, drafting Jones is not the reason the Falcons have struggled to build their offensive and defensive lines. Since selecting Jones, the team has drafted 28 other players and signed dozens more.
The problem was not in the Jones decision. The problem has been the other decisions.
Another issue being debated is: Should the Falcons invest the resources to sign Jones to a long-term deal? But given Jones is the team’s lone difference maker, and in particular what he has accomplished of late, there is no decision there. The answer should be obvious.
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