A week after torching Carolina for 300 yards receiving, Falcons All-Pro wide receiver Julio Jones was held to two catches for 29 yards in the win over Denver on Sunday.
Jones didn’t have a catch in the first half after having one nullified by an offensive pass interference all.
He caught his two passes in the third quarter. Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan tried to hit Jones on two deep passes, but they were overthrown.
Despite the production dip, Jones was upbeat after the game.
“It’s not that big,” Jones said of the win. “You have to expect to go out there and win and ball. It was a great team win though because we stayed together and kept our composure.”
Jones senses that this year’s team, which improved to 4-1, is better than last season’s team that started 6-1 before finishing 8-8.
“There were a couple of times that we got in bad situations with penalties,” Jones said. “That’s where I see the difference from this year and last year. We’d get a penalty and kind of fall apart. But this year it’s more so, not the end of the world. It’s like go out here and make something happen.”
Jones suspected he’d be the focal point of Denver’s defense.
“When we came out (Aqib) Talib was out there talking, saying ‘It’s all day. It’s all day,’” Jones said. “But they were doubling me the whole game. They two-man me. It was fun, though just seeing Tevin Coleman going out there and doing his thing especially with that one on one.”
With Jones pulling coverage, Coleman caught four passes for 132 yards.
“It’s all about matchups and we found the matchup toward the end,” Jones said. “We had a linebacker on him and we kind of exploited him.”
The deep passes created the threat of the long ball that likely created so much space for Coleman.
“We had two shots on the deep balls, but we didn’t get them,” Jones said. “We still have to continue to be aggressive down the field every game to let people know that we will go deep on you.”
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