Falcons All-Pro wide receiver Julio Jones was moving gingerly even before he was yanked in the second quarter with a hip flexor.
Jones was hurt on the last offensive play of the game in the victory over the Lions last week. He was limited in practice this week, but started against the Bills on Sunday.
He finished with four catches for 30 yards.
Jones wanted to re-enter the game, but the team wouldn’t allow him to play.
“We spoke on the sideline and he was hoping that he could explode and he really wanted to go,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said after the Falcons’ 23-17 loss. “He had trouble just exploding, and if he can’t be him, that’s a unique thing for him. The speed, the explosiveness so when he wasn’t able to do that, that’s when we had to pull him.”
The injuries continued to mount for the Falcons. In addition to Jones, they lost wide receiver Mohamed Sanu (hamstring), safety Keanu Neal (hand) and defensive tackle Jack Crawford (biceps) during the Bills game. They were already without four starters in defensive end Vic Beasley (hamstring strain/tear), right tackle Ryan Schraeder (concussion), free safety Ricardo Allen (concussion) and defensive tackle Courtney Upshaw (ankle). The Falcons move into their bye week.
“You never know when you’re going to need a bye,” Quinn said. “Sometimes it’s late in the season, and it’s good. Other times it’s early and before the season you may think to yourself, that’s early.
“In our team’s case this time, we’re hopeful that we’ll get a good bit of the guys back. We had five that were inactive due to injury in this game and then had a couple injuries within the game. So we’ll assess that tomorrow, get a look back, but a number of them are close to returning and that’s encouraging for us.”
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