The idea that Julio Jones would be traded became public in the days leading up to the draft. The fact that he had asked for a trade only made it into the news cycle two weeks ago. But what you saw go down on Sunday? The wheels have been rolling a longer than that.
In fact, what’s been a two-week story for fans on the outside has been a two-year story inside the Falcons’ building. This goes all the way back to the 2019 negotiation of the three-year, $66 million extension Jones landed with two years left on a deal he signed in 2015. That negotiation was long. It was difficult. And when it was done, it was positioned as affirmation of owner Arthur Blank’s promise to make the greatest receiver in franchise history a Falcon “forever,” with guaranteed money carrying the superstar into his mid-30s. The truth wasn’t nearly that clean.
Jones went to the table twice asking for a market correction to his second NFL contract—after the 2017 season, and again after the 2018 season. He got a Band-Aid pay hike in ’18, then the blockbuster contract in ’19. The first adjustment was done with the agreement that the sides would work out something more permanent a year later, and the Falcons did follow through on that promise.
But it took the entire offseason to get it done—the deal was finalized just before the 2019 opener—and there were potholes along the way. At one point, Jones’s camp told the Falcons that if a new agreement couldn’t be reached, the perennial All-Pro wanted to be traded.
It’s hard to say whether that request impacted the ongoing contract talks. It was, on the other hand, easy to see the other effects it wound up having, and the damage it did.
The relationship was strained, and it remained that way through the final two years that then GM Thomas Dimitroff and then coach Dan Quinn were at the helm. Quinn, in particular, had a strong relationship with Jones, and his ouster last October only further disconnected Jones from the organization. By the time the new brass arrived, any chance to rebuild the relationship between team and player had evaporated.
And so, what was a possibility in 2019 became a reality in March 2021. Through his agent, Jones asked for a trade.
Three months later, Jones has his wish. The 32-year-old future Hall of Famer is a Titan. The Falcons are sending Jones and a 2023 sixth-round pick to Tennessee in exchange for a 2022 second-rounder and a 2023 fourth-rounder. And as it turns out, the road getting there was longer than anyone on the outside realizes.
