Julio is on the grounds (and Quinn knew he was coming; (updated 6 p.m.)
By Michael A. Lough
The Sports Report
centralgasports@gmail.com
Julio Jones wasn’t to report until Thursday night, but his spirit and name sure were around Flowery Branch on Thursday.
Head coach Dan Quinn and GM Thomas Dimitroff addressed the near-midnight announcement of an agreement to give Jones a few million dollars and rework things after the season.
Quinn knew, based on the behind-the-scenes work from both sides, that Jones would show up.
Practice begins Friday morning.
Falcons, Rams paid attention to Steelers and Brown
Happy happy, joy joy in the Branch
Atlanta anchor trolled after tweet and agreement
Video: the full DQ and TD press conference (23:42)
Thursday lunchtime version
The change is simple.
Julio Jones will get $2 million of next year’s salary as a signing bonus, and Atlanta doesn’t take a big cap hit.
Jones’s 2018 base salary is $10.5 million, with $2.4 prorated.
He would have been fined $40,000 a day for missing training camp. Roddy White in 2009 is the lat Falcon to hold out, and that last just less than a week.
Jones is in the third year of a $71.2 million contract signed in August of 2015, with $47 million guaranteed. He dropped to the ninth-highest paid receiver in the NFL.
Owner Arthur Blank has said, as late as this week, that Jones would be a Falcon for life.
A press conference is set for 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
Progress was made throughout Wednesday
Nine things about “Camp Julio”
From very early Thurdsay morning
Talk about a freakin’ flurry of late hump night activity.
The first tweet – alas the timeline measurement of this era – from a relevant source came from the Falcons at 11:51 p.m.
And it came with the announcement that Julio Jones would be in camp. Management will meet with the media around 1:30 p.m. Thursday.
An atlantafalcons.com analysis followed on, well, why Julio is important, since people may not have known.
Training camp starts Friday. Players report Thursday.
It was a good day for the Falcons. The Mercedes-Benz roof worked, too. And some decision-makers were re-signed.
All the second-guessing? Here’s some recent observations on Julio’s situation to see who was right and maybe not, and just some interesting reading material
Atlanta's first holdout in a decade
Blanks checks in on Julio situation
Column: Understanding Julio's holdout