The Falcons signed Matt Ryan to an extension last offseason, and it’s looking like they’ll be locking up their other franchise player. The Falcons are “closing in on” a contract extension with Julio Jones, according to Mike Freeman of Bleacher Report. 
Freeman reports that the deal will pay Jones “$20 million a year over a four- or five-year” pact, with “anywhere from $50 million to $60 million in new guarantees.” Jones’ contract situation has caused a lot of headaches for the team recently, so this would be a huge development. Jones still has two years left on his current contract, but is grossly underpaid. Jones signed a very team-friendly deal a few years back, and decided last year that he wanted to be more fairly compensated.
He launched a brief holdout during training camp when he announced he wouldn’t report. The Falcons were reluctant to renegotiate his deal with three years left, but eventually convinced him to return when they threw in some extra incentives as sweeteners. Freeman writes that the money Jones gets will likely surpass what Odell Beckham Jr. got on his extension “by a lot.”
If Freeman is right, Jones will soon pass Beckham Jr. and Antonio Brown to become the highest paid receiver in football. Jones had another elite season last year, and led the league in receiving yards. He reeled in 113 passes for 1677 yards and eight touchdowns.
Well worth what ever he gets.
Looks like he’s caught the MLB extension fever
He is worth every penny but as soon as the ink is dry on that contract the Falcons will be getting a letter stating dear Atlanta Falcons; I would like to thank you for giving Julio Jones $20 million a year over the next five years you have no idea what it means to me. Sincerely; Odell Beckham Jr.
Eh, pass, let him go to another team. Save the money and spread it around.
That much money on a single player besides franchise quarterback will cripple the team. Where are they going to find money for their offensive line to Ryan time to even throw to Jones.
The signing puts Atlanta in a difficult situation but not rewarding your top 2 stars basically kills team morale as other players immediately become aware that no matter how hard they play they won’t be treated fairly either. It’s also hard to attract talent from other teams if you have a reputation as being a cheapskate organization that’s more interested in cutting costs than trying to build a winner.
I’m sure. But if you’re winning being cheap can be ok (ie: New England) but Atlanta won’t win with Quinn as coach.
Wasted money. How many Division titles or championships has he brought to Atlanta?
$20M / yr for a WR is ludicrous! This will cripple Atlanta’s ability to sign quality players in the trenches where football games are really won. It still baffles me why no one can emulate what New England has done for the last 20+ years. Let your high price players walk, get the compensatory draft picks for them, then trade the picks for solid veteran players signed to reasonable contracts. Has worked for the last 18+ years but no one else can do it.
Two main reasons. For starters, it helps a lot that Tom Brady takes less money than most other starting QBs (which he has the luxury of doing since Gisele makes plenty of money on her own, something that most other NFL players don’t have). The second is that the GM and coach in New England are the same person so there is less of a power struggle over players and the direction of the franchise is the same. For other teams, the coach and GM are usually two different people so their idea of what direction the franchise is should be taking might differ.
Belichick has established such a huge safety net for himself that he has the ability to take some risks and not worry too much about his job whereas other GMs are constantly worrying about their job. He also has an owner in Kraft that, as far as we know, basically lets Belichick run the team freely whereas other teams have owners that are more involved in the decisions.
TB12 has been taking less as a leader to the since before he got married. He was happy as long as they spread the extra money around to continue their winning. Has worked out pretty good.
They should be 2 conditions: he attends every off season session and no renegotiations on this contract or he pays back the signing bonus.