Jones’ 253 yards lead resurgent Atlanta to win
ATLANTA — Julio Jones is getting hot, and so are the Atlanta Falcons.
Jones turned in one of the best games of his career, hauling in 12 passes for 253 yards and two touchdowns, and the Falcons won their third in a row Sunday with a 34-20 victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Suddenly, things are looking up for the defending NFC champions.
“The goal is to get better as you’re playing,” coach Dan Quinn said. “We’re going to keep working like crazy to do that.”
It would be hard for Jones to get much better.
After managing only one touchdown catch through the first 10 games, he doubled that total in the first half. Jones hauled in a 51-yard scoring pass from fellow receiver Mohamed Sanu and went 25 yards for a TD on a throw from Matt Ryan, finishing the play with a soaring dive for the pylon as he managed to stay in bounds before sticking out the ball with his right hand.
“I’m feeling better,” Jones said. “A couple weeks ago, I had an ankle (injury) and it was bothering me. But right now, I’m good.” That’s an understatement. Jones has three games in his career with at least 250 yards receiving. No other player in NFL history has more than one.
“Man, if we could just dial up 250 from him every week, that would be a pretty good recipe for success,” said Ryan, who completed 26 of 35 passes for 317 yards. “He’s an unbelievable talent, an unbelievable competitor. Obviously, he gets us going.”
The Falcons (7-4) began the day two games behind New Orleans in the NFC South but holding a wild-card spot.
That’s a big improvement over where they were at the beginning of the month, having lost four of five games to raise serious questions about whether they’d even get back to the playoffs, much less duplicate their run to the Super Bowl.
Speaking of the Super Bowl, the Falcons rekindled some ugly memories by nearly squandering a big lead to a team playing its third consecutive game without injured quarterback Jameis Winston.
The Buccaneers (4-7) rebounded from a 27-6 deficit behind Ryan Fitzpatrick and drove deep into Atlanta territory after forcing a fumble at the other end of the field. But Keanu Neal battled down Fitzpatrick’s pass on fourth-and-1 at the Atlanta 18 with just over seven minutes remaining, and the Falcons drove for a clinching touchdown on Tevin Coleman’s 14-yard run with just under two minutes to go.
“We did a good job of battling back and giving ourselves a chance to win,” Tampa Bay coach Dirk Koetter said.
If only they could’ve figured out some way to stop Jones.
“We tried rolling the coverage to him. We tried pressing him,” Koetter said. “We didn’t have an answer for him.”