Jones rules:
Wideout is everything team hoped for when it paid steep price to land him
Atlanta teammates can’t touch prized wide receiver Julio Jones; opponents don’t manage it much, either.
Atlanta Falcons defenATLANTA sive end Vic Beasley is OK with the “Hoo Rule,” which is a mandate that Monday through Saturday nobody tackles or hits Julio Jones in practice. Jones’ teammates call him “Hoo.”
This is how it works. “Stay off Julio,” Beasley said. “Don’t touch Julio.”
Beasley also called it the “11 rule” for Jones’ jersey number, which is similar to the “2 rule,” the Monday through Saturday mandate that no one tackles quarterback Matt Ryan, either.
Jones is the sacred, untouchable part of the offense, like the quarterback.
Maybe under different circumstances Jones could take a belt here and there, but he is playing with injuries, so hands off.
Injuring Hoo isn’t the only reason Beasley is OK that he doesn’t have to tangle with Jones in practice. Beasley seemed a little worried about an injury to himself, not just Jones.
“Fortunately, I haven’t,” Beasley said when asked about whether he has had Jones’ open-palm stiff arm slam into his face mask. “I saw that today.”
Beasley was referring to Jones’ angry catch-and-run in the third quarter of the Falcons’ 44-21 win against the Green Bay Packers in the NFC Championship Game. It was a 73-yard scoring play, Ryan passing to Jones, and it showed off Jones’ skill set: hands, muscle, focus, speed, nastiness.
Ryan found Jones running open across the middle of the field on second down from the Atlanta 27-yard line. Green Bay cornerback LaDarius Gunter, in man-toman coverage, was beaten off the line and Jones cut inside. Gunter tried to tear Jones’ jersey off him to slow him down. Jones separated and kept his eyes up and on the ball as a pass-interference flag flew against Gunter. Jones caught the pass and raced to the edge of the field looking for a corner to turn.
Gunter tried to wrestle Jones around the waist, but Jones twisted away. Gunter dove and tried to clip Jones’ heels, but Jones highstepped and kicked away Gunter’s hands.
Jones turned sharp left upfield and stormed down the sideline in front of the Falcons bench. Green Bay cornerback Damarious Randall had leverage coming from the middle of the field and should have been able to push the wide receiver out of bounds. But Jones hand-fought Randall down the sideline, and then gave him one last face wash with a stiff arm and scored.
“Those guys weren’t going to tackle me once I got going,” Jones said.
The chorus supported Jones on that assertion. Jones even sup- ported Jones.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Gunter said.
“He’s big, got long arms, hard to tackle,” Randall said.
“He’s a monster out there,” Beasley said.
“The last guy, he didn’t have a chance,” Jones said.
Randall, the last guy, came up on Jones, but Jones said he had too much room and could have cut inside or continued to fly down the sideline. Randall could not defend both moves, Jones said.
ELEVATING HIS TEAMMATES
Jones, who is 6-3, 220 pounds, had nine catches for 180 yards and two touchdowns in the rout. He caught one pass against the sideline, tiptoeing to stay in bounds, showcasing his agility. He caught a pass just inside the endzone pylon, showing the physical strength to spin away from a hand fight with a defender to snatch a touchdown pass. Jones caught two third-down passes in the first half that he converted into first downs when Packers defense needed a stop to get off the field.
What else did Jones do? He made everyone around him better. The Packers bracketed Jones on several plays and then got beat by the other feature wide receiver, Mohamed Sanu, who had five catches for 52 yards and a TD.
“We definitely had ’em shook early on,” Jones said.
The Packers were so busy with Sanu and Jones and the running/ receiving of Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman that fullback Patrick DiMarco came out of the backfield invisible to the defense and had a 31-yard catch-and-run.
“He’s a guy you have to know where he is at all times on the field,” DiMarco said of Jones. “He demands a double team, and it just opens everything up for everyone else.
“That guy’s a freak. There’s something that that guy has that other people just don’t have.”
Beasley lives with it every day in practice. It’s why he says hands off Julio is good for everybody’s welfare.
“He can juke you or run you over. He can stiff-arm you or run around you,” Beasley said.
REST DOES JONES GOOD
There were questions all week about whether Jones would have enough juice for the Packers. He has a chronic toe injury and did not practice most of the week. But Friday he came to work out in practice, and, while the toe hurt, it did not hurt quite as bad.
This was like being 100% for Jones. He was going to play in Sunday’s NFC Championship Game regardless, but 80% was terrific news.
“I’m OK,” Jones said. He should be really OK with two weeks to rest before Super Bowl LI against the Patriots.
Here is the thing about Jones and playing hurt. As a junior at Alabama in 2010, his most productive game came the week he had six pins and a plate inserted in his broken left hand. He caught 12 passes against Tennessee in a 41-10 win.
It was that performance that helped persuade Atlanta general manager Thomas Dimitroff to make a blockbuster deal for Jones in the 2011 draft. He picked Jones sixth overall, but only after surrendering five draft picks. You didn’t hear mere howls of disbelief across the NFL, you heard music, taunting music.
The Falcons were held to two points in a playoff loss to the New York Giants in 2011, and Dimitroff said he heard the Paul Simon song, Me and Julio Down by the
Schoolyard played derisively in his honor. In 2013, when Jones was limited to five games, Dimitroff got another dose of the song.
On his way out of the locker room here Sunday after celebrating an NFC championship, which is why the Falcons did the big deal for Jones in the first place, Dimitroff was asked if he remembered the cackles.
He smiled wide and said, “I remember that,” but it was old news to Dimitroff by Sunday night. It’s the NFL, you do or you don’t, and you move on with your player personnel moves. The Falcons move on to the Super Bowl to play New England with an acquittal of the blockbuster deal that brought Jones to Atlanta.
The Falcons rolled for 493 yards against Green Bay. Ryan showed his MVP-like form, completing 27 of 38 passes for 392 yards.
He completed passes to eight receivers, including nine to Jones. It was a version of the 11 rule, as in No. 11 rules the field. Jones put an exclamation point on it after the game.
“The only team that can beat us is us,” Jones said.
“That guy’s a freak. There’s something that that guy has that other people just don’t have.” Falcons fullback Patrick DiMarco, referring to teammate Julio Jones