MONDAY NIGHT PREVIEW
At Mercedes-Benz Stadium, Atlanta, 5:30 p.m., TSN
Julio Jones is one of the most talented wide receivers ever to play pro football. He’s fearless, fast, physical and huge, with amazing instincts and great hands.
He’s prolific, too — as prolific as any receiver in the league this decade, at least in terms of catches and yards.
For whatever head-scratching reasons, however, the eighth-year pro just doesn’t catch many touchdowns anymore. It’s like there’s a Star Wars type of deflector shield protecting every NFL end zone from Jones.
Entering Week 7, he ranked second in the league with 707 receiving yards and was tied for sixth with 44 catches — but not one grab has gone for a touchdown.
Alas for both Jones and those in fantasy football who have chosen him for their teams in recent years (raises hand), this year is but a continuing trend for him — which began in his fourth year in the league, 2014.
Since then, Jones has been wildly prolific from catches and yards standpoints (he has the highest yardsper-game average in NFL history, with 96.7) but not touchdowns. He scored only six TDs via the pass in 2014, eight in 2015, six in 2016 and just three last year. That’s 23 TDs in his past 67 games — after snaring 20 in his first 23 games.
The Giants can relate.
They have Odell Beckham Jr., who similarly catches a lot of passes for a lot of yards (he’s second only to Jones with 93 yards-per-game average) but not for a lot of touchdowns anymore.
Beckham caught 35 TDs in his first 42 NFL games from 2014-16. But in four games last year before breaking an ankle, and in six this year, he has caught only four TDs total.