With Matt Ryan announcing his official retirement is coming, Falcons fans debate his Hall of Fame resume with other NFL fans.
He’ll end up in the team’s ring of honor and could eventually end up in Canton, but one of his former teammates will be a first-ballot Hall of Famer—Julio Jones. He’s the greatest receiver of his generation and owns a slew of league and franchise records, and will eventually be enshrined in Canton’s Pro Football Hall of Fame.
It’s never a bad time to bring up just how special of a player he is, either. At the league’s owners meetings in Orlando, Mike McDaniel praised Jones, telling Kevin Clark that if anyone wanted to see a single play that encapsulated who Julio Jones was as a player, look no further than his iconic catch over Luke Kuechly in 2015.
Mike McDaniel remembers a badass: JULIO JONES “He was doing things on a route tree that a 180-pound guy [does] and he was 230 pounds.” From Tuesday’s This Is Football. pic.twitter.com/Ux7BJpGIv4
— Kevin Clark (@bykevinclark) March 27, 2024
Here’s a refresher if you need your memory jogged:
Julio's 300 yard game was against the Panthers in 2016, but this specific catch that McDaniel is referencing actually happened the year prior in 2015 during a 9 catch, 178 yard game from Julio in Week 16.
The catch 👇 https://t.co/3WcUDpsubO pic.twitter.com/8vhRqGw6Km
— Brandon Thorn (@BrandonThornNFL) March 27, 2024
Joneswas a physical specimen that very few people could comprehend without seeing it firsthand. The former Falcons receiver became the fastest player in league history to reach 10,000 yards in 2018, then became the franchise record holder for all-time receiving yards the next year. In 2020, Jones became the all-time career receptions leader for the Falcons. Moreover, his 87.9 receiving yards per game is the second highest in NFL history
Julio Jones is a freak of nature that will end his career in Canton. There’s no doubt about that.
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Photographer: David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire
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