How do you sufficiently respect a wide receiver that likely views himself as the best in the league, with the statistics to back it up? Why, by making him the highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL, of course!
And so that's what Arthur Blank and the Atlanta Falcons did back in 2019, inking Julio Jones to a three-year, $66 million extension with nearly all of it guaranteed. At the time of its reporting, NFL Network's Tom Pelissero viewed it as Blank "making good on a promise and taking care of another of his stars."
Two years later, however, the star wide receiver is a member of the Tennessee Titans, and it seems all Blank can do is shrug his shoulders about what happened. He opened up to The Athletic's Jeff Schultz to discuss how the wide receiver's relationship with the Falcons organization worsened after the deal.
"We, being Thomas (Dimitroff), coach (Dan) Quinn, the player and his agent (Jimmy Sexton), were all kind of at odds with each other. We got a contract done," Blank said. "We felt it was very generous. It made him the top paid receiver in NFL history... But for whatever reason, he felt it wasn't sufficient respect. I don't know why he'd feel that way, but he did feel that way."
Blank went on to say that their relationship changed from that point, and that he thinks players on the team would say the same thing.
"He just wasn’t … Look, he gave us 10 great years. He’s going to be a Hall of Fame player. He was a good teammate for all that period of time," Blank said. "(But) his ability or willingness to practice the way he did early in his career was different. There were some people who were in the building who had an effect on him. He wanted out, and the last thing coach (Arthur) Smith wants is a player who doesn’t want to be here."
Smith, interestingly enough, came to Atlanta from his previous role as the offensive coordinator of the Titans, the team for which Jones now plays. Smith, instead, will be able to watch future star Kyle Pitts develop alongside Calvin Ridley, while Jones will lineup next to A.J. Brown and Derrick Henry in one of the most devastating groups of skill players that the NFL has to offer.
Who ultimately "won" the trade may be hard to determine, seeing as both teams are in very different situations for both the short- and long-term, but what happens in 2021 begin the process of seeing which team came out on top.
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