The trade rumors continue to swirl on Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Julio Jones.
The Falcons are working to sign their 2021 rookie class but in order to do so, they have to get underneath the salary cap.
Jones carries a $23 million cap hit in 2021 and a nearly $20 million hit the following two seasons which hampers the Falcons on signing any of their rookie class unless restructured.
NFL Network reporter and Falcons Insider Steve Wyche told 92.9 The Game on Thursday don't want to trade Jones but his contract could make that inevitable.
“In terms of Julio, they’re going to take this up to training camp and see if any teams wanna come get him. Because maybe there is a team, maybe the Raiders or someone say 'Hey look we’ll give you this compensation' and say OK we’re gonna move him and they can fix their cap a little bit.
“They don’t want to trade the player. Again I want to emphasize that. They don’t want to trade the player, but it is the contract. It is them trying to do some type of market correction on the cap moving forward is to why they’re even entertaining this notion.”
Which teams could use an elite, veteran wide receiver? Wyche mentioned the Raiders. Randy McMichael and Nick Kayal on the Midday Show could see him in a 49ers uniform come fall.
"San Francisco's kind of interesting," Nick said. "They've got Debo Samuels, they've got (George) Kittle. If Julio goes there--and that team was ravaged by injury--if they stay healthy, with Julio, the NFC West is maybe the most exciting division in the league."