Atlanta Falcons: Julio Jones has no leverage in holdout

As Julio Jones begins and likely continues his holdout from Atlanta Falcons training camp, the star receiver has no leverage against the team.

In recent memory, there have been sporadic holdouts by NFL players, most often when they feel they have outplayed their rookie deals. Rookie salaries, as negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement, are slotted. Based on where you are drafted, you are given a fairly tight range of salary terms.

Occasionally, a player will significantly out-pace the other players in his draft class or in the position group in which he was drafted. In those rare cases, players have held out and often they are given new deals.

Julio Jones is not playing out his rookie deal with the Atlanta Falcons. You see, he already re-negotiated that one, in a similar way to what I described above. Heading into the last season of his rookie deal, a contract that he outplayed, he felt he deserved more money. The Falcons seemingly agreed and gave it to him. Jones, in negotiating that contract, agreed to a five-year extension.

Jones is now attempting to “update” a contract that, at the time he signed it, made him the second highest-paid wide receiver in the NFL. It is also worth mentioning that he has three years left on his current deal.

Jones, surely the player most synonymous with the Falcons, has two options for the 2018 season ahead: Play and get paid $10.5 million in salary, or sit out and get zero.

When was the last time a player had the guts and the savings to sit out for a full year? Sean Gilbert, in 1997, did just that. After being hit with the franchise tag by the Washington Redskins, Gilbert decided to sit out the entire season rather than sign the $3.4 million tender. The Redskins responded by slapping him with the tag again for the 1998 season.

Gilbert was traded shortly after to the Carolina Panthers, who prompted gave him the richest defensive lineman contract in NFL history. The cautionary tale, that could be informing the Falcons’ (and every other NFL team’s) decision on Jones, is that Gilbert never lived up to that deal.

Deciding to skip OTAs and minicamp were a bit of a distraction for the Falcons as an organization as they all had to field questions about Jones’ long term intent. All public voices have been supportive of Jones, including the owner Arthur Blank, who called Jones a Falcons lifer. Interestingly enough, this is the same way he described Jones during the 2015 negotiations.

As clearly as that sentiment was communicated, so too has the latest from the organization as a whole. There will be no new deal, at least until next offseason. Not only does Jones not have leverage with the front office, he may even risk his reputation among his teammates.

There seems to be a code among players in the league to stay out of another man’s quest for money. That is, until a player puts that quest above the mission of the entire team. You only need to look back a few years to Kam Chancellor’s holdout that ran into the season, causing him to miss two games.

The locker room can be the safest, most tight-knit community imaginable but when a player isn’t there, especially one that is an obvious difference maker, it can close ranks, even to a player with the stature of Jones.