Murphy’s Law: Why the Green Bay Packers lost to the Atlanta Falcons
By Kenn Korb
No answers For Julio
The Falcons for many years used to rely far too heavily on their resident mythical beast (with good reason; he’s incredible), but that would act as a double-edged sword, dragging down the flow of their offense in lieu of giving him the constant level of targets his skill level demanded (not to mention all the missed time due to his unfortunate multitude of injuries).
This year has seen Atlanta become one of the best offenses the league has ever seen because of the ability of the offense to effectively utilize more weapons (an NFL record 13 players caught touchdowns for them this season).
Even so, the presence of Jones majorly aids their gameplans, and putting his high-end talents to use takes Atlanta to their highest possible level.
We got to see how good the offense could move now with him not being the target -check that opening drive again – but even with that, this was a game to remember from Julio.
He ended up leading his team in targets (12), receptions (9), receiving yardage (180), and touchdowns (2). Five of his catches went for at least 15 yards, including his team-best 73 yard catch-and-run touchdown.
Speaking of that catch, what an impossible day for LaDarius Gunter. This man was supposed to be the team’s 4th corner at best coming into the year, and he had to try handling this monstrous receiver himself.
On this play he simply had no choice but to blatantly hold Julio as he gets spun around, separated from, and then left in the dust after a fruitless diving tackle attempt (along with Damarious Randall, who’s still searching for his soul following Julio’s stiff arm).
Add that to how he was juked into oblivion on another Julio route (he’ still running as you read this), got eaten alive in a 1-on-1 situation against him for a TD on the goalline.
Julio didn’t stop at embarrassing the overmatched Gunter, either; he had plenty of embarrassment to dole out! He owned the third Atlanta drive, coming away with catches of 17, 20, and 19 to easily move his team across the field despite multiple defensive looks thrown his way.
He got flipped in the air during a 23-yard catch attempt; not only does he somehow come down with the ball, but one of the guys trying so hard to stop him ended up hurt rather than him, the guy going end over end and needing to focus on adjusting his hands to make a reception rather than protecting himself on the rapidly approaching meeting with the ground.
Quite simply: Julio was a beast, and the Packers had no way to survive his dominance.