The Falcons have wide receiver Julio Jones under contract for the 2015 season and they could make use of the franchise tag to keep Jones on hand in 2016, but General Manager Thomas Dimitroff says that the team would prefer to work something out that locks Jones up for years to come.
No contract talks have been held between the team and Jones’s camp at this point, but Dimitroff says that the end of the draft means that now is the time to turn attention toward a long-term extension for the talented wideout.
“There is no question that our focus in the future will be on Julio Jones and where we are,” Dimitroff said, via Vaughn McClure of ESPN.com. “I don’t want to get into specifics about the timing of that, obviously. But now that the draft is over and we continue to build this football team, we understand that Julio is a very important part of our building and evolving as a championship-type team.”
Dimitroff said that Jones’s history of foot injuries wasn’t a concern after Jones rebounded from 2013’s extended absence to set a franchise record for receiving yards in a single season. A franchise tag for 2016 would be in the neighborhood of $13 million, which probably provides a pretty good jumping off point for contract talks.