The Falcons lost their fifth straight game on Sunday afternoon, falling 23-19 to the Buccaneers and dealing their flagging playoff hopes another serious blow.
Over the course of the loss, the Falcons advanced to the red zone three times but only scored one touchdown. Wide receiver Julio Jones wasn’t responsible for that score and hasn’t gotten into the end zone since Week Eight, leaving him wondering why the team isn’t calling his number more often when they are in scoring position.
“I don’t know what they are doing,” Jones said, via the Atlanta Journal Constitution. “I just go out there and do what I’m told to do. If we are getting those looks, they’ll call those plays, but I don’t know. I don’t know what we are doing down there. I don’t know what the thinking it is as far as if we’re going to throw jump balls or if we are going to run the ball with whatever look we get down there. We practice throughout the week throwing jump balls and fades and doing all of those things. But when the game comes, you never know what’s going to come up.”
Jones caught two passes in the red zone Sunday, but the Falcons didn’t look his way on any goal-to-go situations. Jones has 102 catches for 1,338 yards overall this season and is clearly the best player on this year’s team, which makes it all the harder to guess why the Falcons would go elsewhere on the biggest plays of the game.