During a preseason game that was otherwise notably free of Julio Jones, who is smartly sidelined until the games matter, we got a quasi-update on his contract status. I say quasi-update because there was nothing strictly new about it, but the team continues to have faith they’re close to getting a deal done.
I’m turning to ESPN’s Vaughn McClure for the quotes here because I was probably busy hammering away on the Del’Shawn Phillips section of my game recap, but Dimitroff did say one noteworthy thing: He knows that the team needs to make Julio the highest-paid receiver in the NFL, even if there are structural tweaks to make that more palatable for the Falcons in the end.