Getty Atlanta Falcons WR Julio Jones.
The Atlanta Falcons boast one of the most explosive offenses in the entire NFL. Even though their head coach, Dan Quinn, is known for defense, Atlanta has had one of the most consistently high-powered offenses in the NFL over the last few years. That is largely thanks to quarterback Matt Ryan. With weapons like Calvin Ridley and Devonta Freeman, the Falcons should continue to put up big offensive numbers in 2019.
However, that’s not mentioning the best weapon that the team has and that’s wide receiver Julio Jones. Fresh off his fifth season in a row of over 1,400 receiving yards, Jones is one of the most dominant playmakers in the NFL. Larry Fitzgerald, Brandon Marshall, Antonio Brown, Antonio Gates are the only active players that have more career receiving yards than he. All of those players are significantly older than Jones, except for Brown. He’ll keep moving up that list once the 2019 season starts and he’s poised for another big fantasy football year.
Julio Jones Fantasy Football Projections: Outlook & Preview
The biggest knock on Jones is that he doesn’t score a lot of touchdowns. He’s only had one season where he scored double-digit touchdowns and that was all the way back in 2012. However, he racks up a ridiculous amount of yards. If yards were worth more points, he’d be one of the top fantasy football options out there. The problem is, he’s only averaging 6.2 touchdowns a season over the last five years. That being said, he still scored more points in PPR than Antonio Brown did in 2018, even though he scored seven fewer touchdowns.
Fantasy Pros has Jones as the eighth overall fantasy prospect heading into 2019 and the third-best wide receiver. He’s behind DeAndre Hopkins and Davante Adams. Considering last year’s numbers, that’s a reasonable place to put him as he was the fourth-best receiver in 2018. Some may like Tyreek Hill over Jones, but there are some unknowns with Hill and who knows if he gets into trouble at some point in the season and has to miss time?
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Julio Jones Fantasy Football Projections: Outlook & Preview
The scariest thing about drafting Jones is how many weapons are around him. Mohamed Sanu and Calvin Ridley both had over 800 receiving yards in 2018. Plus, Devonta Freeman is coming back after missing most of last season. There may be too many options for Jones to continue his dominant production. Him being a lack of a touchdown threat also should cause some apprehension.
The Action Network projects Jones to get 95.1 receptions, 1,405 yards and 6.8 touchdowns. Those numbers are pretty much in line with his average numbers, but he could easily exceed that yards projection.
While some might favor Antonio Brown, Michael Thomas or Tyreek Hill for their team, Jones shouldn’t slip past the second round. He’s a definite WR1 and should receive quite a few Matt Ryan targets over the year. He also doesn’t have a significant injury history, so that works in his favor, as well.
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