Alan Truex: Julio Jones has every right to hold out

Julio Jones has nothing critical to say about the Atlanta Falcons or coach Dan Quinn.  His unexcused absence from minicamp does not mean he won’t play for them this fall.  His only public comment, caught by TMZ outside a Hollywood restaurant:  “I’m not going anywhere.  I love the team.  I love the organization. I love everybody there.  We’re good.”

But maybe not good enough if you’re a Falcons fan.

Granted, Jones did not need to be in minicamp, practicing the Steve Sarkisian offense of last year that’s no mystery to him.  Or to everybody else in the NFL.

But if Jones fails to show for Real Training Camp, which opens in exactly one month, that’s a major problem for a team with Super Bowl credentials.

Last year we saw an elite offensive player, Le’Veon Bell, skip training camp for the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Not until the fourth week of the season did he produce 100 yards of offense in one game or more than 15 yards in one play.  A 6-point loss in Chicago might have been a W if Bell had been at his best.

Quinn emulates Pete Carroll, who was his boss when Seattle won a Super Bowl and barely lost another.   Like Carroll, Quinn tries to establish a “brotherhood” in the locker room.  

Quinn expects the players to think of their brothers when negotiating contracts.  He wants lots of communication, so he accumulates players who were teammates in the past.  The more common ground, common experience, the better.  He has four players from LSU, two from Florida, two from Georgia, two from Clemson, two from Washington.

And, most significantly, two from Alabama: Jones and his projected successor, first-rounder Calvin Ridley, who has to count as a bargaining chip for the Falcons’ general manager, Thomas Dimitroff, and owner Art Blank.

Julio Jones did his part for the Brotherhood in 2015, when he signed for five years at $71.3 million, with little of it guaranteed after 2018.   Jimmy Sexton, his agent, has an impressive roster of clients (starting with Nick Saban), but he’s considered more team-friendly than, say, Drew Rosenhaus.

The contract Jones signed made him the highest-paid receiver in football.  As he should have been, after a season in which he caught 136 passes for 1,871 yards and 8 touchdowns.

But with football speeding up its evolution from ground to air, receivers became increasingly treasured.  Especially Jones, the fastest, most athletic, though perhaps not as crafty with the Velcro as Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins or, of course, Odell Beckham Jr.

In 2016 Jones caught 83 for 1,409 for a team scoring an NFL-record 540 points.  The Falcons led the Super Bowl 28-3 before deciding not to run out the clock.

Jones last season caught 88 for 1,444 yards, numbers exceeded only by Pittsburgh’s Brown, who finished first in NFL Network’s players poll of receivers.  Jones was second.  To show how highly regarded the elite receivers are, Brown was voted No. 2 overall, ahead of every quarterback but Tom Brady.  Jones was fourth, after ranking third overall the year before.

It’s no injustice that Jones earns less than Brown’s $17 mil per year.  And no insult to be paid less than Hopkins ($16 mil), who last year caught 13 TDs.

But A.J. Green, Mike Evans, Jarvis Landry, Davante Adams, Sammy Watkins?  Talented players who do not have career numbers or peak-season numbers rivaling Jones.  Unless his contract is changed, he will earn less this year than they.

The contract that so-called super-agent Sexton negotiated for Jones invited renegotiation.  It allows the Falcons to sever their ties with Jones at the end of this season, when he will be 30 and his guaranteed money essentially over.     His next multi-year contract almost surely will be his last.

According to Jeff Schultz of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the team planned to restructure Jones’ contract in the next off-season.  But not this one.  The current priorities are extensions for left tackle Jake Matthews and defensive tackle Grady Jarrett, who are eligible for free agency after the 2018 season.

So the Falcons expect Julio to wait his turn.  The front office points out that he’s fulfilled only 40% of his contract.  To renegotiate now would open the door to dozens of other players holding out unless their salary is raised in the middle of the term.  Everyone will want to keep up with Jones.

To which I say: So what?

The NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement gives players the right to breach a contract without fear of being sued for doing so.  Just as it gives owners the right to release a player who’s under contract at the time.

Nobody complains when a team cuts a declining veteran to avoid paying millions remaining on a contract.  But the fan base denounces players for wanting compensation to match their performance.   A deal’s a deal, they say.  He’s making more money than anybody needs.

As a sports writer covering labor disputes for four decades, I found that most fans accept owners making billions but are strangely opposed to players making millions.  

The management side considered me an enemy during baseball’s 1994 labor war, and I’m proud to say no team I’ve covered ever invited me to appear on pregame radio.  They could not trust me to say what they wanted to hear.

In ‘94 I wrote that MLB was lying about its bottom line and heading for disaster in canceling the World Series while trying to force the players into a salary cap.   The ballclubs were using unfair labor practices, as future Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor ruled in ending the war.

MLB had a team of high-priced Manhattan attorneys (including Rob Manfred, who would succeed Bud Selig as commissioner).  But Astros owner Drayton McLane, one of the designers of the scorched-earth labor plan, lamented in the end: “We could have hired better lawyers out of Temple, Texas.”

Three years later, having learned more about the Fair Labor Standards Act, I pointed out to my editor that the Houston Chronicle was playing loose with it by not paying overtime (@ 1½ times the hourly salary).  No OT was OK with me as long as I got hour-for-hour comp time, which was, wink-wink, common in the industry.  When the Chron, pushing ever harder, insisted I work 55 hours for 40-hour pay, I sued.

The newspaper, not yet failing by then, lost in its motion for summary judgment, and I thought my fellow journalists would appreciate my stand.  But many did not.  Mark Berman, Houston’s most respected TV sports reporter, told me, “I didn’t know you can sue the people who put bread on your table.”  I replied: “You can if they break the law.”

Julio Jones is breaking no laws, only team rules.  He’s using perfectly legal leverage he will never have again.  The Falcons know that without him they cannot reach the Super Bowl.  Which will be in Atlanta.  So how ugly can this get?  For the brotherhood of the team, they should give in to Jones.  I think his teammates will understand.  Even if most of the fans and most of the media will not.