You can go back to loving Julio Jones now

You know that scene in the Indiana Jones movies where Indy gets out of the ancient booby trap right in the nick of time, and he pulls his hat right out under the closing stone door of doom?

That’s basically what happened between the Falcons and Julio Jones.

As you woke up this morning and found your Christmas in July present on your Twitter feed with the news that Jones will indeed report to camp on time as the team struck an 11th-hour agreement on a reworked deal.

After all the drama, rumors of bad blood between Jones and the organization, nerves ramping up about the possibility of Jones missing camp and the news that, indeed, that was Julio’s plan, the entire situation up and disappeared like a fart in the winds of Shawshank prison.

As of now, everyone gets what they want, which is the best possible outcome for all of this. Jones won the holdout with the deal he wanted. The Falcons avoided having their best player miss a second of summer camp and also won’t have any sort of 2018 cap strains to leave the conversation with. This settled just fine before it got a little tense.

Staying cool was the answer all along following each update; no matter what the narrative was, or what someone on Twitter said, or who or when or why, the game was always going to end this way. Jones was going to get some sort of something worked out and was going to be ready for Week 1. In this scenario, the team avoids the holdout altogether and can focus on football while making their star reasonably happy (as far as we’re aware). That’s aces, guys. Aces.

The moral to this story for us is all the dumb Julio slander needs to stop.

I’ll be brief, but this has gone on for long enough. Throngs of Falcons fans spent just about two months in this bizarro world where Jones was an enemy of the public for wanting a few extra million a season, and was deserving of being trade, cut and exiled to Siberia. The hot takes were bubbling in the cauldron of crap, and if you were one of those who aired out your grievances toward Jones for, this one time, doing something for him, then you do need to be a bit more cautious when these things happen with Falcons players, and a bit more understanding of where players are coming from.

There were plenty of level-headed, more-than-fair arguments to be made on the team’s behalf. It just would have been nice to hear those more in the daily conversation from those going against Jones. Too often, it was a noisy, pointless fracas in the stands. Not for a second was he a “bad teammate,” nor did he ding the culture. That was all hogwash laced with skunk spray and vinegar.

We can’t let this conversation boil over into a controversy of calamity every time a player comes up for a deal and doesn’t approach it exactly like you’d hope. It’s unhelpful, causes you to say things you probably wind up regretting later, and gives this entire fan base a bad look.

But, y’know, it’s just football. If you said something mean or ugly about Julio, just say something extra nice when Jones makes a sick grab against the Eagles in September. It’s a waste of time for any of us to continue to talk about any of this, because the holdout is null and void.

They got it worked out, and while it was, er, interesting to see so much anger directed at a guy who for years has brought fans nothing but celebration, pleasure and fun highlights, this doesn’t have to continue to be where the conversation is regarding No. 11.

If you’ve been on the anti-Julio train, realize that the train has run out of fuel. You have no reason not to love this guy again. Throw your support behind him every Sunday like you always have; heck, maybe even more so out of greater appreciation. He’s the best player on your favorite team, for goodness sake.

Sincerely. You can go back to loving Julio Jones now.

You never should have stopped in the first place.