Report: Julio Jones gets “approximately” $2 million of 2019 salary as signing bonus

Lets recap this offseason. Julio Jones skipped mandatory minicamp and then things got kind of nuts. Yesterday, reports surfaced that Jones was planning to holdout for at least part of training camp. Last night, Jones got a contract adjustment, and he’s heading to camp.

This part isn’t to brag about saying everyone will forget this when football starts. After all, we did not know what contract adjustment was made. Did Jones outdo deals signed by Brandin Cooks and Sammy Watkins?

Nah, according to Jeff Schultz of the Athletic.

This year, Jones was set to make $10.5 million in base salary. Not to be forgotten, the pro-rated portion of his signing bonus also amounted to $2.4 million. So he’s really making just about $12.9 million this year, it’s just that $2.4 million was paid when he signed. He gets an extra $2 million of cold, hard... probably direct deposit.

Essentially, there’s no new money, but it looks unlikely Jones will be finishing out his contract as planned. Regardless, the $2 million “signing bonus” cap hit will be split across the last three years of his deal, meaning the Falcons should lose about $667,000 in cap space this year. That is very, very minimal.

For reference, we joke about how the New Orleans Saints just narrowly avoid the cap every single year, and it is in part because they have frequently reworked base salaries into more cap-friendly signing bonuses.

Great move for the Falcons, who get Jones in camp day one for an insignificant cap hit.