When Julio Jones, the otherworldly Atlanta Falcons wide receiver (allegedly from Alabama) was a second-year player, back in December of 2012, he acrobatically caught a touchdown pass that helped seal a win against the mangy Detroit Lions. This gave the Falcons a 13–2 record, for only the second time in the franchise’s history. (They finished 13–3 and lost the N.F.C. championship game.) While on the sidelines that day, Jones watched the Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson—widely known as Megatron, thanks to his physical similarity to a terrifyingly powerful robot—catch eleven passes, for two hundred and twenty-five yards, breaking Jerry Rice’s record for most receiving yards in a single season. (Johnson ended the year with a thousand nine hundred and sixty-four yards, and watched the N.F.L. playoffs, one imagines, from his couch or Jacuzzi. The Lions finished 4–12.)
In each of the first three games of this season, Jones caught passes for more than a hundred and thirty-five yards, something no one—not even Megatron—had ever done before. Jones currently leads receivers in yards, despite nagging injuries and a resurgent Falcons running attack. In a loss to the Indianapolis Colts yesterday, he caught nine passes for a hundred and sixty yards—a tally that sadly does not include a stunning almost-catch with time running out that would have put the Falcons in position for a game-tying field goal. But when asked recently about his pursuit of Johnson’s receiving record, Jones said he wasn’t aware of it. The exchange with the twenty-six-year-old two-time Pro Bowl selection went like this:
To be a successful N.F.L. player, it helps to be large, fast, and preternaturally coördinated, like Jones. It’s possible that a little crazy doesn’t hurt. (Chad Ochocinco and Terrell Owens come to mind.) Ideally, you also have a good long-term memory—for the endless playbook you’re expected to learn—but very little short-term memory for those recently dropped balls or concussive hits or frustrating losses. “When your number is called, you produce,” Jones told me. “But you have to forget that last play. If you catch a great ball and then you drop eight others, what good was that first one? You don’t get caught up in each catch. It’s just a routine. I catch the ball and then it’s over. The only question is: What can I do now? You’ve got to be a machine out there.”
It’s no coincidence that the nickname Megatron refers to the “Transformers” franchise. Great players may not be robotic off the field, but it behooves them to embrace robotic attributes on it. Run the route. Run it again. And again. Catch the ball. Again. If the catches add up to a large number, and people start getting excited about that number, ignore it. Stay in the moment. Do what you’ve been programmed since Pee Wee football to do.
So it is that Jones—if we’re to believe him—doesn’t think about the franchise or N.F.L. records he has set (those four hundred and forty yards receiving in the first three games of this season) or is now, whether he likes it or not, pursuing (such as Johnson’s mark). Even his past sporting achievements don’t seem to register: “I don’t know if I broke any records in high school or college.” (He did.) “I ran track, played basketball, football. But I don’t know about any records.”
Selective amnesia? Probably not. Abundant humility? It doesn’t seem all that likely: “If I didn’t play football,” Jones told me, “I probably could have been in the Olympics for track. Jumping or something.” Perhaps Jones is just parroting the coach’s voice he hears in his head; players in all sports are taught to put the team first, and Jones does seem to have embraced this philosophy: “You can be a great receiver, but you have to win games. Megatron may have the record you mentioned, or whatnot, but it takes a whole team to put you up there and win Super Bowls. Winning Super Bowls is what matters, not stats.”
Jones doesn’t have a catchy nickname beyond Julio. (His given name is Quintorris Lopez Jones.) He came late to the game he now dominates. “I didn’t watch football growing up,” he said. “I started watching a little when I got to college, but I didn’t idolize anyone or watch anyone too close. I was outside just being a kid: running around the neighborhood, games at the park.” That ended abruptly when he became the No. 1 high-school-football prospect in the country and signed with the University of Alabama on national television, in 2008. Once enrolled in Tuscaloosa, he was elected to the student senate despite not running for office. (He declined the seat.) Three years later, the Falcons traded the Cleveland Browns five coveted draft picks for him, believing he was their future. He’s made a franchise not often cited for its sagacity look smart. Recently, the Tennessee Titans wide receiver Harry Douglas said that Jones could become the “greatest player ever.” The ESPN analyst Jon Gruden even compared him, somewhat oddly, to Hank Aaron.
“I appreciate that respect,” Jones said. “But that’s just an opinion. My main focus is football. I don’t play hoops. I don’t do nothing else. It only takes one time for anything to go wrong outside of football.” (This past off-season, Jason Pierre-Paul blew off most of two fingers and a thumb in a fireworks accident, for instance.) “The risk for us playing football is already high enough.” Indeed, nicknames like Megatron may help insulate viewers from the harsh reality that football is a dangerous sport, not a video game, and that it has very real consequences for its genuinely human players.
No matter how tempting it is to wish for, athletes will never be perfect machines. The N.B.A.’s Golden State Warriors—still unbeaten, at 15–0, after last night’s easy victory over the Denver Nuggets—will prove it again one of these days. Jones knows it, too. Nonetheless, as he repeatedly made clear in conversation, robotic precision is the goal. “You’ve got eleven guys on one side on every play, and it’s hard to make sure everyone is doing the same thing and doing it right. If you get close, you’re doing pretty good. It’s hard, because the guys on the other side are professionals just like we are. And they’re gonna bring it. But when you can impose your will on somebody, like a machine, that’s the best.”
