A legendary star high in the NFL wide receiver ranks officially closed the book on his career last week. Star wide receiver Julio Jones is officially hanging up his cleats after 13 seasons with four different teams.
Jones started out his career with the Atlanta Falcons, the team that drafted him out of Alabama with the sixth overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. Jones only spent three seasons with the Crimson Tide before foregoing his senior season to enter the NFL early.
While in the NFL, Jones made a name for himself quickly as a sure-handed, toe-tapping wide receiver for the Falcons. In his entire career in the NFL with the Falcons, Tennessee Titans, Tampa Bay Buccanneers, and Philadelphia Eagles, Jones caught 914 passes for 13,703 yards, 66 touchdowns, and fumbled the ball just 11 times in his career, losing only six of them.
Jones will truly go down as one of the best to ever do it at his position, but his retirement did not come as a surprise as the receiver was not with a team during the 2024 season.
Julio Jones thanks Curt Cignetti is heartfelt retirement video
The long-time NFL receiver announced his retirement with a video on social media, thanking friends, family, teammates, and current and former coaches, including current Indiana head coach Curt Cignetti.
Julio Jones, one of the best WRs of all-time, announced his retirement on the social media app, “Squad”. Here is the video: pic.twitter.com/VuGbs4EpR9
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) April 4, 2025
Cignetti did coach the future Hall of Famer when he was at Alabama. When Jones played with the Crimson Tide, Cignetti was the wide receivers coach from 2007 to 2010 before leaving to take his first-ever head coaching position at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, a Division II program.
While Nick Saban can be given a lot of credit for his role in coaching Jones, Cignetti can be given just as much as his wide receivers coach. It was a short shoutout from Jones in his video, but without Cignetti, maybe Jones would not have learned as much as he did.