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When Falcons General Manager Thomas Dimitroff gave up two first-round picks, a second-round pick and two fourth-round picks to get the sixth overall pick in the NFL draft, plenty of people thought he was crazy. Even Bill Belichick advised Dimitroff not to give up that kind of draft capital for one player.

So why did Dimitroff do it? He explained on PFT Live that he thought Jones was not just a talented receiver, but a game plan-changing receiver, the kind of player who forced opposing teams to completely change their defenses to account for him.

“We had a budding quarterback, we had a tight end at that time in Tony Gonzalez and we started to grow as an offense, we had Roddy White of course but we were lacking in a really explosive player that was going to have defenses on their heels,” Dimitroff said. “My feeling was, I want to somehow, with a player acquisition, turn teams upside down with their preparation and really cause a distraction, not only on the field on Sunday but through the whole week, of wondering how they’re going to deal with a guy like Julio Jones.”

Dimitroff said there were a handful of elite playmakers on other teams who gave the Falcons nightmares, and the Falcons wanted to start giving opposing teams those same nightmares.

“I don’t know if I’ve been public about this, and this wasn’t the only player, but I remember pulling my hair out when we’d play DeSean Jackson, who would just run roughshod with his speed and his athleticism, and I remember thinking, ‘We need our version of that.’ We need our version, whether Julio Jones catches 14 balls or four balls, we need that. We need teams to be game planning for a person because it takes away their focus on other elements of the game. That’s basically the genesis of the decision,” Dimitroff said.

In Jones, the Falcons got such a player — and probably more production than they could have had from the five players they would have drafted if they hadn’t traded up.