The Sports Xchange

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Offensive tackle Lamar Holmes of the Atlanta Falcons, who missed most of last season because a foot injury, sustained a broken foot and will be out indefinitely.

Holmes, a third-round pick (91st overall) in 2012 out of Southern Mississippi, has had a history of foot problems dating to his rookie season.

“Lamar Holmes banged up his foot (Tuesday),” head coach Dan Quinn said. “He went down and saw the doctor. It looks like he has a broken foot. One of the bones in his foot.”

Holmes played in one game in 2012 and had a foot surgery. He came back to start 15 of 16 games in 2013 before suffering another foot injury in the fourth game of last season.

It is not known if this is the same troublesome foot or if he broke a bone in the other foot.

“I don’t know the prognosis on when he’ll be back,” Quinn said. “But we’ll move forward with that in the next couple of days. I don’t know any information regarding training camp or when he’ll be back. It was another setback from an injury standpoint.”

Holmes, 25, dropped about 30 pounds and was moving well in the Falcons’ new zone-blocking scheme.

“Up until this point for him, he’s had a terrific offseason,” Quinn said. “This is a setback for him. He was one of the guys who worked really hard this offseason. Hopefully, he’ll have a speedy recovery and we wish the best to him.”

Holmes, who had been working out at left tackle while Jake Matthews recovered from foot surgery, was expected to compete for the starting right tackle job with Ryan Schraeder and Tyler Polumbus.

The Falcons released veteran tackle Sam Baker on Monday.

–While the team has expressed a desire to retain wide receiver Julio Jones, he doesn’t know the status of any purported contract talks.

“I don’t even know if they are talking about it,” Jones said. “I haven’t talked to (agent) Jimmy (Sexton) about no contract. I haven’t talked to (general manager Thomas Dimitroff) about it.

“You just hear words about it or whatever. ‘We want to get this done,’ or ‘We want to get that done.’ I don’t know. I just come to work.”

Jones has been hard at work trying to pick up the new offense that offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan is installing.

“Kyle makes everything look the same,” Jones said. “We have several routes off the same stem. We’re gonna run the ball and be very balanced.”

Jones is not following the other receivers’ situations. He was unaware of Dez Bryant’s Twitter rant about how $12.8 million couldn’t provide his family financial security.

“Dez is Dez,” Jones said of the Dallas Cowboys’ receiver. “He’s going to say and do what he wants to do. Everybody is entitled to say what they want to say, and the media is going to create and do what they want to with it.

“But as far as me and how I look at it, I’m coming out here to play ball.”

–Safety William Moore, who had offseason surgery after an injury-marred 2014 campaign, is being eased back into the defense.

“It was great to see William back for the first time,” head coach Dan Quinn said. “Inside you feel the size and the presence of him. I can’t wait to have him down in the box and roaming inside.”

Quinn has big plans for the strong safety position.

“The way we play our strong safety, often times like a linebacker where he’s in the core or out,” Quinn said. “He can play a tight end man-to-man. Our energy that we want to play with on defense, we want to play on the line at corner until we can’t. We want to affect and move the quarterback.

“We want to be the best fundamental tackling team in the League. All those things take a lot of practice, so for him it’s an important step for him to get back out on the field today.”