Hi. Quick question
Is it good when one of your primary quarterback options (Tua Tagovailoa) has a back injury flare-up, and your other primary quarterback option (Michael Penix Jr.) still isn’t cleared for 11-on-11s, and you have to bring in a veteran backup (Cooper Rush) to replace your original veteran backup (Trevor Siemian) because he’s hurt, too, and you can’t have an undrafted rookie from Minnesota State-Moorhead (Jack Strand) getting a million reps?
On the first day of training camp?
Is that good?
MORE TRAINING CAMP QUESTIONS
In all seriousness: Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski said he expects Tagovailoa to return to action “shortly,” and Penix is participating in 7-on-7s and such.
Try not to panic (a lot) just yet.
It’s only Day 1 of training camp, after all — and we’ve got a lovely little Q&A with beat writer Daniel Flick all lined up.
My questions, posed prior to this morning’s updates, are in bold. Mr. Flick’s answers are in between.
Health aside, what is this coaching staff even looking for in the QB battle? How will they pick a winner?
The easy answer is a little bit of everything, but command is the biggest piece to the puzzle. Yes, accuracy and completion rate matters, but the Falcons want their quarterback to get them in and out of the huddle, operate the audibles and effectively communicate calls to teammates.
Which rookie are you most excited to see more of?
The second-to-last pick of the Falcons’ draft class, Harold Perkins Jr., a sixth-round pick. There are several good options here, but Perkins was a decorated player his first two years at LSU before an ACL tear altered his path. He slipped in the draft because teams didn’t know where to play him, but the Falcons have him at weak side linebacker, which one of his former coaches feels is his ideal spot.
What non-rookie addition do you expect to surprise people/make the biggest impact?
I’ll go with receiver Jahan Dotson, who should start opposite Drake London. Dotson was a first-round pick in 2022, only eight picks behind London, and after two promising years with the Commanders, he was traded to the Eagles and forced into a complementary role.
But Dotson matured and learned from A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith, and he carries lessons from Philadelphia into a fresh start with the Falcons. He made a few big plays in OTAs and minicamp, and he’ll have plenty of opportunities to make more during the season.
Who’s your pick to step up behind London at wide receiver? What do they need to show in camp?
Dotson is the primary answer, but I’ll use this as a chance to plug Zachariah Branch, who also could’ve been my answer two questions earlier. The Falcons gave Branch several manufactured touches — screens, end arounds, etc. — earlier this summer, and he’s impressive with his explosiveness. He will, however, have to prove he can be effective when the pads come on.
Journalism question: What’s your strategy for making useful observations during practice?
The AJC gave me a handy notebook during orientation, and it came with a pen. A pleasant welcoming gift. Both get extensive action.
Anyways, I check the roster for attendance right when I get out there, then I watch for details like personnel packages, play types, defensive line rotations and starters on both sides of the ball. You can only glean so much about a team’s raw talent from practice, but you certainly learn a lot about how they plan to use that talent.
📲 Good stuff, Daniel. Y’all make sure to follow him at @ByDanielFlick — and bookmark ajc.com/falcons — to stay up to date on everything from Flowery Branch.
GETTING LONG IN THE TALON
Here’s an interesting fact: The Falcons are suddenly the most veteran-laden team in their division.
Official Win Column Data Friend Rahul Deshpande crunched the pretraining camp roster numbers and found that, prior to Wednesday morning’s QB moves, a full half of Atlanta’s roster has been in the league for at least four seasons.
Experience is good (after last year’s special teams debacles, I’m unreasonably excited about the 41-year-old kicker). But experience also means age, and age can mean (ahem) more injuries.
The folks at RotoWire rank the Falcons eighth in their leaguewide “injury risk index.” Take that for what it is … but we’re already off to a roaring start.
Other notable news from the NFC South
- Beefy Buccaneer nose tackle Vita Vea wants out of Tampa pronto. Quarterback Baker Mayfield still lacks a new deal, too.
- Panthers running back Jonathan Brooks — whose back-to-back ACL injuries have limited him to nine NFL carries since being drafted out of Texas in 2024 — is up and running.
- Former Georgia Bulldog and new Saints linebacker Christen Miller got some well-deserved internet props after he bought groceries for a woman who offered to let him and his bag of shrimp cut in the checkout line.
DON’T FREAK OUT BUT …
… Monday’s MLB trade deadline grows ever nearer, the Braves haven’t made a move, and our pal Ken Sugiura sussed out moderately disappointing stats on general manager Alex Anthopoulos’ track record.
From Ken’s column:
😬 “In the seven seasons in which the Braves have been a trade-deadline buyer — last year was the first time in his successful term that they weren’t trying to add for a postseason run — Anthopoulos has traded for 25 players at or near the trade deadline.
😬 “In that group, the highest WAR (by count of Baseball Reference) that any acquired player had accumulated by the time of the trade was 2.0.”
That player was Kevin Gausman in 2018.
For further reference: Mauricio Dubón’s WAR sat at 2.1 before Tuesday’s game. Only Michael Harris II, Matt Olson, Drake Baldwin and Ozzie Albies ranked ahead of him, in terms of Atlanta position players.
Not bad, but remember: 2.0 is the historical ceiling.
😬 “Twenty of Anthopoulos’ 25 acquisitions were between -.5 and 1.5 WAR at the time of their trade to the Braves,” Ken wrote. “Only three were starting pitchers.”
Now, many of those trades worked out quite well (see: 2021). Offseason inaction on the pitching side already riled folks up, though … and methinks alleviating that angst will require something more adventurous.
- Semirelated development: We’ve got a day-night doubleheader on deck today in New York … and Game 1 brings AJ Smith-Shawver’s first big league start since his Tommy John surgery last summer.
- Chris Sale (who briefly played with Andruw Jones?!) is set for Game 2.
RANDOM COLLEGE SPORTS STUFF
📈 Media members picked Georgia Tech football to finish fifth in the ACC this season, behind Miami, SMU, Louisville and Clemson, respectively. Seems fair.
🤨 In a weird throwback to an era that no longer exists, the NCAA suspended star Tennessee linebacker Arion Carter for two games — because his agent paid for a flight during the pre-NFL draft process (Carter later decided to return to Knoxville).
- We’ll see if the suspension stands, but here’s the local angle: Tennessee visits Georgia Tech in Week 2.
🤔 Meanwhile: Former Tech basketball coach Josh Pastner recently said rich folks angling to bring an NBA team to Las Vegas should “buy” his UNLV squad for $10 million instead. It was a joke … but it’s also not the most unrealistic idea, writes Yahoo’s Dan Wolken. (Remember when the PrizePicks guy donated exactly $10 mil to Georgia hoops?)
- Meanwhile: The Athletic figures the price tag on a college football team would cost you much, much more.
- Tech? $398 million. UGA? Just shy of $2 billion.
💰 The NIL bill (sort of) making its way through Congress now includes a $25 million “retention pool” for schools to pay players already on campus. That’s in addition to the $21 million or so in revenue sharing funds.
PHOTO OF THE DAY
This is an indoor practice facility at a Georgia high school.
Pretty spectacular, no?
It’s also a decent segue to this: Our friends at AJC Varsity start trotting out their preseason high school football teams — not to mention the coveted Super 11 — next week.
So close you can smell it.
Thanks for reading to the very bottom of the Win Column. Questions, comments, ideas? Contact me at tyler.estep@ajc.com.
Until next time.