Matt Gono hasn’t had many game-day opportunities with the Falcons.
But the organization has long thought highly enough of Gono to keep the 2018 undrafted free agent on the 53-man roster for three consecutive seasons. And this season, Gono’s role has expanded from little-used reserve lineman to a swing tackle who can fill in at guard.
Gono has appeared in seven games in his career, which includes the first two of this season. And Sunday against the Chicago Bears, Gono could earn his first career start. Starting right tackle Kaleb McGary sprained his MCL on the 19th offensive snap of Sunday’s game against the Dallas Cowboys, which forced Gono into the game. Gono saw 57 plays at right tackle and will start Sunday if McGary, who hasn’t practiced this week and is expected to sit, is unable to go.
“If I start this game, I’m going to be ready to play, just like usual,” Gono said. “I prepare myself to go in any spot. Whoever’s starting or whatever happens, I’m going to treat it like usual.”
Gono began the preseason with the first team at left guard, which was an open competition along with James Carpenter and Matt Hennessy. A couple of weeks into training camp, however, Falcons coach Dan Quinn decided to move Gono to the swing tackle spot, where he backs up McGary and left tackle Jake Matthews. He’s worked at guard in the past, too, so in the event of an injury to an interior player, Gono could play there if needed.
Still, being the swing tackle isn’t a starting job. Gono said he took that news in stride.
“I just learned to expect things like that,” Gono said. “Whatever I have to do on the line for the team is what I prepare to do. That was my mentality going into that. So it wasn’t that shocking.”
For the Falcons, however, having Gono ready to play at tackle has turned out to their benefit with McGary’s injury occurring last week.
“We definitely said to Matt, 'This is what’s the best thing for the team right now,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said. “When we did that, he was fully on board. He had a really good camp. He now has flexibility to go back into guard if ever needed to do that. It was worthwhile reps and worthwhile time. But we wanted to make sure if he was going to be playing tackle that he had enough time and experience to prepare to do that.”
Gono wasn’t drafted when he came out of Division III Wesley College in Dover, Delaware, where he was a rare find for the small program. Gono’s college offensive coordinator Chip Knapp, who is now the head coach at Wesley, said a lineman of his size and athletic ability had Division I potential written all over him.
For whatever reason, Gono, who is listed at 6-foot-4 and 305 pounds, slipped through the cracks in the recruiting process, which led to smaller schools recruiting him. Knapp said the coaching staff threw a party when it heard Gono was going to commit to Wesley.
Gono started all four years at Wesley, which included playing through a broken hand as a freshman. Gono didn’t tell anyone about the injury either until coaches noticed he was blocking defenders effectively with only one arm. Knapp commended Gono’s toughness as a player and believes his stature stacks up to his peers in NFL.
“From my point of view, he’s a great athlete, and he matches up with any athlete as far as size and what he can do in the weight room,” Knapp said. “It seems to me he belongs, from my point of view and from what I’ve seen in the NFL. I’ve been around camps and different things, so I have some experience with that.”
Although he ended up being an undrafted free agent, Knapp said he could tell Gono would latch on somewhere after seeing almost every NFL team come through the school four or five times to see him work out.
Knapp has been at Wesley for a combined 30 years and said Gono easily is the best offensive lineman to come through the program.
“He’s the all-time guy,” Knapp said. “He’s the combination. In Division III, the hardest thing to recruit is linemen because they get scholarships. Just like the NFL, your offensive linemen, they’re a valuable commodity. Going into his senior year we had him snapping. He’s a very versatile player.”
Gono graded out well in his 57 snaps against the Cowboys, although he did give up one sack. But that sack came on a play that saw quarterback Matt Ryan hold the ball for over four seconds, indicating the Cowboys' coverage downfield was tight on the play.
While noting there were some areas he could improve upon, Falcons offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter was pleased with Gono’s first extended performance of the season.
“I think he did an excellent job,” Koetter said. "You’re (19 offensive) plays into the game and all of a sudden Kaleb unfortunately goes down and Matt goes in. He had a couple of plays he didn’t do as good as he would have liked. But overall, I’m very pleased and I think everyone is with how Matt did. He ran off the football. On outside zones towards him he did a good job of getting knock-back at the point of attack. He did a pretty darn good job in pass protection, as did the rest of the line.”
Assuming Gono, who was working with the first-team offensive line Friday, gets the nod at right tackle this week, he’ll have his hands full against Bears pass rushers Khalil Mack and Robert Quinn. But this also is an opportunity that Gono has been waiting on for quite some time.
To prepare, Gono said he approached the week as he would any other.
“Those are really good guys, everyone knows that,” Gono said. “I’m just going to go into it like I usually do. I’m not really thinking about who I’m playing against, per se. I’m just going to try my best out there and do what I do every week.”
