Promising young offensive lineman Matt Gono, who has an undisclosed injury, and defensive tackle Deadrin Senat (upper body injury) will miss all of training camp, Falcons coach Arthur Smith said Thursday.
“Gono, you won’t see him in camp,” Smith said after the Falcons’ first practice of training camp. “We’ll follow up with him. We wouldn’t have put him on PUP if we didn’t think he had a chance to come back.”
Gono, who was wearing a neck brace when he showed up for player check-in Tuesday, signed his $3.284 million restricted free-agent tender in March.
Gono played in all 16 games last season and made four starts. He played 337 offensive snaps. He also played 80 snaps on special teams.
The Falcons wanted to protect Gono, who started at right tackle and left guard, by placing a high tender on a formerly undrafted player.
Gono signed with the Falcons as an undrafted free agent out of Wesley College following the 2018 NFL draft.
The new Falcons regime has not addressed whether Gono was retained to compete for the starting right tackle position or the left guard position or remain the backup swing tackle behind left Jake Matthews and right tackle Kaleb McGary.
“He’ll get evaluated further here soon, and we’ll know more then,” Smith said. “But there is a chance, and that’s why you put somebody like that on PUP.”
Senat, who was taken in the third round of the 2018 draft, has been a reserve playing in 15 games as a rookie, the two games in 2019 and five games in 2020.
“You won’t see Senat in camp,” Smith said. “He’s recovering from an upper-body injury.”
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