Picking up Matt Schaub’s option is another question mark for the Atlanta Falcons

Last week, the Atlanta Falcons announced that they had picked up long time veteran Matt Schaub’s option on the contract he signed last year.

Last season, the Atlanta Falcons decided to pick up Vic Beasley’s fifth-year option hoping that the soon to be fifth-year defensive end was going to reward them for the decision. Even though he finished the season strong, the almost $13 million in cap space that was spent on Beasley didn’t work out in the Falcons favor, especially since the Falcons are in a cap-strapped situation.

The Falcons decided not to pick up Takk McKinley’s fifth-year option as well as allowing Austin Hooper, De’Vondre Campbell and Wes Schweitzer to give them more cap space to make moves. It’s clear that the team is trying to create as much cap space as possible which is why picking up Matt Schaub’s option is highly questionable and fans have every right to be upset about it.

In this league, having a competent backup quarterback is important. Look at the situation team like the Saints and the Chiefs were in. Both of their star quarterbacks went down with injuries and their teams didn’t skip a beat.

The Falcons already have a couple of young intriguing quarterbacks on their roster with Kurt Benkert, who was showing out in the preseason before an injury ended his year and Danny Etling who was the second-leading rusher for the Falcons in the preseason. Benkert is the one that should be the backup quarterback for the Falcons.

Everyone’s favorite general manager Thomas Dimitroff states that there will be a battle for the second-string quarterback position. If and when Benkert wins the battle, The Falcons will be paying $2 million dollars to their third-string quarterback.

There’s nothing wrong with keeping a hard-working player on the roster who is in the twilight of his career but with the state of the team right now, the Falcons are not in any position to be picking up options on players that can’t make the team better.

Two million might not sound like a lot of money, but when your team just came off a 7-9 season with pass-rushing issues, players can’t stay healthy and your offensive line picks and chooses when to protect the quarterback, you need all the cap space you can get to fix those problems.

The good news is should the Atlanta Falcons decide this summer to move on from the 39-year-old backup, it would be just a $375,00 cap hit.