What the new CBA could mean for the Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta Falcons players joined the nearly 2100 other players across the league to ratify the new CBA which will mean more games and several other additions that fans are sure to enjoy.

There are some positives for the Atlanta Falcons and every other NFL team moving forward with the new CBA, expanded practice squads, active game-day roster expands from 43 to 48, each team must have at least eight active offensive lineman, and seven teams from each conference will make the playoffs.

While the margin of approval was slim, all the NFL needed from the players was a simple majority vote. What does this mean for the Atlanta Falcons? Well for starters, hopefully, it means never having to see a tight end play tackle ever again in a game because of injury.

This also means that Thomas Dimitroff is going to have more opportunities to find terrible offensive lineman and give them a chance to block for the best quarterback in franchise history. That is the part of this that should scare everyone.

With expanded practice squads, ideally, the Falcons would be able to develop young guys like they have Matt Gono and bring them up while also developing other positions for the future. As we have documented several times, Dimitroff’s success rate on an offensive lineman is terrible and adding more terrible players to the roster is not what the Falcons need.

Something else to watch will be the locker room. This was a very close vote, with the “yes” having just 60 more votes to push this through. Some of the league’s highest-profile players were very much against this new CBA. While no one in the Falcons locker room voiced their opinions publicly, there are going to be some that are not happy that this moved forward. Can they coexist with the players who voted yes or will this create more issues in a locker room that cannot afford division?

Another change that will benefit the Atlanta Falcons is the addition of a seventh playoff team. We wrote a month ago on the additional playoffs the Falcons would have made under Matt Ryan had this been in place over the last decade. As the Falcons continue to try and improve the roster and move forward, this additional playoff spot will surely help.

Even at 7-9 in 2019, the Atlanta Falcons beat the Top 2 seeds in the NFC on the road, so facing them again the playoffs is not exactly a daunting feat for the Falcons to replicate in the playoffs.

There is a lot of good and bad from this CBA from the player’s perspective. From a fan’s, it means more football and that can’t ever be a bad thing.