The Atlanta Falcons will most likely lose their preseason games against the Miami Dolphins on August 14th as well as their game versus the Buffalo Bills on August 21st.
The NFL has announced that they are cutting preseason games from four to two due to the current COVID-19 issues that still remain. For now, the Atlanta Falcons will keep their final two games the Bengals and the Jaguars, giving them one preseason game at home and one on the road.
According to ESPN:
"“The NFL and the NFLPA continue to discuss protocols for reopening of team facilities, testing programs and other matters related to playing amid a pandemic (and) there is no hard deadline for finalizing of protocols”"
CBS’s Jason La Canfora, suggests that preseason rosters could be cut from 90 to 70 off the top.
If that is true, the conventional thinking is that the team simply cuts all of the undrafted college free agents that they signed after the draft was over. However, there are three veteran Atlanta Falcons players that could be among those cuts.
When looking at the revamped Atlanta Falcons roster as a whole, there are three veterans that will get cut at some point by the start of the regular season. These are three veterans that have served as a backups or starters in 2019.
This is probably the easiest prediction. We get it, everyone in house at AtlantaFalcons.com loves him and really thinks he is the best backup in the NFL.
Reality is he is 39 years old and entering his 16th season. If something were to happen to Matt Ryan in 2020, Schaub is not the guy that should be on the field replacing him; neither is Matt Simms.
That said, Kurt Benkert will be back and seems healthier than he has been and Danny Etling will provide more competition now that he has been with the organization for a full year. Matt Schaub is a great teammate, but at some point, every athlete has to hang it up and after 15 years this seems like a great stopping point.
We all know that Matt Ryan loves having Schaub in the quarterback room as they have been friends for a long time. At this point, Ryan has been in the league for a dozen years, and having a crutch is no longer necessary in order for Matt Ryan to be successful.
He knows this is his franchise and if cutting Schaub is a direction the team wants to go, he would more than likely support the move from a team standpoint.
This might be the one that causes a reaction.
Currently, James Carpenter is slated to be among the 11 former firsts round picks that will start the 2020 season for the Atlanta Falcons. However, there are two players on this roster currently that will overtake him and get an opportunity to prove that they can play after Carpenter struggled in his 11 appearances in 2019.
With Matt Gono developing the way that he has as well as rookie Matt Hennessy on the roster, both would be better options at left guard than Carpenter currently is.
Gono has spent his time with the Falcons working at the tackle position but moving him inside would actually be a big benefit to both himself as well as the club. He has the ideal size for a guard and his footwork may actually be a much bigger asset to him in the middle of the Atlanta Falcons offensive line.
Matt Hennessy is the long term solution to replacing Alex Mack but the team is going to want him on the field in 2020 and you don’t just replace an All-Pro center who is still performing at a high level. With the right guard occupied by the Falcons 2019 first-round pick, Chris Lindstrom, left guard seems like the obvious starting point for Hennessy early in his career.
Brian Hill was supposed to be the odd man out in 2019, however, he showcased his improved skills in the passing area of the offense, which is what the coaches wanted to see out of him.
Hill had a decent year in 2019 but things changed drastically when the Atlanta Falcons signed running back Todd Gurley. When you look at the stable of running backs, Hill doesn’t bring anything different to the table than Gurley or Ito Smith while second-year running back Qadree Ollison is the thunder to lightning provided by Gurley and Smith.
Asking the Falcons to carry four running backs again in 2020 is a lot given their sudden depth in the trenches, and since Hill adds nothing as a return man like Kenjon Barner did in 2019, he will be the odd man out should camp rosters go from 90 to 70 like La Canfora suggests.