3 Atlanta Falcons facing questions after preseason debut

3. Jalen Mayfield

Jalen Mayfield started his rookie season as the left guard and quickly fell out of favor allowing defensive pressure straight into Matt Ryan's lap. With alarming consistency, Mayfield was often unable to block anything but the air in front of him and directed pressure right to Atlanta's former franchise quarterback.

Atlanta replaced Mayfield last season after the dismal showing and Mayfield was out for the year with injury. Now in his third season in the league Jalen is attempting to move back to the tackle position and win a depth role on this roster.

The early preseason results were confusing, to say the least Jalen did a great job and consistently kept his pass rusher in front of him. However, watching the game back it is hard not to notice the way in which Mayfield accomplishes this. It is hard to see the tackle maintaining this level of production with his style of play.

Mayfield has little competition for the swing tackle role and should be given a lot of snaps throughout the preseason to show that this is true improvement and not simply one game. Fans should expect to see plenty of Jalen in the next two games.