After Kaleb McGary announced his retirement, the Falcons have found a veteran candidate to slot in at right tackle.
Jawaan Taylor has agreed to a one-year deal with Atlanta, ESPN’s Adam Schefter reports.
Schefter notes the deal is worth $5 million with another $1 million in incentives.
Taylor, 28, was released in March after three tumultuous seasons with the Chiefs. While he won Super Bowl LVIII with the club in 2023, he also amassed a whopping 54 penalties in his time with the club.
Taylor started all 17 games in 2023 before starting 16 in 2024 and 12 in 2025.
Taylor’s presence on the right side will be particularly important with lefty quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa atop the Falcons’ depth chart.
The Falcons are in the market for a new right tackle.
Kaleb McGary is retiring, his agent announced on Wednesday.
McGary, 31, was the No. 31 overall pick for the Falcons in 2019. He played 93 games with 92 starts for the club over six seasons before missing the entire 2025 campaign with a knee injury suffered during training camp.
McGary had signed a two-year extension with the Falcons in August of last year.
Elijah Wilkinson, who started at right tackle for Atlanta last season, has since signed with the Cardinals.
With lefty quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and Tua Tagovailoa atop the depth chart for Atlanta, the club’s right tackle position is that much more important.
Word earlier this week was that edge rusher James Pearce would not be at the Falcon’s voluntary workouts while facing multiple criminal charges and the team got to work without him on Tuesday.
Pearce is not on paid leave from the league and it is unclear when he might be back with the team. On Wednesday, head coach Kevin Stefanski said only that the Falcons are remaining in touch with the 2025 first-round pick.
“We’ve been in constant communication with his representation,” Stefanski said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN.com.
The NFL has said that they are investigating Pearce’s situation. He is currently set for a court date in early May on four criminal charges stemming from a February incident with his ex-girlfriend.
While speaking to reporters from the league meetings in Arizona, Falcons head coach Kevin Stefanski said that the team will hold a competition for the starting quarterback job once Michael Penix is healthy enough to get on the field but it is still unclear when that might be the case.
Stefanski said on Wednesday that a timetable for Penix to be fully cleared to return from a torn ACL has not taken shape yet, but, via Will McFadden of the team’s website, that Penix is “right where he needs to be” at this point in the calendar.
The Falcons signed Tua Tagovailoa last month and he will be the other option at quarterback in Atlanta heading into the season. It’s a new offense for both players and Tagovailoa’s availability for offseason work could leave him with a leg up in the race to wind up as the starter.
That outcome will be a significant one for the Falcons’ overall outlook in 2026 and questions for Stefanski about Penix’s fitness will be frequent until the quarterback is back in action.
Kirk Cousins had multiple reasons to sign with the Raiders. Some substantive, at least one superficial.
“Best jerseys in pro sports I think,” Cousins told the team’s website on Monday. “I remember being in warm-ups once playing the Raiders and our head coach looked at me and said, ‘Those have to be the best jerseys that they are in pro sports.’ And I said, ‘You know what Coach, I have to agree. Those are really sharp.’”
Cousins didn’t specify the team for which he was playing at the time. He has a 3-0 career record as a starter against the Raiders — one with each of his three prior teams.
In 2017, Cousins and Washington beat the Raiders, 27-10. In 2019, Cousins at the Vikings beat the Raiders, 34-14. In 2024, Cousins and the Falcons beat the Raiders, 15-9.
Despite getting the victory in Las Vegas on a Monday night in December 2024, Cousins was benched the next day for then-rookie Michael Penix Jr. Cousins didn’t play again that season.
Now, he’s on track to start for the Raiders in Week 1, unless the Raiders don’t make quarterback Fernando Mendoza the first pick in the 2026 draft and unless Mendoza wins the job right out of the games.
As to his observation about the silver and black jerseys (along with the rest of the uniform), it’s hard to argue. There’s a reason the Raiders’ look has resisted becoming Nikefied in the 14 years since the company took over the apparel deal from Reebok, when change for the sake of change swept through the league.
While the team has needed a fix that so far remains elusive, there’s nothing broken about the Raiders’ uniforms. They’re simple and classic. And they’ve never felt compelled to embrace numbers that look different from the standard football-jersey numbers that were once nearly universal in the NFL.
