Atlanta Falcons

The Falcons officially brought linebacker Jalon Walker’s season to an end on Thursday.

Walker was placed on injured reserve after tearing his ACL in practice this week. The 2025 first-round pick will have surgery and then spend the coming months working his way back to health for his third season.

The NFL’s daily transaction report shows that the Falcons filled the open roster spot by claiming defensive back Keidron Smith off of waivers. He was cut by the Jets on Wednesday.

Smith had 15 tackles in three games for the Jets last season. He had seven tackle in nine appearances for the Broncos in 2024.

To this point, the Falcons’ quarterback competition has not truly begun in earnest because Michael Penix Jr. has not been fully medically cleared.

Penix, who suffered a torn ACL in November, is still recovering and told reporters in his Wednesday press conference that he feels like he’s getting better every day.

While Penix’s original timetable for recovery had him being cleared in late August, he said that he could be cleared “any day.”

“I’m not really chasing a timeline. I’m just chasing trying to be better every day,” Penix said, via transcript from the team. “Each and every day I get out there, I look forward to being better than I was the day before. That comes with obviously just the reps, time on task, and also just what I’m doing in the rehab and the treatment room as well, so I can get to where I want to be.”

Penix noted he doesn’t yet have a scheduled date to get re-examined by his doctor to be cleared, but that’s a step he’ll need before he’s able to fully participate. That also means he won’t truly be a part of a QB competition until that time.

“I mentioned it before, I can’t worry about a starting job until I’m worried about getting back on the field,” Penix said. “If I can’t be on the field, how am I going to be the starter? That’s all my focus is right now — just trying to get back and get healthy so that whenever that time comes, then we can talk about the whole starter thing, but that’s not my focus right now.

“I’m just getting stronger and getting more confident in my knee and everything. My body has been feeling really good. I’m hitting all my weight goals and making sure I’m taking my diet seriously. I’m doing everything I can to help my knee get better faster. I’m definitely better than where I was last week.”

But as Penix continues to make progress, Tua Tagovailoa will have the ability to put some separation between himself and Penix’s base level in the new offense under head coach Kevin Stefanski.

Yes, Matthew McConaughey is a Commanders fan. But he’s also a Texas supporter. An so he supports Texas players in the NFL.

One Texas player who has done very well in the NFL is Falcons running back Bijan Robinson. Via J.J. Post of ESPN, Robinson told reporters that McConaughey was one of the first people to contact Robinson when news of his new contract broke.

“As soon as the news hit, Matthew McConaughey hit me,” Robinson said. “As soon as it hit. I think it hit at like 7:56 [a.m. ET]. Like 7:58 [a.m.], he texted me. . . .

“A lot of awesome, really cool people texted me, but it was cool to see him, as soon as it hit, like, he was the first one.”

And, of course, the request eventually will come to kick some of that cash back to the effort to help the Longhorns get more players like Robinson on the roster.

Bijan Robinson and Jahmyr Gibbs have been mentioned in conjunction with one another a lot this offseason and their contract pushes were also the subject of conversations between the two running backs.

Robinson’s training camp hold-in ended when he signed a three-year extension with the Falcons on Wednesday, but Gibbs is still in the middle of one as he and the Lions try to work out a deal of their own. Robinson told reporters on Wednesday that he and Gibbs commiserated this offseason during calls about their respective situations.

“We just told each other, ‘Just hang in there, everything’s going to get done, everything’s going to be all right,’” Robinson said, via Marc Raimondi of ESPN.com. “And it’s cool to see him go through it, too. And I hope he gets the most out of what he deserves because he deserves it — deserves it all.”

The three new years on Robinson’s deal has an average annual salary of $22.25 million, which is the most for any running back in the league. Gibbs, who went four picks after Robinson in the 2023 first round, could top that number and Robinson said he thinks the parallel career arcs are a positive for both players.

“The Bijan-Gibbs debate is actually cool to see,” Robinson said. “It actually helps us both out because every single Sunday or whatever day we play, we’re always trying to compete against each other. And to have a guy like that, that I can compete with in whatever game he’s playing in and whatever game I’m playing in, we just know that we have to give our best effort. So, it’s cool to experience that.”

Debate about which back is better is likely to continue regardless of what Gibbs’s deal winds up looking like, but both teams will remain pleased with the choice they made a few years ago.

The Falcons and running back Bijan Robinson have worked out a new deal that will keep him under contract in Atlanta for five years.

The big numbers were leaked when the deal was reached in principle. Now that it’s on paper, it’s time to look at the details.

Here are the full terms, per a source with knowledge of the agreement:

1. Signing bonus: $15 million.

2. 2026 90-man roster bonus: $2.559348 million, fully guaranteed.

3. 2026 base salary: $1.145 million, fully guaranteed.

4. 2027 option bonus: $7.063 million, fully guaranteed.

5. 2027 base salary: $1.26 million, fully guaranteed.

6. 2028 offseason workout bonus: $250,000, fully guaranteed (but must be earned).

7. 2028 base salary: $10.25 million, fully guaranteed.

8. 2029 offseason workout bonus: $250,000.

9. 2029 base salary: $21.75 million, $13.5 million of which is guaranteed for injury at signing. Of that amount, $8.5 million becomes fully guaranteed in March 2028 and $5 million becomes fully guaranteed in March 2029.

10. 2030 90-man roster bonus: $1 million.

11. 2030 offseason workout bonus: $250,000.

12. 2030 base salary: $21 million.

The contract also includes $4.125 million in available escalators for 2029 and 2030 each. For 2029, Robinson gets $562,500 for each year from 2026 through 2028 in which he generates 800 or more receiving yards. He gets another $562,500 for each year in which he generates 800 or more receiving yards and the team gets to the divisional round of the postseason.

For 2030, Robinson gets $421,875 for each year from 2026 through 2029 in which he generates 800 or more receiving yards. He gets another $421,875 for each year in which he generates 800 or more receiving yards and the team gets to the divisional round of the postseason.

He also gets $750,000 in each year for winning the MVP award a single time.

The focus on receiving yards, coupled with the maximum contract value of $25 million per year (if the escalators are earned), suggests that this was the compromise as to any effort to get Robinson to a base deal of $25 million under on the argument that he’s more than just a runner. He has a path to get to $25 million, premised in large part on his production.

The first three years of the contract are fully guaranteed at signing, at $37.567 million in total payouts. By March 2028, the guarantee increases to $46 million.

The new-money average is $22.25 million. As mentioned Tuesday, the total value at signing for the five-year deal is $16.36 million per year.

The 49ers are adding another veteran player on Wednesday.

Per Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, San Francisco has agreed to sign wide receiver KhaDarel Hodge.

Hodge, 31, spent the past four seasons with the Falcons — two of which were under now-49ers defensive coordinator Raheem Morris.

Hodge has recorded 67 career catches for 1,026 yards with two touchdowns.

Last season with Atlanta, he caught three passes for 31 yards in 12 games. Most of his playing time came on special teams.

Hodge has also played for the Rams, Browns, and Lions since entering the league as an undrafted free agent in 2018.

The 49ers have had a string of injuries at receiver early in camp, including losing Ricky Pearsall for the season with a knee issue.

The Falcons will be without one of their young edge rushers in 2026.

According to Jeremy Fowler of ESPN, tests have confirmed Jalon Walker suffered a torn ACL during Tuesday’s practice.

Reports indicated a torn ACL was the club’s fear after Walker was carted off the field yesterday.

Walker, a first-round pick in 2025, was set to play a significant role in Atlanta’s defense for the coming season.

As a rookie, Walker tallied 5.5 sacks, five tackles for loss, and nine quarterback hits in 15 games with nine starts. He also tallied two forced fumbles, a fumble recovery, and one pass defensed.

With the Falcons and running back Bijan Robinson working out a new contract, many assume that the Lions and running back Jahmyr Gibbs will go next — and quickly.

And while it’s possible that having Robinson’s terms in place will make it easier for Gibbs, there’s an even better chance (as we understand it) that the Robinson contract will become an impediment.

Yes, Robinson reset the market at the position, bumping the new-money APY from $20.6 million to $22.25 million. It’s hard to find much fault with a new record deal.

But the market for running backs continues to languish. Sure, it’s gotten somewhat better in recent years. It’s still far behind where it should be. If Gibbs is determined to take it where it should go, the Robinson contract becomes a ball and chain to that effort.

The Lions will say, “The market is the market.” They’ll assume it’s good enough to pay Gibbs $23 million per year in new money or maybe even $22.5 million or perhaps as little as $22.26 million.

Gibbs can counter by pointing to his impact on the offense. In 2025, he had 1,929 yards from scrimmage and 20 total touchdowns. Last year, he had 1,839 yards from scrimmage and 18 total touchdowns. He finished third on the team in receiving yards, with 616.

Then there’s the fact that the Lions have moved on from David Montgomery. They’ll rely even more on Gibbs in 2026. It gives Gibbs leverage.

The team’s current posture fuels his case, too. They finished fourth in the NFC North last year. The offense, despite the presence of a weapon like Gibbs, sputtered relative to the Ben Johnson era. The Lions need the offense, and the team overall, to perform better this year. Another failure to make the playoffs will make key seats hot in 2027. That gives Gibbs even more leverage.

From the franchise’s perspective, the Lions won’t want to blow up the running back market. Beyond the realities of the salary cap, other teams will frown upon a contract that makes it more expensive for them to sign their own running backs to new deals, since those players will say, “The market is the market.”

It’s an example of the sometimes subtle, sometimes not, collusion that absolutely exists in the NFL. Teams that do unconventional things aren’t simply ridiculed by other clubs. They’re resented. An outlier deal makes it harder for the result of the league to do business on their terms.

Through it all, the clock is ticking. The regular season is coming. The Lions need Gibbs on the practice field. They’ll need him to be playing in games.

For Gibbs, who is 24 and has had three Pro Bowl seasons, this is his one chance to truly break the bank. He should hold firm for what he has earned, and what he has earned is objectively more than $22.56 million or $22.5 million or $23 million per year.

On Tuesday, the Ravens gave receiver Zay Flowers a new deal worth $35 million per year in new money. And while it’s apples and oranges on the surface, all of the fruit ends up in the same basket. At this point in time, Gibbs is a much more valuable piece than Flowers. Why should the bright lines of the by-position market change that?

It all comes down to Gibbs’s resolve. At some point, the Lions will have no choice but to blink. The question is whether he’ll hold firm until that happens.

The predicament is one of the basic realities of the draft system. If a team turns its lottery ticket into a big winner (which the Lions did with Gibbs), the team ultimately pays the jackpot to the player.

The better the player, the bigger the jackpot. And Gibbs is in line for a very big jackpot.

Bijan Robinson has officially signed his three-year contract extension with the Falcons.

The Falcons announced that Robinson finalized the deal on Wednesday morning. In comments to the team’s website, Robinson said he put a high priority on remaining with one team for his entire career.

“God is so good,” Robinson said. “Without Him I wouldn’t be here. To keep playing with these guys and this organization. This is one of my dreams, to stay with one team. I think that is such a cool thing just because guys like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan they all stayed on their one team, so I think that is a cool legacy thing for yourself. I am excited for everybody to keep watching the gifts that I have been given, and hopefully we get to do some incredible things. The signing is great, but it is more so for me, just being able to be here and play for this organization.”

It should be noted that Jordan didn’t play his whole career with one team, although Robinson isn’t the only one who has blocked out the Wizards era from their memories of Jordan’s time in the NBA. It remains to be seen if Robinson will ultimately follow in Bryant’s footsteps, but this week’s deal ties him to the Falcons through 2030 and puts him more firmly on that path than he was when training camp opened last week.

Falcons quarterbacks Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix are both limited by injuries in training camp, but that isn’t stopping them from competing for the starting job.

Tagovailoa said on NFL Network that while he rests an injured back and Penix rehabs the torn ACL he suffered in November, they continue to compete.

“I view it as a competition. I understand he can’t take some team reps right now because of what he’s going through, but he’s still being able to compete in seven-on-seven, he’s still able to go through some plays,” Tagovailoa said. “It’s definitely a competition.”

Tagovailoa said his own back injury won’t limit him for much longer.

“Nothing too serious, just a caution kind of thing where we’re not rushing it. It was just a flare-up, nothing big, not anything long-term. We’ll be fine,” Tagovailoa said.

The Falcons have to hope at least one of their quarterbacks will be 100 percent when they open the season on September 13 against the Steelers.