The big news from the first day of Falcons training camp involved the team’s quarterbacks.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski said that Tua Tagovailoa is not practicing after suffering a recent injury — Tagovailoa reportedly has back tightness — and that Michael Penix has not been cleared for team drills. There was hope that Penix would be ready for that work at this point in his ACL rehab, but the quarterback said that everyone is taking a cautious approach to the final steps in his recovery.
“To be honest I’ve been feeling really good,” Penix said, via Josh Kendall of TheAthletic.com. “I feel like I can do everything, but I have to still be smart about it. I can’t afford to have somebody trip and fall and land on me right now.”
This is the third time that Penix has torn his ACL and he said he’s been cleared earlier in the process in the previous cases, but that the repeated injuries have led to the current approach. He said he was told that it could be “another four weeks possibly” before he moves to the next stage and that timeline will likely need to speed up if Penix is going to have a real chance of opening the season as the starter in Atlanta.
Falcons Clips
The Falcons are in a similar position to the Lions as the teams begin training camp this week.
Per multiple reporters on the scene, running back Bijan Robinson is not participating in practice on Wednesday. Video from Alison Mastrangelo of WSB-TV shows Robinson on the field without a helmet and not performing drills.
While head coach Kevin Stefanski did not address the situation in his press conference before the start of practice, this is likely due to Robinson seeking a new contract.
Robinson, the No. 8 overall pick of the 2023 draft, was a first-team All-Pro in 2025 after leading the league with 2,298 yards from scrimmage. He rushed for 1,478 yards with seven touchdowns and caught 79 passes for 820 yards with four TDs to earn his second Pro Bowl berth.
Robinson is under contract through 2027 after the Falcons exercised his fifth-year option. But his performance over the last three seasons has put him in a position for a contract extension.
With Robinson and Detroit’s Jahmyr Gibbs — the No. 12 pick of the 2023 draft — both apparently holding in, the question becomes, who signs first? The first to sign will likely raise the floor for the other’s deal. But the second ostensibly will make more money.
The Falcons signed offensive tackle Jawaan Taylor this offseason, but he won’t be on the field for their first practice of training camp.
Taylor was one of four players placed on the physically unable to perform list on Wednesday. Taylor was pencilled into the right tackle spot, but the team will turn to another former Chief in Wanya Morris for the time being.
Defensive back Billy Bowman, linebacker DeAngelo Malone, and linebacker Troy Andersen are also on the PUP list. Defensive linemen Zach Harrison and Anterio Thompson are opening camp on the non-football injury list.
All of the players count against the 90-man roster limit and they can be activated at any point during training camp.
As previously noted, the Falcons also released quarterback Trevor Siemian with a non-football injury designation. They are expected to sign Cooper Rush to fill out the quarterback group that is managing injury situations with Tua Tagovailoa and Michael Penix.
The Falcons’ quarterback competition is on hold as the team starts training camp on Wednesday.
Head coach Kevin Stefanski said that Tua Tagovailoa will not practice after an injury “flared up.” Stefanski did not specify the injury, but Adam Schefter of ESPN reports that the quarterback is dealing with back tightness.
Stefanski said the injury is not considered serious and that they expect him back sooner rather than later. The head coach also said that Michael Penix has not been cleared for team drills, so neither of the players who are vying for the starting job in Atlanta are going to be fully participating in practice at this point.
The Falcons released Trevor Siemian with a non-football injury on Wednesday, which leaves undrafted rookie Jack Strand as the only healthy quarterback on the roster. The Falcons are expected to sign former Cowboys and Ravens quarterback Cooper Rush to give them another option at the position as they wait for Tagovailoa and Penix to get the green light for full practice activities.
It’s not an ideal way to kick off camp in Atlanta and the Falcons will be hoping for better news for both quarterbacks before they get too much deeper into their preparations for the 2026 season.
The Falcons are gearing up for the start of training camp later this week and part of their preparation includes a roster move involving one of their draft picks.
The NFL’s daily transaction report for Saturday shows that they placed defensive tackle Anterio Thompson on the non-football injury list. Thompson was a sixth-round pick in April.
Thompson played at Iowa, Western Michigan and Washington over the last three seasons. He had 30 tackles, 2.5 tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks for the Huskies in 2025.
Falcons rookies reported to camp on Friday. Veterans are due on Tuesday with the first practice of camp scheduled for Wednesday.
The NFL had not confirmed the date of Super Bowl LXII to conclude the 2027 season, leading to some speculation that the league was looking at increasing its schedule to 18 games as soon as next year.
But that now has changed.
Via Adam Schefter of ESPN, Super Bowl LXII will take place in Atlanta at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on February 13, 2028.
That effectively locks in the 17-game schedule for at least another year.
Given the upheaval that’s occurred with the NFLPA over the last year, this development is not necessarily a surprise. With JC Tretter just being installed as the executive director of the NFLPA in recent months, there has not been much time for the league to engage the players’ association to negotiate a game being added to the regular-season slate.
But even as we now know the date to conclude the 2027 season, an 18-game schedule appears inevitable within the coming years.
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
As the 16th overall pick in the 2022 NFL draft, wide receiver Jahan Dotson has been a disappointment. In two years with the Commanders and two with the Eagles, he has a total of just 1,519 career receiving yards.
Now Dotson is on his third team after signing with the Falcons in March, and he thinks he’s in the right place — for the first time.
“I want to be one of the greatest,” Dotson told Josh Kendall of TheAthletic.com. “I’m not afraid [of saying that]. I was talking to Jessie Bates, and he was talking about wanting to be the best who ever played, and I’m comfortable with those sort of things. I want to be one of the best in the league. I want to show my talent. I haven’t really gotten to do that.”
Dotson signed a two-year, $15 million contract, but he says more important than the money was believing the Falcons had a plan to use him to the best of his ability.
“The big thing for me was going to a team where I felt like my talent could be showcased,” Dotson said. “I learned a lot in my first four years in the NFL from some great receivers and great coaches, but I feel like now is really my time to put my talents on display.”
Dotson didn’t get many balls thrown his way with the Eagles last year, but that hasn’t affected his confidence.
“I 100 percent believe in my talent and ability to make plays in this league,” Dotson said. “It’s just about getting the opportunity to do so. I didn’t really have that opportunity the past couple years. Now I’m looking to really do that, and I can’t wait to make plays for this football team.”
When Kyle Pitts was a rookie in 2021, Matt Ryan was his quarterback. Now, Ryan is his boss.
Earlier this week, the Falcons president of football gave the green light to a three-year deal that will keep Pitts in red and black.
The contract replaces Pitts’s one-year franchise tag, which would have paid $15.045 million. Here are the full details of the new Pitts deal.
1. Signing bonus: $16.785 million.
2. 2026 base salary: $1.215 million, fully guaranteed.
3. 2027 option bonus: $16.49 million, fully guaranteed.
4. 2027 workout bonus: $250,000, fully guaranteed (but must be earned).
5. 2027 base salary: $1.26 million, fully guaranteed.
6. 2028 90-man roster bonus: $1 million.
7. 2028 option bonus: $13.36 million.
8. 2028 offseason workout bonus: $250,000.
9. 2028 base salary: $1.39 million.
10. 2028 per-game roster bonus: $1 million total ($58,882 per game).
11. 2028 escalator: $1 million, with $250,000 for making the Pro Bowl or first- or second-team All-Pro in 2026, the same for 2027, $250,000 for 80 catches or 900 receiving yards in 2026, and the same for 2027.
Pitts basically traded the franchise tag for a two-year, fully guaranteed deal in the amount of $36 million. If he’d been tagged twice, he would have earned $33.099 million.
The final year is not guaranteed; it gives the Falcons an option at $17 million, or as much as $18 million.
The base deal is $53 million over three years, for an average of $17.66 million. It reaches $18 million per year if he hits all four escalator triggers.
When Kyle Pitts signed the franchise tag on April 7, the Falcons tight end figured he was playing 2026 under the one-year, $15.045 million tag. But on Monday, he signed a three-year, $54 million contract.
“It was more so, ‘OK, that was my opportunity that Atlanta picked it back up to give me another year to showcase,’” Pitts said Monday, via Daniel Flick of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, “and then it was just time to squeeze the rag and just grind. I was fortunate I got the call and the interest in the long term, and when it happened, it was pretty great.”
While Pitts has not lived up to the generational talent that he was projected as the fourth overall pick in 2021, he is only 25 and coming off a season when he earned second-team All-Pro honors. He set career highs with 88 receptions and five touchdowns in 2025, with 928 yards.
Pitts said he “100 percent” believes his best football is still ahead of him, which is what the Falcons are counting on.
“I think there’s a lot more out there, a lot more to get, and a lot more things to keep grinding towards. It’s cool to see,” Pitts said.
