Terry Fontenot found himself in a difficult situation accepting the job to become the next general manager of the Falcons. Inheriting a mess of a salary cap, the long-time Saints executive began building the roster with one hand tied behind his back. Well, this offseason won’t be much better. Teams were made aware of a potential $208.2 million salary ceiling, which could grow to almost $210 million with the Falcons 2021 cap rollover. With only 30 rostered players for 2022, the Falcons will only have about $13 million to add over 20 players after considering the $15.5 million dead cap from the Julio Jones trade and the $4.6 million from Dante Fowler‘s void year.
$208.2 million is a significant jump from the $182 million cap this year, but that doesn’t alleviate any of the Falcons’ troubling contracts. Matt Ryan sits atop Atlanta’s cap sheet with a $48.6 million hit for 2022, followed by three players with a $20+ million cap hit. Obviously, Ryan’s future will be the talk of the town this offseason. The only real options are extending him or trading him if they don’t leave the contract alone. Like the Julio trade, the other team would have to absorb his cap to make the deal work, which always takes away from the compensation Fontenot would recieve.
ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler brought up the possibilities surrounding the Falcons veteran quarterback.Â
Matt Ryan, Atlanta Falcons
The Falcons are cash-strapped, pressed up against the cap essentially since general manager Terry Fontenot started in January. (Atlanta currently has $1.585 million in space.) And with Ryan’s deal slated for a $48.7 cap hit vs. $40.5 million in dead money, there’s some cushion for Atlanta to get out of this.
Not that it necessarily wants that. Ryan has led the Falcons to five wins and ranks 20th in ESPN’s QBR (48.0) at age 36. Mobility is an issue, but he can still fluster opposing defenses. Ryan is due $16.25 million in salary and $7.5 million in a roster bonus that guarantees on the third day of the league year. Given where the Falcons are — a 5-7 record is probably an overachievement — no path would shock, from drafting a replacement to riding with Ryan for one more year. Perhaps he would rework his deal one more time to lessen the cap hit and clear some money off the books. The feeling is Ryan likes Atlanta a great deal and appreciates working with coach Arthur Smith. Maybe that leads to flexibility with his deal.
Ideally, Ryan would take some form of a pay cut to stay in Atlanta while the Falcons draft his replacement in the coming years before his contract ends. Fowler suggests a different scenario where Atlanta finds a potential bridge quarterback based on familiarity.
Mitchell Trubisky, Buffalo Bills
The Bills believe Trubisky will get a good job elsewhere in 2022. His market was slow in March, but perhaps a year in the shadows will spark something. If Atlanta goes cheaper at QB, offensive coordinator Dave Ragone has intimate knowledge of Trubisky from his days on Chicago’s staff. He was Trubisky’s quarterbacks coach when he went to the Pro Bowl in 2018.
Trubisky is a polarizing quarterback. Some have written him off entirely, and then there are those for comical purposes that love him. I think the Falcons could do worse, but it also wouldn’t be great to have him starting under center in 2022. Sure, the coaching staff has a connection to him, but I wouldn’t necessarily hang my hat on that logic. Fontenot had the chance to bring him in before he signed with the Bills and did not. Maybe Fowler’s using the reclamation project of Ryan Tannehill as the framework for a Trubisky-Smith scenario.
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