He’s been battling AJ McCarron (we all know where he went to school) for the #2 QB behind Matt Ryan. McCarron injured his right knee in Saturday’s preseason game at Miami. MRI pending but the Falcons HC didn’t sound optimistic about the injury.
Feleipe played 2.5 quarters and went 4-9-1 for 46 yards, ran three times for 32 yards. Also sacked four times.
Depending on the MRI result, Atlanta might look for a free agent QB; there are a few out there including RG3.
In other pro Hogs, Brandon Allen got the start for the Bengals against WFT, scored on a QB sneak and completed 8 of 17 passes for 70 yards. And Alex Collins carried 7 times for 20 yards for the Seahawks. Nobody did much for Seattle which lost to Denver 30-3.
You hate to see someone win a job due to injury, but this is the football, it happened to Feleipe at Florida. We’ll see how confident Atlanta is with him being the backup by what they do next, bring in another qb to compete, or go with what they have.
There will probably be some candidates made available on Tuesday when all get down to 80 from 85. Bortles and RG3 are hardly impressive today. I think the Falcons only have Franks and Ryan on the roster. Would have thought they would have more competition.
If Rosen does not immediately prove he’s ready to take over as the backup, it really puts the Falcons in a quandry about what to do with Franks leading up to the 8/31 cutdown to the 53 man roster.
They can’t put Franks on the practice squad right away, they’d have to let him clear waivers first and then re-sign him. He could get picked up off waivers or just sign with another team, which would leave the Falcons without another QB with any familiarity with their system. Given Matt Ryan’s age, that’s pretty chance.
Unless Franks is terrible in the last pre-season game and/or Rosen is unexpectedly good, I think they will keep Franks on the active roster through the cut down date, while they keep looking around to see what veterans will be available next week.
Whether Franks can hold a roster spot all the way up to week one depends on how the staff think he’s doing and who else they can get to be the backup. He still may wind up on the Falcon practice squad (or someone else’s) for week one.
One factor in Franks favor may be that the salary cap implications of bringing in a vet backup QB vs rolling the dice with Franks, who would be on the roster with a rookie minimum contract. They might just want to wait on signing a vet backup until they just had to have one(if Ryan gets hurt).
Franks has made his case to be on a roster or practice squad somewhere when the season starts. Hard to overlook a 6’6" - 235lb QB with deceptive speed, great arm and football smarts.