Bowl games the Atlanta Falcons will be watching intently and you should too

Bowl games the Atlanta Falcons will be watching intently and you should too by Jeff Benedict

The Atlanta Falcons roster has many holes and requires somewhat of an overhaul in all three phases. There are five players who should not and will not be back for the 2020 season.

The entire Atlanta Falcons organization will more than likely look a lot different than it has in recent years. If owner Arthur Blank is as serious about winning as wants us to believe, Thomas Dimitroff and Dan Quinn will both be replaced as will several players that have meant a lot to this franchise in recent years.

The following five current players on the Atlanta Falcons roster should not be back for the 2020 season for various reasons.

We all know that the 25-year-old, fifth-year defensive end led the league in sacks in 2016 with 15.5. He has surprisingly balled out in the second half of the 2019 season.

Beasley, Jr. has eight sacks with one game remaining. He is highly overpaid as the Falcons inexplicably exercised his 2019 option at $12.81 million in base salary.

He will most likely get big money on the open market as a result of his strong second half of the 2019 season. The Falcons would need to tag him to keep him from getting to free agency.

Other teams will be able to afford to pay him more than the Falcons. His lack of leadership and overall consistency have somewhat defined the Dan Quinn era on defense.

The time has come to release Freeman after the 2019 season. This will clear 3.5 million in cap space.

Freeman is not the running back he was just a few short seasons ago. The Falcons made a huge mistake in signing him to a long term contract, which is something you don’t do for mid-round running backs, as they are a dime a dozen.

Not only does he make too much money for an injury-prone running back, but he’s been highly unproductive the past three seasons. This is attributed mainly to his inability to stay healthy.

Freeman is way too indecisive in his cuts and does too much dancing between the tackles when he runs. It is time to finally say goodbye to him and be appreciative of the excitement he brought this team during its Super Bowl run in 2016.

The seventh-year cornerback was having a great 2019 season when he suffered a season-ending injury after nine games with four interceptions.

In 2019, Trufant will earn a base salary of $9,500,000, while carrying a cap hit of $13,900,000 and a dead cap value of $24,100,000.

The Falcons have much cheaper and younger options at the cornerback position for 2020, such as rookies Kendall Sheffield, Jordan Miller, and second-year starter Isaiah Oliver.

Overall, Trufant has been a very good first-round pick, but like Freeman, it is also time to move on from him. His experience would be missed next season, but he should be traded for whatever the Falcons can get for him, preferably a mid-round draft pick.

It is time for the Falcons to get much younger at the backup quarterback position.

For whatever it’s worth, Kurt Benkert looked great in the first half of the 2019 hall of fame game in Canton, OH. His season was done when he suffered a season-ending toe injury. Perhaps he would have won the backup quarterback spot.

Schaub started one game in 2019 when Matt Ryan was out with an ankle injury. Schaub put up gaudy numbers that game.

The bottom line is the Falcons cannot have two quarterbacks on their roster in 2020 who are at least 35 years old. They will save 2 million dollars by cutting Schaub post-June 1, 2020.

Matt Bosher

Like the quarterback position, the Falcons have their future punter, and his name is Ryan Allen.

Allen is 29 years old and has a much stronger leg than Bosher. Bosher only played in three games in 2019.

His longest punt was only 52 yards for a paltry average of 41.9 yards. Bosher also had a punt blocked in the first game of the season at Minnesota.

His catch and release are way too long and slow. It continuously looks as though many of his punts will be blocked.

Bosher is 32 years old and it is quite evident he has lost strength in his leg. It is definitely time to move on from him and thank him for his tackling abilities.

To put it mildly, the Atlanta Falcons are in salary cap hell and will be for the foreseeable future. They need to do whatever they can and clear up as much cap space as possible for the 2020 season.

By cutting, releasing and/or trading the above five players, this will at least help them get younger and clear salary-cap space.

This will only help to a certain extent, but the Falcons are in desperation mode and have to start by taking baby steps for the 2020 season.