Falcons Practice Report: Jake Long's first day

Today was Jake Long's first day on the practice field as a Falcon. Dan Quinn said prior to practice that the team is going to let Long get acclimated to the new scheme and learn all he needs to learn in terms of playbook and technique. Once Long is up to speed, the team will assess his role in this offense.

Long took snaps with the second team during the part of practice we were permitted to watch. He mostly worked at the left tackle position, though he did take one snap at right tackle and one snap at left guard.

During open locker room, before the team took the practice field, Long was enthusiastic about the opportunity.

"I just want to play football," Long said. "I love this game, and I wanted to help a team win, and I want to come here and help this team win...whatever capacity that is, and I'm going to compete and help this line get better and get better myself and help this team get better, and whatever that is, I'll do."

The big concern with Long is obviously his health, but Long said he spent a lot of time working to get that knee right and that he feels 100% healthy and ready to go at this point.

Long also seems willing to defer to the coaches' judgement in terms of determining how he can best help this team.

"That's up to the coaches," Long said. "I'm just going to out there and compete, get better every day, move around, and I'm excited for it."

Quinn said before practice that Malliciah Goodman (tricep), Devin Hester (toe) and Brooks Reed (groin) would be held out of today's practice.