Falcons LT Jake Matthews, WR Roddy White return to practice

Lost in all the shuffling along the offensive line, with Jonathan Asamoah being placed on injured reserve, the team trading for guard Andy Levitre, cutting Joe Hawley and picking up Gino Gradkowski off waivers, was the fact that left tackle Jake Matthews missed practice all last week with a back injury.

Matthews was medically excused from last Thursday's game, and with the offensive line so in flux at present, that's a troubling proposition when Tyler Polumbus is pretty much the only other viable option on the roster at present. Well, there's good news, Falcons fans, because Matthews returned to practice today. The team wasn't in pads, but he didn't look terribly stiff and seemed to be moving around fine in the limited time we were able to observe.

Roddy White, coming off elbow surgery, also returned to practice, as did Justin Durant, who had a foot injury that kept him out last week. Robenson Therezie, Joplo Bartu and Devin Hester all were held out of practice and instead worked with the athletic performance staff to rehab their respective injuries.

While James Stone is currently listed as the only center on Atlanta's depth chart, Mike Person was the one taking first-team snaps in position drills. The first team makeup today was Ryan Schraeder, Chris Chester, Person, Andy Levitre and Jake Matthews. Gino Gradkowski was not at practice today.

After practice, Dan Quinn confirmed that the team will work out Jake Long tomorrow. Quinn said that they'll be looking for improvement from the last time Long worked out for the Falcons since he's had more time to fully recover from reconstructive knee surgery.

There's no media availability tomorrow, but we'll have full reports from the Branch Thursday, Friday and Saturday.