Falcoholinks: All the Falcons news you need for Monday, July 22

It’s here, folks. Training camp officially gets underway today, so we’ll finally get some direct insight into much of the offseason intrigue and positional battles. Football is almost, almost here.

Dive in to today’s Falcoholinks for camp coverage and more.

Signed, sealed, delivered

Last week the Falcons locked up two of their young defensive cornerstones: Grady Jarrett and Deion Jones. It’s impossible to overstate how important it was to get these two guys signed, and it continues the Falcons’ recent trend of keeping the players that they absolutely need to keep.

One of the downsides of drafting so well of late is that eventually you’re going to need to open up the wallet to lock down your talent. Thankfully the Falcons have excelled at this in recent years.

The tackle battle

One of the positions up for grabs on the roster is the fourth DT spot, with free agent add Tyeler Davison entering camp as the de facto favorite. But camp performances can sometimes muddy the waters, so The Falcoholic’s Evan Birchfield takes a look at who is in the mix and his prediction for who ultimately secures the position.

The safety situation

Pending full health, of course, Keanu Neal and Ricardo Allen are the Falcons’ starting safeties. But what about the competition for the backup spots? Atlanta enters camp with a group that includes Sharrod Neasman, J.J. Wilcox, Jason Thompson, Parker Baldwin, and Ryan Neal.

All will be competing for reserve spots on the roster, but who do we think wins out?

Who returns?

One of the marquee battles in training camp will be over who is tabbed as the Falcons’ primary kick returner. Atlanta brought in Kenjon Barner who has experience returning kicks, but there are also some younger guys in the mix: namely Marcus Green. The speedy sixth-rounder out of Louisiana-Monroe certainly has the wheels to secure the job, so it will be interesting to see if he wins out over the veterans on the roster.

We took a look at all the candidates and gave our prediction on who will be returning kicks for the Atlanta Falcons in 2019.