Dan Quinn says Falcons won’t pick up Takk McKinley’s 5th year option, then walks it back

The Combine has been bringing us a ton of Falcons news at last, and one of the most intriguing bits of information came just a short time ago, when Thomas Dimitroff said the team was still weighing whether to pick up Takk McKinley’s fifth year option.

The only problem with that? Dan Quinn followed that up by saying the team had decided not to pick up the option, something he almost immediately walked back. A story in three Tweets:

This was either a slip of the tongue from Quinn or an honest answer that he wasn’t supposed to give, but either way I’m not sure it bodes well for the team picking up Takk’s option year. The Falcons just were burnt by picking up the option for Vic Beasley, who capped off a decent year with 8 sacks but was miserably ineffective during the first eight games of the season, when the Falcons were 1-7, and they don’t seem eager to repeat that after a pretty quiet year statistically from McKinley.

We should have official word soon enough, but my guess is that Quinn let that one slip. The Falcons don’t want to be on the hook for another big, potentially guaranteed pass rusher salary if Takk falters again in his fourth season. I’m bullish on Takk’s potential—I have been all along, and I don’t think his lack of sacks in 2019 tells the full story—but I can’t really blame the team for being leery of repeating their mistake with Beasley. If he crushes it this year, the Falcons will have to figure out how to pay him, but that’ll be a better problem than facing the prospect of paying an underachieving player big money in 2021 if it once again doesn’t work out.

Things are getting busy around these parts!