Falcons sign rookies Jalen Mayfield, Ta’Quon Graham, and Frank Darby

The Falcons have been busy today. With OTAs and mandatory minicamp wrapping up and the cap relief from the Julio Jones trade officially back on the books, we were expecting to hear about the team moving to sign their draft class. Earlier today, the signings of both CB Avery Williams and EDGE Adetokunbo Ogundeji were announced—and the remainder of the draft class was expected to follow shortly thereafter.

As of this afternoon, we’ve received official confirmation on three other signings: OL Jalen Mayfield, DT Ta’Quon Graham, and WR Frank Darby.

With approximately $14M in cap space, the Falcons finally had plenty of flexibility to sign the rookies. With the signings of Mayfield, Graham, Darby, Ogundeji, and Williams, only four rookies remain unsigned:

• TE Kyle Pitts (1st round)
• S Richie Grant (2nd round)
• OL Drew Dalman (4th round)
• CB Darren Hall (4th round)

It is believed that the remaining signings will follow in the very near future—perhaps even later tonight. Generally, the contracts for rookies are very straightforward and have little room for negotiation or nuance. Top-10 picks can be a bit of an exception, but there’s no reason to believe we’ll see a significant delay in the signing of Kyle Pitts.

With the rookie class expected to cost approximately $7.108M, the Falcons have close to $7M in cap space to play around with. It’s possible the team could bring in additional veteran support on both offense and defense, or they could opt to carry the money into the season as an emergency fund—or with the intention of “rolling it over” into 2022 to help with next year’s salary cap.

Give a warm, official welcome to the newest members of the Falcons!