Falcons rookies report to training camp tomorrow

The NFL is funny. They throw a spring of exciting, sometimes exhausting events and moves at you, with free agency and the draft and minicamps all piling up, and then we hit the only real dead zone on the league’s calendar from mid-June to late July. You’re just supposed to cool your heels and/or talk in circles about how good your favorite team is.

It’ll be busier very soon, as blessedly training camp is starting up, with all the roster battles and preseason preparation that brings. In fact, rookies for the Falcons report tomorrow, just a day after the Bills and Raiders kick things off for the rest of the NFL by welcoming their 2022 class. Then it’s only a week until the veterans arrive, and then we get

That means highly touted players like wide receiver Drake London, pass rushers Arnold Ebiketie and DeAngelo Malone, and ball lightning-in-human form Troy Andersen will be on hand to start pushing for major roles. In total, the team will be bringing about 22 rookies to camp a week early, or a little under a quarter of the 2022 90 man roster as it stands today, and it’s fair to expect several of them to have major roles for what we all hope is an improved team. The big news and notes—like ESPN’s Mike Rothstein and his daily roundups—which follow when everyone’s there, but we’ll get some early reports about this draft class and crop of undrafted free agents. That’s more than enough to sustain us after a month of virtually no Falcons news at all.

We’ve been waiting a long time to see how this sometimes tumultuous, legitimately intriguing Falcons offseason is going to pay off in 2022. Thankfully, we really don’t have to wait much longer.