Falcons Clearing Cap Space

The Falcons cleared 7.5 million dollars in cap space on September 5th, by restructuring Jessie Bates contract. The Falcons converted 11.25 million dollars into a signing bonus lowering Bates cap hit by 10 million dollars this year. This leaves the Falcons with just over six million dollars of cap space to play with this year. The Falcons have also opened up a roster spot on the 53 man by trading Taylor Heinicke for a conditional sixth round pick. To me there are two options that the falcons could be using this extra cap space for. The first and most likely option is pretty boring, and that is the falcons plan to fill the last roster spot from their practice squad and use this extra money as a rainy day fund. The second more fun option is that they are going to get aggressive and go after another wide receiver via free agency or trade.

Let's talk about the more fun option. The falcons pieced together a receiver room this offseason adding guys such as Darnell Mooney, Casey Washington, and Rondale Moore. All three receivers were off to promising camps until Rondale Moore went down with a knee injury that will sideline him for the whole season. Mooney has established himself as the second wide receiver on the depth chart, but Casey Washington on the other hand was not able to crack the starting line up as of right now. Casey Washington is a rookie and hopefully with time to develop can be the third wide receiver for the Falcons in the future, but for now it will be Ray-Ray McCloud.

The Falcons front office may not be comfortable with that though, and they can attack it one of two ways. Through free agency or through trade. There are a lot of free agent wide receivers out there, but the name that jumps off the page to me is Hunter Renfrow. Renfrow is a guy that had a couple of successful seasons with the Raiders, but did not gain much traction after being released by them. He is a polished route runner and has had a 1,000 yard season. While this name isn't necessarily a game changer he can be a leader and a solid addition to this young receiver room.

The other option for the Falcons is to go after another receiver via trade. A name that I would like the Falcons to go after is John Metchie. The Texans have a crowded receiver room that will be hard for Metchie to break into a role that provides him any play time. Metchie was a star at Alabama, but following a cancer diagnosis his draft stock fell tremendously and he has been working to get back to his former self ever since. Metchie has seemed to get back to that former self though and has had a great camp and preseason. With how crowded the Texans receiver room is, the Falcons should be able to trade for Metchie on relatively fair deal. This would be a receiver with high upside at a relatively cheap price, assuming the Falcons could get him on a late round pick, possibly one with conditions attatched.