The 2021 third round pick Jalen Mayfield has been released, making him the biggest flop so far by the new regime. The quick story is that he played tackle in college, but due to injures to both free agent addition Josh Andrews and top rising prospect Matt Gono, the left guard position was a gaping hole - and Mayfield got thrown into the fire. He struggled badly. That really shouldn't have been a surprise at all - third rounder starting as a rookie at a new position that he didn't even practice for most of the offseason program. Yeah, that's a sure-fire recipe for success. He then got hurt last offseason and lost the year to IR. This year the team moved him back to tackle and made him a candidate for the swing tackle role. He looked pretty good against Miami, particularly in run blocking assignments while playing the right side. But he moved to the left side for the Bengals game and struggled. He got dropped to the third unit and wasn't particularly impressive against Pittsburgh either. So... buh-bye. The flip side is that Atlanta doesn't really have a solid option for the swing tackle role. Ethan Greenidge got hurt. Josh Miles has struggled, giving up a couple of sacks in limited playing time in the preseason games. Tyler Vrabel looks more like he's returning to the practice squad rather than the roster, never mind actually seeing game action. I'm not sure if they'd go with someone like Kyle Hinton or Barry Wesley. If the choice was up to me, I'd go with The Player To Be Named Later and see who I could snag off the waiver wire or in trade for a future sixth or seventh round pick. In his defense, Mayfield was misused for most of his Falcons career. He's still young - head coach Arthur Smith pointed out during camp that he would still be eligible to play for Michigan even now if he stayed in school and redshirted a year. So he still has true upside, position versatility, and some actual NFL starting experience. He'll land somewhere.
Hopefully Mathews plays every game at LT... but you definitely need a really good swing-tackle to be successful, so I hope they find their guy. Like you said, they might be heavily monitoring the waiver wire at the moment as cuts have to be completed by 4pm et, this Tuesday. But, then again, you have to subtract to add, so its not an easy thing to do. This next 2 days should see quite a few vets around the League getting axed, unfortunately.
Some of the media reports on his release are being brutal about the new GM's first draft class, ripping him to shreds because that draft class allegedly isn't doing enough to help with the roster rebuild. WTF?? Two of nine players have been released so far, and two more (both taken on Day 3) are in danger. That's pretty standard for the NFL. It's not a fiasco by any means. For that matter, it probably rates above the average draft class of his predecessor. Meanwhile the first rounder is a stud, the second rounder is starting, a fourth rounder is starting, a fifth rounder is a key member of the defensive line rotation, and a fifth round comp pick who is out on IR is the team's punt returner when he's healthy.
