The big guy is yet another player on a one year contract. The question: did he "prove it" ? He was in the battle for the starting RT job, competing with Kaleb McGary. The team had just announced they were NOT picking up the fifth year option on McGary, so both contenders were competing to boost their next contracts. McGary won. Would Ifedi become the swing tackle? That doesn't appear to be the case, as he has played only one snap on offense all year. He has been active each week though, participating on the FG/XP unit on special teams (along with Colby Gossett and Matt Hennessy/Ryan Neuzil). Elijah Wilkinson missed one game earlier in the season before his current stint on IR. The coaches had competition in practice to see who would be the replacement that week. Gossett beat out Ifedi. Later, the coaches gave Matt Hennessy a shot at the LG spot. That's a positive for Hennessy but an eyebrow-raiser for Ifedi... Hennessy was the only other center on the active roster at the time, and the coaches chose to risk him at guard rather than Ifedi??? And then when Wilkinson, Hennessy and Gossett were all out of action, they put in Chuma Edoga ahead of Ifedi. Maybe they want to see what Gossett, Hennessy and Edoga can do. But what it says about Ifedi's status isn't encouraging. Ifedi is a guy now in his 7th NFL season. He has 83 career starts. Your team is in the hunt for the division lead, and you're continuing to start Colby Gossett instead of Ifedi ? Something just doesn't compute there, and it hints that Ifedi might be another Falcons player without a chair when the music stops.
OverTheCap still doesn't have the details on his contract, but Ifedi did resign on another one year deal - which I will assume was dirt cheap, like last year. At first the news hit me as a surprise, as Elijah Wilkinson and Colby Gossett are still free agents while Chuma Edoga has already signed a one-year deal with the Cowboys. But... the world wasn't going to be beating down his door. It makes sense for him to lock in his contract while he can, and it also makes sense for Wilkinson to test the waters a bit before locking himself into a relatively cheap deal. So now the question with Ifedi is how he might fit into the picture for 2023. They might put him in competition for the left guard spot, he might be in contention for the swing tackle role, or he might simply be a backup to Kaleb McGary at right tackle. He played RT in camp and preseason last year but does have experience at RG. The team put him up against Matt Hennessy for a week in practice last year to see who would fill in for Wilkinson at LG. Ifedi lost that battle, which isn't too surprising since he had never played the left side and hadn't played interior all season. Still... he lost the RT battle in camp last year and wasn't part of the parade of left guards last year while Wilkinson was hurt. Jake Matthews, Drew Dalman, Matt Hennessy, Chris Lindstrom, Kaleb McGary, Jalen Mayfield, rising prospects Justin Shaffer, Tyler Vrabel, Ryan Neuzil and Jonotthan Harrison are all under contract along with Ifedi, and we're still a month away from the draft. You have to figure that at least one of the eleven guys already under contract now won't make the final roster. Ifedi, Mayfield and the four prospects would seem to be the main ones in jeopardy. So congrats to Ifedi on the new contract, but he's still far from "safe" with his roster spot.
And it's now official... today the Falcons released Ifedi and signed quarterback prospect Austin Aune. I guess I'm not as surprised as some members of Falcons-related sites. While he does have experience, to my knowledge he hasn't played left tackle. And as noted in the initial post above, he lost out to Hennessy (who himself had lost out to Dalman for a starting role) and still didn't get the nod to fill in at guard even when virtually everyone else was unavailable. Now the team has potential swing tackles that actually have experience playing tackle - including newly signed Barry Wesley, Kyle Hinton, Joshua Miles, and... ... Jalen Mayfield. I'm interested in seeing how the team uses Mayfield in training camp and preseason. He was a tackle in college. Atlanta drafted him in the third round in 2021. Due to injuries to Matt Gono and Josh Andrews, the coaching staff suddenly pushed Mayfield into the starting left guard role. He struggled every bit as badly as you'd expect from a third round rookie playing out of position. The team kept him at left guard for training camp last season, but he quickly lost out to Elijah Wilkinson - and then landed on IR and missed the season. So now they have a chance to get it right. With Matthew Bergeron on board, Matt Hennessy potentially competing with him, last year's late rounder Justin Shaffer, practice squad C/G Ryan Neuzil, and this year's seventh rounder Jovaughn Gwyn all in the mix for depth spots in the interior, there is zero need to keep Mayfield on the inside. I'm guessing that signing Wesley was the trigger to release Ifedi rather than the desire to sign Aune. The main thing I see with Aune is a fourth arm for minicamp and training camp. Otherwise, he's interesting - though not in the "he might be a good prospect" sense of the term. He turns 30 this September. He was initially drafted in 2012, by the New York Yankees. After six years in their farm system, he went back to school and played quarterback for North Texas State. On the plus side, he did set the school record for most TD passes in a season. He also has a surprisingly good 3-cone drill (though not a particularly good 40-time to go with it). He came to rookie minicamp as an invite, and now he's a regular member of the 90-man roster. I won't rule him out. Someone will need to throw the ball for the scout team during the season, and right now it's Aune vs Logan Woodside (who is 28) for that practice squad spot.
