After a disappointing 11th season in Atlanta, it appears Roddy White won’t receive a 12th for the team that drafted him. The Falcons announced the release of their longtime wideout on their website.
The Falcons don’t gain too much financially by cutting ties with White, their first-round pick in 2005. White was set to take up $6.14MM of Atlanta’s cap — the fifth-highest figure on the team. The Falcons will create $2.36MM of cap room but be charged with $3.78MM in dead money as White’s contract had two more seasons left.
White, who in January said he wasn’t interested in taking a pay cut, wants to continue his career for “another year or two,” he told ESPN.com’s Josina Anderson (Twitter link).
The 34-year-old White made four Pro Bowls and was a first-team All-Pro in 2010, when he caught a career-high 110 passes for 1,389 yards and 10 touchdowns.
White signed a three-year, $18MM extension with the Falcons in July 2014, and he delivered an 80-reception, 921-yard, seven-touchdown slate. In 2015, however, White started all 16 games but caught just 43 passes for 506 yards and one touchdown as Julio Jones led the league in receiving.
White is by far the Falcons’ all-time receiving leader, with 10,863 yards, as the only player in franchise history to have more than 10,000 yards receiving. He broke Terrance Mathis‘ career touchdown mark in 2014 and has 63. White’s the only Falcons target to catch 600 passes, ballooning his career total to 808.
The Falcons drafted White at No. 27 overall in 2005 out of UAB. He became a regular starter in 2007 and held that post for nine seasons with the team.
White will enter a thin receiver free agent class, which also now includes Marques Colston, who was essentially the Saints’ equivalent of White. Like Colston, who posted a career-low 520 aerial yards last season, White did not show much in 2015. He’ll turn 34 in November.
With only Eric Weems and Justin Hardy behind Jones, expect the Falcons to be in the market for a No. 2 receiver in free agency, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets.
Photo courtesy USA Today Sports Images
Idiots
Roddy went to UAB.
Fixed. Momentarily mixed up the old green-uniform CUSA schools.
Sadly that has patriots written all over it