{"id":847680,"date":"2026-04-01T18:36:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:36:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/847680\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T18:36:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T18:36:22","slug":"free-agent-lb-deangelo-malone-chooses-falcons-over-bucs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/847680\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Agent LB DeAngelo Malone Chooses Falcons Over Bucs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"DeAngelo\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGetty\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Atlanta Falcons linebacker DeAngelo Malone. <\/p>\n

Even on a micro level, losing free agents to an NFC South Division rival is going to sting a little for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers<\/a> \u2014 and may be more indicative of a bigger issue.<\/p>\n

Something along the lines of maybe even mid-level free agents don\u2019t want to come to the Buccaneers, who appear to be a sinking ship headed into 2026.<\/p>\n

The latest to turn their back on the Buccaneers is free agent linebacker and special teams standout DeAngelo Malone<\/a>, who chose to return to the Atlanta Falcons<\/a> instead of signing with the Buccaneers after being hosted on a visit recently.<\/p>\n

\u201cFree agent linebacker DeAngelo Malone is returning to the Falcons on a one-year deal, per source,\u201d ESPN\u2019s Jeremy Fowler wrote<\/a> on his official X account on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cMalone had visited the Bucs last week,\u201d Fox Sports NFL reporter Greg Auman<\/a> wrote on his official X account.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tTony Adame<\/a> covers the NFL for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Washington Commanders, Dallas Cowboys, Baltimore Ravens, Philadelphia Eagles and Denver Broncos. A veteran sports writer and editor since 2004, his work has been featured at Stadium Talk, Yardbarker, NW Florida Daily News and Pensacola News Journal. More about Tony Adame<\/a>\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\tMore Heavy on Buccaneers\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tLoading more stories\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Getty Atlanta Falcons linebacker DeAngelo Malone. Even on a micro level, losing free agents to an NFC South…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847681,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2077],"tags":[211,7,6,704,250,2597,2596],"class_list":{"0":"post-847680","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-buccaneers","8":"tag-buccaneers","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-buccaneers","13":"tag-tampabay","14":"tag-tampabaybuccaneers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116330902979542690","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=847680"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847680\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}