{"id":847761,"date":"2026-04-01T19:24:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:24:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/847761\/"},"modified":"2026-04-01T19:24:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T19:24:33","slug":"falcons-free-agency-2026-atlanta-re-signs-deangelo-malone-to-1-year-deal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/847761\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons free agency 2026: Atlanta re-signs DeAngelo Malone to 1-year deal"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Now, this could be an elaborate scheme by the team\u2019s new President to pull an April Fool\u2019s prank on the player who \u201creplaced\u201d him, but that remains to be seen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pro-football-reference.com\/players\/M\/MaloDe00.htm\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Malone<\/a> will likely never live up to his 3rd-round (pick 82) selection. He was drafted by former GM Terry Fontenot in hopes that he would be a key contributor to the pass rush. However, since his rookie season, he hasn\u2019t logged more than 90 snaps on defense and has only three sacks to his name after four years in Atlanta. Like many of his selections, Fontenot fell in love with the player\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/ras.football\/ras-information\/?PlayerID=21079&amp;ovl=Falcons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">RAS score<\/a>, but those metrics failed to yield the on-field results the team had been hoping for.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Still, Malone was able to carve out a role on special teams. He\u2019s never quite been \u201cace\u201d quality, but he has been serviceable. That being said, he was a part of the poor-performing unit for 9 games last year, and<a href=\"https:\/\/premium.pff.com\/nfl\/players\/2025\/REGPO\/de-angelo-malone\/56941\/special-teams\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> PFF charted<\/a> him with the most missed tackles of his career for a single season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">While Malone\u2019s defensive snaps were minimal in 2025, he did find himself in the right place at the right time against the Bills, hauling in a ball deflected by Zach Harrison for a game-sealing interception.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Malone will be fighting for his roster spot and likely be on the bubble from the start of camp. However, his experience and willingness to do the dirty work cannot be overlooked. Those qualities have helped him stick on the roster in the past, and they\u2019re likely why he\u2019s been brought back. Not every player is willing to shed their pride and do what must be done to make the roster, but Malone is, and he\u2019ll expose others who aren\u2019t with his own efforts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Now, this could be an elaborate scheme by the team\u2019s new President to pull an April Fool\u2019s prank&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":847762,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2074],"tags":[223,254,52003,2591,2554,224,7,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-847761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-atlanta","9":"tag-atlanta-falcons","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons-free-agency","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons-news","12":"tag-atlantafalcons","13":"tag-falcons","14":"tag-football","15":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116331090310092780","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847761","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=847761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/847761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/847762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=847761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=847761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=847761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}