The Atlanta Falcons’ veterans report to training camp on Tuesday, joining the rookies who reported on Friday, and the full team’s first day on the practice field is Wednesday. That means we’ll finally start getting some answers about what new coach Kevin Stefanski’s team will look like.

Here are the top five storylines heading into camp, starting, of course, at quarterback.

The QB competition

The first question is whether Michael Penix Jr. will be cleared for full work. He was held out of 11-on-11 drills throughout the spring while rehabbing the torn ACL he suffered on Nov. 16. He did work in seven-on-seven drills and expressed optimism that he would be a full participant for the opening day of training camp, but Stefanski stopped short of predicting that.

Penix, who enters his third year in the league after being the eighth pick in the 2024 draft, is fighting with six-year veteran Tua Tagovailoa to retain the starting job Penix held before his injury last year. Tagovailoa joined the Falcons on a one-year, $1.2 million contract after being released by the Dolphins.

The competition “has been nothing but good since he got here,” Penix said. “We know we’re in a competition, but we’re on the same team and have the same goals, and that’s to win games. We’ve been good together.”

The Falcons have had five players start at quarterback (Desmond Ridder, Marcus Mariota, Taylor Heinicke, Kirk Cousins and Penix) since trading Matt Ryan following the 2021 season. Ryan, Falcons fans no doubt remember, was hired in the offseason as Atlanta’s new president of football.

James Pearce Jr.’s status

The Falcons’ second-year edge rusher is expected to participate in training camp despite his ongoing legal situation. Pearce, who was arrested in February and faces three felony charges in Florida following a domestic dispute with former girlfriend Rickea Jackson, skipped all of the team’s voluntary workouts during the offseason but was on the field for a two-day minicamp in June. He is enrolled in a 12-month pretrial intervention program that could result in all of his charges being dismissed, but the NFL is still expected to impose a suspension.

The league has wide latitude to suspend players under its personal-conduct policy regardless of the outcome of criminal proceedings, and situations similar to Pearce’s have resulted in multiple-game suspensions. Pearce finished third in Defensive Rookie of the Year voting last year after leading all first-year players — and the Falcons — with 10.5 sacks.

“We’ll see if we’ve got a guy here who can replace that role,” defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich said this spring. “I’m excited about the guys that we have, whether it be Samson (Ebukam) or Bralen (Trice). There are countless guys, like Azeez (Ojulari), and we’ll see what they can do collectively.”

The new right side

For the second straight year, Atlanta is making a change at right tackle. Kaleb McGary, who was the 31st pick in the 2019 draft and started 92 games at right tackle from 2019 to 2024, retired in the offseason after missing all of the 2025 season due to a knee injury. Last year, the Falcons filled in with Elijah Wilkinson, who left in free agency this offseason.

Now Atlanta is going with Jawaan Taylor, who was picked four spots after McGary in the 2019 draft. Taylor has started 120 games for the Jaguars and Chiefs over the last seven years, including nine in the playoffs. He signed a one-year, $5 million deal shortly after McGary retired in April, but he sat out the spring with a leg injury. He is expected to be ready for training camp.

Two months after adding Taylor, the Falcons traded for Wanya Morris, who was Taylor’s backup in Kansas City for the last three seasons. Morris was a third-round pick in 2023.

Finding wide receivers

The nine wide receivers on Atlanta’s roster who aren’t Drake London have a total of 317 catches in 16 NFL seasons. Most of those come from free-agent additions Olamide Zaccheaus (188 catches in seven years) and Jahan Dotson (121 in four years). That looks like the Falcons’ three-man starting lineup to start the season, at least.

Third-round draft pick Zachariah Branch will be in that rotation and could bump Dotson or Zaccheaus from the starting lineup if he has a strong training camp. After that, Chris Blair (one catch in three seasons) and Dylan Drummond (seven catches in two seasons) are next in line simply because they’ve seen an NFL field. UDFAs Vinny Anthony II, Keelan Marion, Le’Meke Brockington and free agent Antwane Wells Jr. fill out the roster heading into camp, but general manager Ian Cunningham will be scouring the league for the next five weeks in hopes of strengthening that room.

Getting back on the field?

The first few days of training camp will give us a better idea of who’s healthy and who’s not. Several players — such as Taylor, safety Xavier Watts and fourth-round linebacker Kendal Daniels — sat out the spring with what Stefanski characterized as minor injuries. All three are expected back on the field at full speed this week, and it will be notable if they’re not.

Of more interest will be players such as cornerback Billy Bowman and linebackers JD Bertrand and Troy Andersen. Bowman suffered a torn Achilles in November and was held out throughout the spring. Bertrand and Andersen were also sidelined this spring, and both are entering a critical training camp. Bertrand, a fifth-round pick in 2024 who started two games last year, could have a hard time making the 53-man roster after the Falcons added four linebackers in the offseason.

Andersen would be expected to make the roster if he were healthy, but he hasn’t been healthy in a long time. A second-round pick in 2022, he hasn’t played since Week 14 of the 2024 season. He has started 11 games in three years while missing time due to a concussion, a torn pectoral muscle and multiple knee issues.

Walker Kessler is hardly the first NBA player to post a video like this. The new Los Angeles Lakers center is in the gym, lifting weights, cold-plunging, doing agility drills and slamming basketballs. He may, though, be the first to share a summer workout mixtape video to the twangs of a Zach Bryan ballad.

The details with Kessler all matter. He’s the biggest swing the Lakers took this summer, the richest bet they made. He cost the Lakers $130 million, two unprotected first-round picks and two unprotected first-round swaps.

Kessler, who turned 25 Sunday, played in just five games last season and 58 the year before, numbers that are, in part, explainable in the context of the Utah Jazz’s conservative approach to injuries while aggressively pursuing the best possible draft lottery odds. But it’s also one of the key reasons why some rival scouts and executives have been critical of the Lakers’ plan.

“He better be good,” said one Western Conference scout who, like other sources in this story, was granted anonymity to discuss teams’ strategies. The words were cloaked in an “or else” tone.

Part of the reason so much hinges on Kessler is the way the Lakers and Luka Dončić prioritized him. Another part is that the Lakers have only Kevon Looney as a backup. Sandro Mamukelashvili and Jarred Vanderbilt are in pencil further down the Lakers’ depth chart, but neither would be capable of playing center on a full-time basis should they need to.

Looney played only 21 games last season with the New Orleans Pelicans, in his first year outside of Golden State. He played 314 total regular-season games in the four prior seasons — a remarkable run of durability, with only Jonas Valančiūnas appearing in more games at center. For Looney, who entered the NBA with a hip injury, the games and minutes crashing the glass and setting bruising screens for the Warriors had to have some cumulative impact, limiting his mobility and, last season, his availability.

Between Looney’s 21 games and the five Kessler played last season, the Lakers are, according to team and league sources, hunting for reinforcement at the center position. But that search won’t be easy. The center market is largely a mess. In addition, the Lakers already have 16 guaranteed contracts and no open roster spots.

The Lakers, it appeared, were ready to roll with Deandre Ayton at center — with Jaxson Hayes leaving for Utah — until the team was able to snag a pair of second-round picks from the Washington Wizards for Ayton.

While Los Angeles believes in Kessler and he was either near or at the absolute top of Dončić’s wish list, scarcity undoubtedly played a role in the cost the Lakers had to pay. Had it not been Kessler, the Lakers, according to team and league sources, would’ve likely tried to sign free agent center Mitchell Robinson, who left the New York Knicks to sign a three-year, $47.4 million deal with Boston.

Robinson is one of 13 different centers to sign deals for more than the minimum this summer, a group that includes players like Jock Landale ($14.1 million this season), Robert Williams III ($14 million), Jusuf Nurkić ($11 million), Day’Ron Sharpe ($10 million), Moe Wagner ($9.5 million) and Quinten Post ($8.7 million).

Nick Richards, Drew Eubanks and Xavier Tillman are among the centers currently unsigned, and any team entertaining trading one of its centers will be operating from a strong position. Supply is low. Cost is high. And the Lakers might need to pay.

While it’s unclear how the Lakers will attack this roster hole, conversations with both team and league sources revealed the types of players Los Angeles could chase.

Jericho Sims, Bucks

Sims fits the run-and-jump archetype that you’d love to put around Dončić because he’s big and a tremendous athlete. He’s currently slated as the Bucks’ No. 3 center behind Myles Turner and Kel’el Ware. Scouts have defensive concerns away from the basket, and Sims has never really been able to produce consistently. But he’s a dunker and rebounder whom the Lakers could use second-round draft capital to try and pry loose.

Jalen Smith, Bulls

Smith has some fans within the organization because he plays with motor and has worked himself into a pretty good outside shooter. But Smith is expensive (two years, $18 million remaining on his deal) and undersized at 6-foot-8. The previous Bulls’ regime was a fan of his, which puts his actual availability into question.

Karlo Matković, Pelicans

Looney became a free agent in New Orleans when the team declined his option for next year, a move the Pelicans made a day after officially picking up Matković’s option. While he’s a bit of a tweener at power forward and center, Matković has a lot of fans around the NBA. The trouble is, New Orleans has signaled to intrigued teams this summer that it doesn’t have interest in trading him.

Unsigned free agents

Richards is probably the biggest name here thanks to his counting stats and experience as a part-time starter, but his inability to consistently impact winning has kept teams from getting all that excited.

Eubanks has fans, but again, the consistency, especially on the defensive side, is why he’s looking for an NBA home. Vets like Bismack Biyombo, Mason Plumlee and Dwight Powell aren’t exactly the kinds of players the Lakers could count on for 10 starts in the middle of January should they need them.

If there doesn’t sound like there’s an obvious answer here, it’s because there isn’t. Other names could shake loose, either via buyout or trade. But the position, on a league-wide level, is in high demand.

The Boston Red Sox already have one new trade addition in infielder Curtis Mead, and they are expected to make more moves before the Aug. 3 trade deadline. With that in mind, we asked for your deadline questions.

In today’s installment, we’ll dig into the job chief baseball officer Craig Breslow is doing, Mead’s fit with the team, payroll projections, the rotation, bullpen trades and more.

In Wednesday’s Part 2, we’ll look at more deadline scenarios, the rise of Franklin Arias, prospects who might be traded, Chad Tracy and more.

Questions have been lightly edited for clarity.

Hi Jen, any sense or scoop on how much (if any) leeway Breslow may have to operate with for the current trade discussions? They are at $265.8 million per RosterResource, slightly above the $264 million second threshold but well below the $284 million threshold in which the first-round pick is moved back 10 spots. This is a franchise record on payroll spending, but still trails some tier-two markets such as Toronto and Philadelphia by a significant amount. Acquired contracts at the deadline also prorate and will be about 30 percent by Aug. 3, so hopefully there won’t be a constraint on the front office this time around. — Gerard G.

I think the one big unknown in terms of spending is what the next collective bargaining agreement will dictate for payroll. The current CBA expires Dec. 1, which is why you’ve been hearing all the lockout talk. Back in 2022, when the current CBA was agreed upon, the owners and players didn’t reach a deal until March, and spring training was cut short. This year, negotiations figure to be even more intense, and there’s a real chance of missing regular-season games. That’s a bit of a roundabout answer to your question, but I make that point because I think the uncertainty surrounding next season will spur teams on the cusp of contention to be more all in this year. Not to mention that new spending and payroll restrictions could be instituted in coming years. In essence, contending teams might decide to spend their money now, because there could be some resets next year.

As it relates to the Red Sox, Breslow is in year three on the job. Entering the season, he repeatedly emphasized that they were playing to win in 2026. It didn’t look that way for the first three months, but Boston’s recent 15-game winning streak seems to have reinvigorated that attitude. Breslow’s early trade for Mead signals an aggressive approach. I don’t know how much the Red Sox are willing to spend. I doubt they’d go past $284 million, and they might try to trade some of their bigger contracts to dip back below the $264 million second tier. But as you noted, they’re already over the $244 million first tier and seem poised to make a push.

With the Red Sox’s acquisition of Curtis Mead as a right-handed designated hitter, is there any market for Masataka Yoshida elsewhere if Boston pays $12 million of his $18.6 million contract in 2027? That would put them below the $264 million CBT for 2026? — David G.

Mead will likely play a good amount at second base, but the team could also try to move Yoshida and give Mead more opportunities at DH. The Red Sox would probably love to find a suitor for Yoshida’s contract, but like you mentioned, paying down some of the deal would likely be the only way to interest potential trade partners. Yoshida has been more productive of late — he’s hitting .283 with an .831 OPS through 14 games in July — so now might be the time to trade him and get more roster flexibility. Opening the DH spot could also allow Willson Contreras and Caleb Durbin some days off from the field, with Mead’s ability to fill in at first and third (though he’s a far worse defender than either of them at their respective positions).

With the subtraction of Connelly Early, is it safe to assume Brayan Bello will remain on the MLB roster for the rest of this season? If so, what is his role? Will we continue to use him as a bulk-inning reliever behind an opener, or will he get another chance to start in 2026? — Julian B.

Barring further pitching moves, it seems likely that Bello will remain on the roster. The Red Sox are still hoping to get Garrett Crochet back late in the season (he’s aiming to return in time for the postseason after restarting his shoulder rehab). But Bello gives the team length out of the bullpen right now. That’s especially important for starters Jake Bennett, Payton Tolle and Patrick Sandoval. Sandoval hasn’t pitched a full season in two years, so monitoring his innings will be key.

Meanwhile, Tolle is already approaching his career high in innings pitched, and Bennett is already about 25 innings past his career high from last year. Shortening their starts or occasionally using Bello as a sixth starter could give those pitchers protection. Next year, the Red Sox are hoping that Tanner Houck, Kutter Crawford and Johan Oviedo will be healthy rotation options by then. Houck and Oviedo are throwing bullpens in Florida, while Crawford has been throwing long toss.

We talk so much about the strong rotation the Sox have, but there are injury and usage concerns popping up. Do you see them poking around the starting-pitcher market and looking for a middle-to-back-of-the-rotation starter to eat quality innings down the stretch and buy a little extra rest for the other starters? — Evan E.

It’s not out of the question, but as noted above, Bello can fill some of that role. The team’s priority right now appears to be its bullpen. When asked this weekend if he’d consider adding more offense following the Mead trade, Breslow said it was possible, but then he pivoted to a thought on pitching.

“We have to be mindful of losing Connelly and those innings and mindful of the workload we put on our bullpen, so I think we’ll look across a wide scope here,” he said.

Breslow has added relief help at each of the past two deadlines, so it seems likely that will be his next move. Relievers like the New York Mets’ Luke Weaver (1.93 ERA) or Brooks Raley (2.09 ERA) could be targets, though Weaver would cost a lot. A rental like the Miami Marlins’ Pete Fairbanks has been less effective (7.18 ERA, 29.6 percent strikeout rate, 9.9 percent walk rate), but he could still offer back-end help down the stretch.

Hi Jen, it sure seems like the dearth of right-handed power bats caused an overpay for Curtis Mead. Losing a really good young left-handed pitcher for a player DFA’d in March hurts. What is the industry thought on this trade? — Frank D.

One scout I spoke with didn’t love the trade and is pretty high on Early’s potential. Breslow said over the weekend how difficult it was to trade Early, a pitcher who was a success story for Boston’s revamped pitching infrastructure. Breslow, however, said the goal was not to win the trade but to improve the team. With so many teams in the mix this deadline, he felt it necessary to strike early. He also said getting Mead in the lineup for an additional seven or eight games before the deadline was key, suggesting that every win will be important in a tight AL playoff race. It might have been an overpay, but the Red Sox had a need and didn’t want to leave the trade season empty-handed.

I’m asking for your thoughts on Breslow. Why the hell can’t we get a real GM? — Libby F.

Breslow has had his gaffes, from the Rafael Devers communication debacle to acquiring a solid haul for Devers only to trade most of it away. That’s not to mention the Chris Sale trade, or the failure to re-sign Alex Bregman.

But he also traded for Crochet, who helped Boston get back to the postseason last year, even if he’s been out of the picture for much of this season. Breslow oversaw the pitching infrastructure changes that helped Tolle and Early emerge as forces in the rotation. And he made solid additions in trading for Sonny Gray and Contreras and signing Ranger Suarez this winter. He did all that and then failed to add another bat to help the club. He’s made some pretty good moves and some pretty lousy ones during his tenure.

Breslow knows his job is on the line this year, and this deadline might be a make-or-break scenario. The start of the year was brutal, but the team improbably pulled itself back together, giving him another chance to prove he can add to a team that has proven it’s worthy of reinforcements. Another reader asked about Theo Epstein’s role at the trade deadline, and I do think Breslow is seeking Epstein’s feedback on which trade targets could be the best fits. But by and large, these are Breslow’s decisions. He’ll be rewarded if this season pans out, and he’ll probably take the fall if it doesn’t.