Falcons Cut Former First Rounder Who Tweeted Trades The Team Turned Down

Atlanta Falcons v Houston Texans

The Atlanta Falcons have cut former first-round pick Takk McKinley after he complained that the team had refused to trade him. With the trade deadline approaching last week, McKinley posted two tweets saying that he did not expect to be traded, even though he had demanded one last year.

"The @AtlantaFalcons aren't trading me. They have declined a handful of offers," McKinley wrote.

Two days later, he provided some details about the offers that the Falcons had turned down over the past two seasons.

"These @AtlantaFalcons turned down a 2nd round draft pick when I requested to get traded last year," he said. "The same @AtlantaFalcons turned down a 5th and 6th round draft pick from multiple teams when I requested to get traded this year. I only have 17.5 career sacks."

The Falcons were not happy with McKinley and fined him an undisclosed amount of money for his tweets. The team told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that McKinley's claims about the rejected trades were not true.

The Falcons did not trade McKinley at the deadline and decided to cut him from their roster.

The Falcons took McKinley with the 26th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft. He never lived up to the Falcons' expectations. He played in 49 games and had just 17.5 career sacks and 22 tackles for a loss. The team declined to pick up his fifth-year $10.3 million option prior to the start of the season. He failed to put up the big numbers the Falcons expected and has been hampered by a lingering groin injury for the past few weeks.

McKinley has not tweeted about getting cut by the Falcons. His last tweet came on November 4, when he defended his statements about the rejected trades.

Photo: Getty Images


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