Twitter roasts Falcons quarterback AJ McCarron, praises Feleipe Franks for Atlanta debuts

Jacob Camenker

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Twitter roasts Falcons quarterback AJ McCarron, praises Feleipe Franks for Atlanta debuts image

AJ McCarron has spent seven seasons in the NFL, but during his Falcons debut Friday night, he didn't look like a seasoned veteran.

The Falcons started McCarron in their preseason opener against the Titans to allow Matt Ryan to rest. Atlanta played McCarron during the first half of its 23-3 defeat and he wasn't able to lead a scoring drive. In fact, the Falcons totaled just 6 yards in the first half after McCarron's first three drives all netted negative yardage.

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McCarron was under a lot of pressure in the pocket — he was sacked twice — but he also had some ugly throws. Case in point: this interception that looked like it was thrown straight to Titans linebacker David Long Jr.

By the end of his night, McCarron had completed just 5 of 12 passes for 36 yards and the interceptions. Falcons fans were not happy with their quarterback's effort, and they took to Twitter to express their displeasure. Some even joked about 40-year-old Matt Schaub returning to back up Ryan.

McCarron's performance was only made worse by third-string quarterback Feleipe Franks producing a couple of nice highlights. The undrafted rookie from Arkansas had a nice stiff-arm on a scramble and managed a 51-yard run later in his outing. 

Naturally, those two plays were enough for some Falcons fans to decide that they'd rather see Franks be the team's backup than McCarron.

That said, Franks completed just 2 of 9 passes for 9 yards, so it seems as if the Falcons might have a backup QB problem no matter who wins the job.

Jacob Camenker

Jacob Camenker Photo

Jacob Camenker first joined The Sporting News as a fantasy football intern in 2018 after his graduation from UMass. He became a full-time employee with TSN in 2021 and now serves as a senior content producer with a particular focus on the NFL. Jacob worked at NBC Sports Boston as a content producer from 2019 to 2021. He is an avid fan of the NFL Draft and ranked 10th in FantasyPros’ Mock Draft Accuracy metric in both 2021 and 2022.