FLOWERY BRANCH — Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins and defensive tackle Grady Jarrett were medically cleared and practiced on the first day of training camp.
Cousins, who is coming back from a ruptured right Achilles, and Jarrett, who’s recovering from a right knee surgery, will be eased back into practice.
“Yes, we are out and ready to go,” coach Raheem Morris said when asked if they were medically cleared by the team’s doctors. “We’ll do some sort of, our own modifications. (Like) some of the things we did with Kirk in the spring. … But he’s ready to go. We’ll do some modifications obviously with Grady. But they are all medically cleared and ready to go.”
Cousins felt things went well at practice.
“Great to get back out here,” Cousins said. “Obviously, in my situation it’s great to be moving around in football cleats again. I’m feeling stronger, being able to compare it to six weeks ago, I feel much more athletic and in much less pain. It’s just exciting to be back in it.”
Jarrett was back in his role with the first-team defense during practice.
“It felt good,” Jarrett said. “I mean, it really felt awesome. I set a goal to be back by the opening of training camp, and I reached my goal. It felt good. Just missed being out there with them and being able to take part in practice. But it felt amazing. I’m happy to be back.”
Rookie running back Jase McClellan was held back over the offseason with a foot injury.
“Jase is full go,” Morris said. “He’s back. He’s healthy. He had the things he had going on (foot injury). But he’ll be out there ready to go. He’s cleared. He did his conditioning test.”
The Falcons did not have any holdouts, but one player is headed for the physically-unable-to-perform list.
“Everybody reported, so we can get that out of the way,” Morris said. “We’ve got all hands on deck. We’ve got one guy that will be on PUP here, (running back) Robert Burns (with) a preexisting injury that we knew about from the spring. Some of the stuff that he had with the conditioning test yesterday. We’ll (take) precaution and do that here shortly.”
Cousins, who formerly played with the Commanders and Vikings, signed a four-year, $180 million deal, with $100 million guaranteed in March. He suffered the injury in a game against the Packers on Oct. 29.
Jarrett tore his ACL early in a game against the Titans on Oct. 29. He had made 88 consecutive starts and had not missed a game since October 2018.
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