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NFL Free Agency: Atlanta Falcons Re-Sign Mike Peterson, Says Mike Peterson

As especially impatient Atlanta Falcons fans demand to know when the team will sign 1993-vintage Reggie White in free agency, the team is taking care of the center of its defense. Thursday morning, veteran linebacker Mike Peterson exclaimed on Twitter that he'd agreed to terms with the team. No details on what those terms are as of yet.

Update: One-year deal, the team announced. No financials.

Stephen Nicholas agreed to a five-year deal the day before, so anything more than a year or two for Peterson would be kind of surprising. In Curtis Lofton, Sean Weatherspoon, Nicholas and perhaps Akeem Dent and others, the team has a number of skilled young linebackers. Not to mention important secondary and offensive line players to re-sign.

But Peterson played well in 2010 after a shaky 2009, and knows Mike Smith's scheme well enough to function as a player-coach. Spoon and Lofton immediately took him on as a mentor upon joining the roster, and you'd expect Dent to do the same. Though we don't have any sense of the terms yet, we can say this deal seems like a solid move.

 

Name Pos. Age Status Word on the street

 

Brent Grimes CB 28 RFA

 

Brian Finneran WR 35 UFA Won't re-sign

 

Brian Williams CB 32 UFA Won't re-sign

 

Eric Weems KR 26 RFA

 

Harvey Dahl RG 30 UFA

 

Jason Snelling RB 27 UFA Rams target

 

Jerious Norwood HB 27 UFA Won't re-sign

 

Justin Blalock LG 27 UFA

 

Matt Bryant K 36 UFA

 

Michael Koenen P 29 UFA

 

Mike Peterson OLB 35 UFA Falcons: 1-Yr

 

Stephen Nicholas OLB 28 UFA Falcons: 5-Yr, $17.5M

 

Thomas Johnson DT 30 UFA

 

Tyson Clabo RT 29 UFA Bills target

 

Approx. cap room, pending reported deals: $12-16M

For more on the Falcons, check out The Falcoholic. For more NFL football, head to SB Nation NFL.

Photographs by coka_koehler used in background montage under Creative Commons. Thank you.