ATLANTA -- If the Atlanta Falcons settled on a new right guard Thursday night, coach Dan Quinn kept the secret to himself after falling to 0-4 in the preseason with a 13-7 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Ben Garland and Wes Schweitzer played in Mercedes-Benz Stadium on a night when few starters saw action. It was unclear which one finished the preseason with the upper hand in their bids to replace retired Chris Chester in the only offensive spot where Atlanta lost a starter from its Super Bowl team.
"Both guys really [had] a very good camp," Quinn said. "We had great assessments and we wanted to take them all the way through, including tonight, where we played them both at center and guard and that was really by design.
"As we head into next week, we pretty much already have our decision down, you could see both of them playing, that's how close this was."
The 6-foot-5, 308-pound Garland, a fourth-year pro out of the Air Force Academy, saw spot duty at center last season and actually played more as a reserve defensive linemen. Schweitzer (6-4, 300) is in his second season out of San Jose State, where he played chiefly at tackle.
It won’t be a surprise if the Falcons troll the waiver wire this weekend and add a guard after teams around the NFL make their cuts.
But Quinn wasn’t going with that line of thought Thursday night.
"We're excited. We're very fortunate we've got two guys of that caliber who can play all three inside spots," Quinn said. "That's pretty rare in our league to have men like that who can play center, guard, right side, left side and because of the training they've done they're equipped to do that."
