Another strong link in a sturdy offensive line, featuring one of the best guards on the planet.
If tackle is a position where long-established veterans figure to fill the roster, guard is…fairly similar. The biggest difference is that some of the players in this group are quite young, even if they’re settled in.
Matthew Bergeron heads into his third season as the unquestioned starter, while Kyle Hinton will be in his third year as a core reserve. Bergeron is just 25 and Hinton is just 27, but even grizzled veteran Chris Lindstrom (drafted in 2019) is just 28 years old. Elijah Wilkinson is the old man of the group at 30.
Behind them, there’s a couple of intriguing undrafted free agents and multi-position roster hopefuls jockeying for roles, but it’s fair to project that those four will likely hold down spots in 2025. The strength of Lindstrom and Bergeron as a starting duo makes guard a position of power for these Falcons, and that’s especially vital given the change at center, which we’ll cover next time out.
Starters
Matthew Bergeron, Chris Lindstrom
Two years in to his career, Bergeron looks like a competent starter with real glimpses of better than that, and his 2024 season was a major improvement on an uneven rookie campaign. His run blocking is quite good and his pass protection is improving in fits and starts, and Bergeron’s third season should tell us whether he’s going to settle in as a useful starter or a really good one.
There are no such questions with Lindstrom. He has a case to make as the best right guard in the NFL, with elite run blocking and very good pass protection skills that he’ll be putting to use keeping Michael Penix safe and Bijan Robinson rolling in 2025. So long as he’s healthy, Lindstrom is the key cog in this offensive line, and the player opposing defenses get headaches thinking about having to get by.
Reserves
Kyle Hinton, Elijah Wilkinson
Hinton is one of Dwayne Ledford’s guys. Over the past two seasons, he’s filled in when called upon at guard and done a mostly fine job in those occasions and a single start, serving on special teams in between. I view him as an absolute lock to hold a roster spot again in 2025.
Wilkinson is less certain to stick, but given the limited experience in the options behind him and his utility as a tackle and guard with multiple seasons worth of time spent with Atlanta, he’s the early frontrunner for the fourth guard/fourth or fifth tackle spot on this roster.
Roster hopefuls/practice squad candidates
Joshua Gray, Jovaughn Gwyn, Matthew Cindric, Michael Gonzalez, Jordan Williams
There’s some real overlap here between positions; you’ll see Gwyn, Gonzalez, and Cindric in the center review and Williams has already been in the tackle review.
Gray is the name to watch here. He played tackle in college but projects best at guard in the pros and has been announced there for the Falcons, and was a tough, dependable, and talented lineman in college. I view him as a very strong bet for the practice squad if he has a quality summer, and has a shot to knock Wilkinson off the roster if he really kills it.
Gwyn, Cindric, and Gonzalez are competing to back up Ryan Neuzil at center, with some utility at guard in a crisis. Gwyn has been around the longest and is clearly somewhat of a Dwayne Ledford favorite—the team would’ve dumped him a long time ago if not, given that they carried him on the roster for a long while as an inactive—while Cindric and Gonzalez are newer to the group. Gonzalez has considerable college experience at guard (though he’s listed as a center for the Falcons) and played for Louisville, where Ledford missed him by one year but surely has heard plenty about the young offensive lineman, and thus is an interesting name to monitor in this group. This should be a legitimate competition we’ll cover a little more in our next article, but suffice to say whoever wins a roster spot here could but hopefully will not factor in at guard in 2025.
Williams, if he performs well this summer, could land a role as a practice squad tackle who could fill in at guard in an emergency.