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Marc RaimondiOct 21, 2025, 04:35 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Marc Raimondi’s first year covering the Falcons was 2024, but it wasn’t his first year at ESPN. He joined the company in 2019 and was a top combat sports reporter. He also covered professional wrestling and wrote the book “Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Pro Wrestling’s New World Order Changed America,” which was published by Simon & Schuster in 2025. Raimondi also worked for the New York Post and Newsday, beginning in 2009, covering high school and college sports, plus the NFL, NFL, MLB and NHL.<\/p>\n The Atlanta Falcons<\/a> sent home Ray-Ray McCloud III<\/a> last week and now the wide receiver has been released outright, the team announced Tuesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n Falcons coach Raheem Morris described the situation Friday as a private matter<\/a> between McCloud and the team. Morris said it was not necessarily disciplinary in nature.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n McCloud was a surprise healthy scratch in Week 6, an eventual Monday Night Football win over the Buffalo Bills<\/a>. He was sent home last week for reasons Morris did not divulge and was listed as out against the San Francisco 49ers<\/a>.<\/p>\n On Saturday, McCloud posted in support of the Falcons on X<\/a>, writing that he “wanted this one bad” with his teammates. The 49ers were McCloud’s former team.<\/p>\n Morris said last week that McCloud’s situation had nothing to do with the firing of Falcons wide receivers coach Ike Hilliard<\/a> after a 30-0 loss to the Carolina Panthers<\/a> in Week 3. McCloud and Hilliard are close, and Hilliard being in Atlanta was a significant reason why McCloud signed with the Falcons in the 2024 offseason.<\/p>\n After the firing, McCloud said Hilliard was the best coach he has ever had and that it reminded him that “this league has no loyalty.”<\/p>\n Morris said Friday that McCloud being absent from the team was “more a football thing.”<\/p>\n McCloud, 29, had a career year in 2024, making 62 receptions for 686 yards and a touchdown. He started 13 games. This season, McCloud had just six catches for 64 yards in four games.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc RaimondiOct 21, 2025, 04:35 PM ET CloseMarc Raimondi’s first year covering the Falcons was 2024, but it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241923,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-241922","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241922","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241922"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241922\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241923"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241922"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241922"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241922"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}