{"id":573786,"date":"2026-04-09T11:48:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:48:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573786\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T11:48:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T11:48:08","slug":"jessie-bates-wants-to-finish-his-career-with-the-falcons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/573786\/","title":{"rendered":"Jessie Bates wants to finish his career with the Falcons"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Jessie Bates has spent the past three seasons in Atlanta after signing a four-year, $64.02 million deal as a free agent. The one-time Pro Bowl safety enters the final year of his contract hoping to finish his career with the Falcons.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYeah, absolutely,\u201d Bates said, via Tori McElhaney of the team website. \u201c<a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.atlantafalcons.com\/news\/jessie-bates-falcons-kevin-stefanski-ian-cunningham\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">I want to retire as a Falcon<\/a>. I have a beautiful house here, a beautiful family. My family loves it here. Why would I not want to be a Falcon?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bates said the Falcons have not discussed a potential extension with him. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think every year is a one-year contract,\u201d Bates said. \u201cThings can change. People can get traded, get cut. That\u2019s the mindset you\u2019ve got to have when you\u2019re talking about a one-year approach. Whether I had two years left on my deal or I had one, I would come in here and work like I only had one.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bates, 29, has started all 51 possible games the past three seasons and has totaled 332 tackles, 13 interceptions, 27 passes defensed and eight forced fumbles.<\/p>\n<p>He wants to show he still can play at a Pro Bowl level as he approaches 30.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI say every year you have something to prove,\u201d Bates said. \u201cEvery single year you have to prove to whoever it is that you\u2019re still this player, or this leader. Whatever it is, you want to go and prove to somebody that you\u2019re still that guy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jessie Bates has spent the past three seasons in Atlanta after signing a four-year, $64.02 million deal as&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":573787,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-573786","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\/573786","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=573786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/573786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/573787"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=573786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=573786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=573786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}