Where are Atlanta's safeties?

FLOWERY BRANCH - The Falcons were a little shy on safeties when their lone mandatory mini-camp opened Friday.

Bryan Scott, who started the past season-and-a-half at strong safety and is expected to start this season at free safety, is expected to be out another month at least while rehabilitating from shoulder surgery.

His stand-in, last year's starting free safety, didn't show up.

Cory Hall, whom the Falcons signed as a free agent from the Bengals in 2003, was cut a couple months ago, party for salary cap reasons.

Although the Falcons signed veterans Rich Coady and Ronnie Heard to one-year contracts, and Keion Carpenter is back from a knee surgery, once the team failed to draft a safety last weekend, within an hour, an announcement was made that Hall had re-signed to join the team. Then, he didn't show up.

Turns out he had not signed a contract. Complicating matters a little more, the team earlier in the week cut reserve S Siddeeq Shabazz to make room to sign more rookie free agents than anticipated, none of them a safety.

So Heard was the Falcons' No. 1 free safety as mini-camp opened Friday.

Coach Jim Mora said there was some confusion as to whether Colorado-based agent Peter Schaffer was still representing Hall, but Schaffer said Friday afternoon that he was still Hall's agent.

Falcons president/general manager Rich McKay said, "(Schaffer) is the agent of record."

One way or another, the situation was expected to be resolved by Monday at the latest.