SALINAS – It’s not often that an offensive lineman pushing a sled stacked with weights across a football field gets the attention of a group of players.

A return to Palma during the off-season since graduating five years ago to workout has become a tradition of sorts for Atlanta Falcons center Drew Dalman, whose appearance livens things up in the summer.

“He’s a tremendous example to our kids,” Palma coach Jeff Carnazzo said. “It’s incredible for our kids to see him in the weight room, on the field doing drills, even providing help with technique.”

Drafted in the fourth round in 2021 out of Stanford, the 6-foot, 3-inch, 305-pounder is set to begin his second season when he reports to the Falcons’ training camp Tuesday, where he’ll be in a battle for the starting center’s job.

“Selfishly I want to play,” Dalman said. “I want to earn that job. But I want to help in any way I can. I just want to help us become a winning team. I have a lot of things to check off. Those are my biggest goals.”

The Falcons are coming off a 7-10 season, in which Dalman played in all 17 games on special teams and saw significant action in six games at center.

Should Dalman end up behind center for Atlanta, he’ll be snapping the ball to a new quarterback after Matt Ryan and his nearly 60,000 passing yards over 14 years were traded to the Colts.

While the trade was viewed as the franchise going into a full rebuilding mood, Dalman believes the team is transforming into a potential playoff team.

“We have a great group of guys and coaches pointing us in the right direction,” Dalman said. “I have a lot of faith that we’ll be as prepared as we can be. The NFL is tricky.”

Last year Atlanta was involved in six games decided by six points or less. Eight of its 10 losses came from teams that reached the postseason.

“Until you play the game, you never know what can transpire,” Dalman said. “There is enough talent on every team to compete. Everyone has playmakers.”

While still evolving as a 23-year-old, the barriers that were in Dalman’s path as a rookie last fall in terms of the unexpected have been cleared. That’s not to suggest hurdles don’t remain.

“Obviously it was a huge learning experience last year,” Dalman said. “I had a lot of great mentors. It was definitely a positive experience. In my mind, there is so much more to be done. But I feel good about moving forward.”

Dalman put together a strong off-season with the Falcons and left mini-camp in June feeling good about his direction.

“It’s a process,” Dalman said. “There were times last season where I made plenty of mistakes. But you learn from them. You adjust. There’s no way to completely prepare going in as a rookie.”

Playing the same position that his father Chris played with the 49ers, Dalman is also wearing the same number that his dad wore (67) when the 49ers won their last Super Bowl in 1995.

That’s not where the similarities end as both weighed roughly the same during their NFL careers, where his father spent eight years with the 49ers before a neck injury ended his career.

“We’re similar in a sense of stature,” Chris Dalman said. “We both relied more on quickness and some other intangibles rather than brute strength to try and generate as much power as you can.”

There is one thing Dalman’s father Chris, now the president at Palma sees in his son that separates the pair as players from different eras.

“Drew is a much more polished technician than I was,” Chris Dalman said. “He plays with great hand placement and his head isn’t in a bad position. Sometimes I’d get sloppy.”

Having never played more than 14 games in a season, Dalman played in 20 games if you count the three preseason games last year, where he saw extensive time in building his resume.

“You have to find ways mentally to recoup, make sure you’re staying fresh,” Dalman said. “You have to keep churning. It’s a long season. At the end of the day, it’s great to be playing football.”

Dalman didn’t go into the off-season pinpointing one area that he felt needed improvement. For the 2020 Stanford engineering graduate, the off-season was about development.

“You are kind of forced to develop all of your game,” Dalman said. “It’s tough to point to one area. Nothing has been perfected. I need to be a better all-around player.”

While the Sunday atmosphere can be electric, one venue that Dalman played in last year where the noise level was off the charts came in late December in Buffalo.

“Stanford is a small sample size in comparison,” Dalman said. “But Buffalo was rocking. It was a really cool environment. It can get loud in Atlanta as well.”

The Herald’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2016, Dalman earned All-Pac 12 honors as a junior at Stanford before declaring early for the draft last season.

“He’s a great example of how you prepare yourself for football and life,” Carnazzo said. “Kids gravitate toward him. Kids see it first hand how he embraces preparing himself.”

The biggest difference Carnazzo noticed in Dalman after his rookie season is a chiseled frame carrying 305 pounds.

“He does not seem to have an ounce of fat on him,” Carnazzo said. “He’s in tremendous shape. His legs are massive. Drew has transformed his body.”

Dalman has remained humble, embracing his role as a role model when he returns to campus, answering questions, even working with kids on their technique.

“I definitely welcome any questions kids have,” Dalman said. “I even used a couple of kids for a drill. No one is overbearing. I had so many positive experiences at Palma. It feels like it went by in a blink of the eye.”