A rotation stocked with plenty of useful players added up to a fairly so-so level of play on the season.
The defensive line was a relative strength for the Atlanta Falcons in 2023, with Grady Jarrett doing well pre-injury, David Onyemata pulling together some great stretches, and Calais Campbell delivering his ageless aptitude while being joined by quality efforts from the likes of LaCale London, Zach Harrison, and Kentavius Street. If it wasn’t a standout group, it was a group that helped the Falcons legitimately improve on defense under Ryan Nielsen.
The 2024 group unfortunately took a step back for a number of reasons, and defensive line coach Jay Rodgers got fired because of that. Jarrett had one of his quietest years, Onyemata took a step back, Harrison was infrequently featured, and injury and ineffectiveness ate away at most of the rotational options. That included promising rookies Ruke Orhorhoro and Brandon Dorlus, given that the former missed significant time and the latter barely got a chance to play.
It all added up to an underwhelming effort, and even if you assume quality second seasons are coming from Ruke and Dorlus, the need to shuffle this group is evident. Let’s review the results from 2024.
Grady Jarrett
Age: 31 | Experience: 10 seasons
2024 Stats: 17 starts, 53 tackles, 2.5 sacks, 34 pressures, 28 run stops, 15.8% missed tackle rate, 3 penalties
Now 31 years old and coming off a major injury, Jarrett had arguably his worst NFL season in 2024. His worst season is still a good one, of course, because the long-underrated defensive lineman has been a wrecking ball for a decade. But it’s evident that the days of Jarrett playing 60-70% of the defensive snaps and causing headaches for opposing offenses on nearly all of them are over.
We’ll start with the good: Jarrett was still an impactful player against the run in long stretches, with the second-highest run stops number on the team behind Kaden Elliss. He was also third on the team in pressures, delivering his customary ability to impact the quarterback even if the sack total was low. For stints, Jarrett was very much himself, and he was still one of Atlanta’s more capable defenders.
The problem, again, is just that the Falcons were playing a 31-year-old fresh off a season-ending injury too often because they either had injured depth or young players they didn’t trust just yet. That meant that the lights flickered on and off a bit for Jarrett, who missed more tackles and was less consistently impactful than usual. It may well be the case that a year removed from his injury he looks very much like himself in 2025, but that’s not something I’d place a heavy bet on if I was the Falcons.
If Jarrett returns—and I hate even typing that, honestly—the Falcons need to have him playing under 50% of the defensive snaps to keep him fresh. Jarrett is still a damn good player and a franchise icon who I’d like to have around, but deploying him in high-leverage situations where you know he excels should be the priority, with younger players soaking up more of the snaps.
David Onyemata
Age: 32 | Experience: 9 seasons
2024 Stats: 17 starts, 31 tackles. 3 sacks, 19 pressures, 25 run stops, 8.9% missed tackle rate
The Falcons played Onyemata just a tick over 50% of the snaps, and while he didn’t have the kind of standout year he managed in 2023, he was a useful player. Like Jarrett, there were stretches where he was pretty tremendous—the first Saints and Panthers games, the Giants game, against Kansas City—and games like the Steelers, Eagles, and second effort against the Panthers where he was shaky.
Onyemata remains a powerful player who is capable of just tossing hapless blockers aside on his best days, and the fact that he had those days matters when there’s not a huge financial benefit to cutting ties with him ($8.8 million in dead money versus $8 million in savings pre-June 1, $6.4 million in dead money and $10 million in savings post-June 1). His day against Washington alone, where he was one of the few game-wrecking forces capable of sacking and slowing Jayden Daniels, would likely be enough evidence for the team that he can contribute.
That said, he had games where he vanished, as well. That lack of consistency for the two best players along the defensive line meant it was a bit of a roller coaster overall for Atlanta up front, something I know we all saw and appreciated. Like Jarrett, Onyemata is at the stage of his career where he can’t be soaking up enormous snap numbers every week, but also like Jarrett, he’s still an extremely useful run defender who also chips in as a pass rusher.
Eddie Goldman
Age: 31 | Experience: 7 years (with years off for COVID/retirement not counted)
2024 Stats 10 starts, 8 tackles. 10 pressures, 6 run stops, 25% missed tackle rate, 2 penalties
Getting Goldman on the field felt like a minor miracle after he flirted with joining the Atlanta Falcons but decided to walk away multiple times in prior years. His actual play fell well short of a miracle, but given that he hadn’t played an NFL game since 2021, Goldman was a pleasant surprise with his durability and fairly consistent play.
That was especially true through the bye, where Goldman fairly consistently provided solid run defense. Understandably given how long it had been since he last played, Goldman’s play started to fall off in the final weeks of the season, culminating in a pretty brutal final effort against Carolina that played a role in the team’s inability to stop the Panthers from doing whatever they liked.
Goldman is older now, but given that he held up well and his conditioning would likely improve with another year and a slightly smaller role, the Falcons will likely be tempted to bring him back. I’d support it if he’s willing to play sparingly on early downs, but the team could certainly use veteran depth.
Zach Harrison
Age: 23| Experience: 2 years
2024 Stats 17 games with 1 start, 12 tackles. 1 sack, 10 pressures, 9 run stops, 4.2% missed tackle rate, 1 penalty
The team’s three highest snap count earners for those listed as defensive linemen were all 30 or older, and all of them had rough stretches. That was frustrating because the Falcons did have interesting young players they could have leaned on more, but most of them were rookies or players with limited upside. Not so with Harrison.
He played just 24% of the defensive snaps, but over and over again Harrison looked like one of the team’s better defensive linemen. That’s not to say he was a lights-out, standout player, but as a canny and strong pass rusher and fundamentally sound run defender who plays consistent, solid football, Harrison deserved at least a slightly larger role than he got.
The hope is that the strength of his play and the fact that the rotation is inevitably set to change will lead to a larger role for Harrison in 2025, regardless of where he ends up lining up in Jeff Ulbrich’s defense. He’s at worst a quality rotational option, and I think there’s plenty of talent here to suggest there’s bigger and better things to come for Harrison.
Ruke Orhorhoro
Age: 23 | Experience: Rookie
2024 Stats 8 games with 0 starts, 5 tackles. 6 pressures, 4 run stops, 9.1% missed tackle rate
It was sort of a lost rookie season for Orhorhoro, who appeared in just eight games, dealt with an injury, and took time to get on the field despite being drafted in the second round.
A relatively raw player coming out of college—Ruke began playing football in high school in 2017, his junior year—Orhorhoro has intriguing strength and talent and showcased it at times in 2024. Our own Tre’Shon Diaz highlighted his effort during his debut, and his strength was particularly apparent on a handful of impact run defense snaps.
Ruke is working from the backside here, loses the initial battle but not the war. pure hustle and great effort to run this down. Very pleased with what we saw in Orhorhoro’s debut. pic.twitter.com/NX8veClfPw
— Tre’Shon (@tre3shon) October 4, 2024
On balance, we didn’t see a ton from him as a pass rusher and a ton of work overall, which makes it difficult to evaluate where Ruke is going into his second season. I remain a fan and think the talent is going to translate with better coaching—and he has a better coach now in new defensive line hire Nate Ollie—but we’ll have to see if he can build on a quiet rookie season.
Ta’Quon Graham
Age: 26 | Experience: 4 years
2024 Stats 10 games with 0 starts, 9 tackles. 5 pressures, 8 run stops, 8.3% missed tackle rate, 2 penalties
We know exactly what Graham offers you at this point. He has yet to appear in a full 17 game season in his NFL career, but when he does play he’s a very solid defender against the run who adds only occasional flashes of ability as a pass rusher. Unfortunately, he missed quite a bit of this past season with injury, but when he played he was mostly that same dependable rotational option playing just about a quarter of the defensive snaps.
Still relatively young and affordable with a proven track record of useful early down work, Graham is worth bringing back at the back end of the rotation if the Falcons want to go that route.
Kentavius Street
Age: 27 | Experience: 6 years
2024 Stats 13 games with 0 starts, 13 tackles. 1 sack, 6 pressures, 9 run stops, 11.1% missed tackle rate, 2 penalties
Aside from a rough effort against Carolina where the entire defensive front fell apart, Street was sort of the bizarro world Eddie Goldman. He got off to a rough start to the year and was actually briefly made an inactive, but he had a much stronger second half of the year. Eight of his nine run stops on the year came in the final six weeks of the season, for example.
Like Graham, Street offers you a pretty solid history of quality run defense, though he’s a little bit older. The Falcons seem unlikely to keep both guys with upgrades (we hope) on the way, so we’ll see which one they choose.
Brandon Dorlus
Age: 23 | Experience: Rookie
2024 Stats 2 games with 0 starts, 3 tackles. 1 run stop, 25% missed tackle rate
Most of your draftniks in the Falcons fanbase were excited about Dorlus, and with good reason given that he was a monstrously productive pass rusher in college. Unfortunately, we barely saw him in 2024, with just 19 snaps on defense to his name.
Dorlus should be a player the Falcons count on much, much more often in 2025 given their impending free agents and aging core on their defensive line, and I certainly hope they will do so.