Atlanta gets some disquieting news on defense ahead of a matchup with the Broncos.
Injuries piled up in the discouraging Atlanta Falcons loss to the New Orleans Saints. Mike Hughes left the game, Troy Andersen was not out there for the whole effort, and both Ta’Quon Graham and James Smith-Williams were hurt.
Naturally, we were waiting for injury updates, and we got a couple yesterday. It appears Hughes will be okay and the team is waiting to see what happened with Andersen, who Raheem Morris said re-aggravated his injury. Unfortunately, the team is going to be without Graham and JSW for a while, by the sounds of it.
Ta’Quon Graham’s prognosis after his pec injury is “not great” says Raheem Morris. Same response when asked about James-Smith Williams.
— Will McFadden (@willmcfadden) November 11, 2024
Graham has been his typically solid self this season. Playing a quarter to a third of defensive snaps most weeks, Graham has five pressures and eight run stops, which is seventh and 15th on the team respectively, and has as ever been one of the few consistent performers against the run that Atlanta has. He’s a reserve and a rotational guy headed for free agency after this year, but Graham is a quality player and the Falcons have not been good enough up front to lose him without feeling some impact.
Smith-Williams has been more or less the same player he was throughout his career in Washington, providing quality run defense and coverage chops, but limited production as a pass rusher. He has one sack, four pressures, and 11 stops (good for 8th on the team) while generally playing about half of the defensive snaps for Atlanta. Given that the team already lost Lorenzo Carter and Bralen Trice, the latter before the season even began, being without JSW as well is going to force them to dip into their depth. Matthew Judon and Arnold Ebiketie will start, while DeAngelo Malone is currently the only player on the 53 man roster who is getting consistent snaps in the position group, and even he only started doing so a couple of weeks ago. Zach Harrison might be an option to pick up work, as well.
Still, the Falcons would appear to have the depth to weather both losses, even if there’s a dip in performance associated with that. Along the defensive front, Harrison could step in to a larger snap share in relief of Graham, and the always-inactive rookie Brandon Dorlus is waiting in the wings as an obvious option to pitch in. LaCale London was also a genuine asset a year ago and remains on the practice squad.
Out on the edge, both Khalid Kareem and Demone Harris have played fairly well when elevated from the practice squad and could be added to the 53 man roster; Lorenzo Carter will also be eligible to return shortly. It’s hardly ideal to lose a pair of solid players, but this is where the team’s draft picks and practice squad players need to step up, and I’m reasonably confident they’ll do so.
We’ll see if either player heads to injured reserve and what the Falcons elect to do in order to replace both, but fingers crossed it’s not as bad as it sounds for Graham and JSW.