There are a handful of good options out there for Atlanta.
The Atlanta Falcons need a new defensive coordinator, and we don’t yet know who they’re considering for the opening. What we do know is that there are worthwhile candidates out there, with several coaches who would likely be an upgrade over Jimmy Lake’s 2024 at minimum.
I won’t try to cover every possible name here, but here are four realistic candidates for the job and a handful of others who might be in play but are strongly tied to other teams, don’t have the track record of success, or simply seem unrealistic. Hopefully, we’ll start getting news about interviews this week.
Jeff Ulbrich
It should be obvious by now that Raheem Morris, like Dan Quinn before him, likes to bring aboard coaches he’s familiar and comfortable with. It’s why he brought Jimmy Lake over from the Rams in the first place—they shared not just a Rams staff, but also a Buccaneers staff when Lake was the secondary coach and Morris was the head coach—and it’s why I think Ulbrich will be strongly considered.
Ulbrich was the linebackers coach for Atlanta for five seasons, overlapping on the staff with Quinn and Morris, before becoming the assistant head coach in 2020 and eventually the defensive coordinator under Morris as an interim. He then joined the Jets, where his defenses finished as the third-stingiest unit in terms of yards three years running and fourth in his first year, with one top ten scoring finish as well as a year in 12th and two straight years (2023 and 2024) in 20th. As a well-regarded coach leaguewide and by Jets brass, Ulbrich was promoted to the interim head coach for the Jets after they fired Robert Saleh, where he led them to a 3-9 record.
As a seasoned option with a history of coaching up linebackers—he also had a 10 year career as one—and with a strong relationship with Morris, Ulbrich has to be considered the instant the Jets hire their next head coach. Ulbrich’s work improving the moribund Falcons defense in 2020 and his work with the Jets suggests he’s a good option, and his ties to Morris make him a favorite. I wouldn’t expect a dramatic overhaul of the way the Falcons do business on defense if he’s the choice—Ulbrich’s defenses have favored zone, rotated heavily up front, and blitzed fairly sparingly, which will sound familiar—but he’s almost assured to have the defense playing at a better baseline than Lake.
Steve Wilks
Wilks stopped by Falcons practice repeatedly over the summer, and Morris and the Falcons worked against him for multiple years when he was the assistant head coach and defensive backs coach (and later defenisve coordinator) for the Carolina Panthers from 2015-2017. Given those visits and that familiarity, and given that Wilks is looking for a job, he’s a natural candidate to tie to this opening.
Wilks the defensive coordinator has gotten solid results throughout his career, but Wilks the coach is someone I have a lot of respect for. He somehow dragged the listless, 1-4 Panthers from 1-4 under Matt Rhule to a 6-6 record the rest of the way as an interim head coach, instilling toughness and competency where it had been lacking. His work with a dreadful Cardinals team in 2018, where he basically had no shot and was swiftly fired after a 3-13 record but got something out of a depleted defense, was admirable given the hand he was dealt. And Wilks had the 2017 Panthers and 2023 49ers as top 10 defenses in terms of yardage and scoring, even though San Francisco swiftly fired him after a disappointing Super Bowl loss. Everywhere he’s gone, Wilks has done quality work despite often difficult circumstances and short leashes.
Wilks’ stock likely went up after his replacement in San Francisco presided over a much worse defense; remember that Wilks was canned for his defense going from #1 under DeMeco Ryans to merely top 5. Like Ulbrich, Wilks’ track record does not suggest he’s going to elevate this unit to anywhere near elite by coaching acumen alone, but he’s an experienced, capable coach who seems like a virtual lock to get more out of what Atlanta has.
Lou Anarumo
The former Bengals defensive coordinator was once a hot name for a head coaching gig, but the Atlanta native saw his stock fall after a terrific 2022 and was unceremoniously dumped by Cincinnati this offseason.
If the story of Wilks’ career is that his opportunities never seemed to last as long as his acumen suggested they should, the story of Anarumo’s career over the past couple of seasons has been trying to make chicken salad out of the least appetizing byproduct of the chicken. The Bengals let DJ Reader and Jessie Bates walk, have failed over and over again to add talent via the draft, and have a mixed track record with their limited free agent dollars. While the offense is loaded with talent, the defense has not been, and Anarumo increasingly could not make up for that.
What recommends Anarumo is his notable adaptability and creativity, with the coach earning a “Mad Scientist” nickname from Bengals players because of his willingness to tinker and try to create confusion by disguising everything he can. The fact that he’s not married to a specific front or specific type of coverage all the time makes him an intriguing possibility for a defense that’s going to continue to be light on talent at some spots—the Falcons have limited resources this offseason, remember—and has Kaden Elliss as a chess piece Anarumo would likely enjoy utilizing. The Falcons likely need to create a little chaos to lift this unit.
The tie here to Morris isn’t as clean and clear as “he coached with him” or “he coached directly against him on multiple occasions.” Instead, Anarumo might come with a recommendation from Jessie Bates, the all-world safety who started his career in Cincinnati and played four of his first five seasons with him. If Bates is willing to endorse him, I’d have to imagine that would carry some weight; what should carry more weight is the inventive coaching.
Dennis Allen
Hear me out. Allen actually began his coaching career in the NFL with Atlanta, serving as an assistant from 2002-2005, and is the son of former Falcon Grady Allen. He has now shown himself to be a lackluster head coach at a two different stops, one players seem to run over, but his work as a defensive coordinator has been much more impressive.
With the Saints, Allen endured a couple of rough years with a talent-starved Saints roster—wish it had stayed that way—but then rattled off seven straight years as a coordinator and head coach with a top 16 scoring defense, and had just one year where the Saints finished outside the top 16 in yardage. For three seasons running from 2020 to 2022, they were top ten in both despite shedding pieces on a fairly regular basis owing to the team’s yearly cap crunch. Allen gets the job done with a lot of four man rushes and stunts, and it’s worth noting that Kaden Elliss took off as a pass rushing option in Allen’s scheme before joining the Falcons.
Morris knows Allen from coaching against him, and Allen knows David Onyemata and Elliss well after both players blossomed on his New Orleans defense. Terry Fontenot also worked with Allen with the Saints.
Other possibilities
Robert Saleh
I would consider Saleh a top candidate for this job if I thought he was headed anywhere but a head coaching gig or a defensive coordinator gig in San Francisco, where the 49ers defense has been in slow motion decline and badly needs a coach familiar with the team and scheme to lift it up. Saleh has done excellent work with the 49ers and Jets defense over the course of his career and is a steady, smart coach who would give the Falcons experience and competence they lacked in 2024. If for some reason the 49ers pivot away from him and doesn’t land the Raiders or Jaguars job, I’d urge the Falcons to get it done.
Brandon Staley
Once a hot name in coaching circles, Staley’s ugly run as the Chargers head coach took a lot of shine off of him. He did run the league’s best defense in 2020 for the Rams and is quite familiar with the tenets of the defense Raheem Morris and company want to run, and seems to be one of those coaches who probably tops out as a quality coordinator and not a head coach. Between the lackluster year for the 49ers defense he was just an assistant on and the Chargers work, Staley is no lock to get coordinator interest in Atlanta or elsewhere in 2025, though.
Sean Desai
He spent last year as a senior assistant with the Rams, and front office mainstay Ryan Pace knows him well from their shared days with the Bears. Desai’s one year as Bears defensive coordinator in 2021 saw him preside over an impressively stingy defense through the air, but his stint with the Eagles started strong and became a disaster after he was replaced by a similarly ineffective Matt Patricia 13 weeks through the season, with the team citing a stretch of rough weeks and reporting coming out about a lack of confidence from the defensive coordinator.
Desai was a well-regarded defensive coach not all that long ago and might carry a recommendation from Sean McVay after spending the year with the Rams, but his results and experience are not exactly stellar.
Jerry Gray
An in-house candidate. Gray last ran an NFL defense in 2013, when he piloted the Titans to a top-half-of-the-league finish, but has extensive coaching experience and has worked closely with this defense over the past two years under two different coordinators.
Ryan Nielsen
The Falcons didn’t keep Nielsen around and his Jaguars defense this past year was iffy, and that plus the fact that Nielsen runs his defense differently than Morris and company prefer to likely means he won’t be a serious candidate here. The work he did with that 2023 Falcons defense, though, speaks for itself after this year.