#atlanta-falcons

#atlanta-falcons

A total mismanagement of a declining roster between Thomas Dimitroff and Dan Quinn in 2019 and 2020 led to a complete revamp in 2021. Two years of slow progression led to a season with credible expectations in 2023. That came crashing down in a division there for the taking, leading to Arthur Smith's dismissal. As exciting as the beginning of last season was under Raheem Morris, another late-season collapse resulted in another wasted opportunity to make the playoffs.

The 2025 preseason is in the books, and if there's one thing we learned, it's this: the Falcons are built on a razor-thin margin of error. Between brutal injury luck, heavy reliance on first-year starters, and a roster constructed on calculated risks, this team isn't entering the season with answers; it's entering with questions. However, this preseason, we have seen flashes. We have seen potential. We have seen upside.

Walker and Pearce Jr. are expected to inject life into a pass rush that's been historically nonexistent. Watts and Bowman are already penciled in as starters in a secondary that features Second-Team All-Pros Jessie Bates and A.J. Terrell. And Nelson, despite an uneven preseason, will almost certainly be called upon to contribute in some fashion until Storm Norton returns from injury.

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- It is going to take even longer now for Atlanta Falcons edge rusher Bralen Trice to get his first regular-season snaps. Trice, a 2024 third-round pick, was placed on injured reserve Thursday with a designation to return. Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said Trice suffered a reinjury to the knee that required surgery last summer and forced Trice to miss his entire rookie season.

For the next few hours, we'll be keeping an eye on who is added to the practice squad, either through reports or the team. Generally, the Atlanta Falcons drop 3/4ths to the full practice squad by the evening today, so this will be a short-lived sort of tracker compared to others we've done recently. As per usual, I would expect the majority of the players who end up here will be ones who spent the summer with our Falcons, and the first reported signing is indeed one of those players in wide receiver Nick Nash.

Placed on reserve/PUP Placed on reserve/NFI Released from IR with injury settlement Fuller, Harrison, and Henderson all have previous starting experience in the secondary, though Harrison has since converted to linebacker and exclusively played special teams last season. Fuller missed half of the 2024 season due to injury, while Henderson, a former top-10 draft pick, spent the year with the Steelers but didn't appear in a regular-season game.

The Falcons have their first 53-man roster of the 2025 NFL season! Kevin Knight and Tre'Shon Diaz discuss who made the cut and who didn't, Kaleb McGary out for the season, the biggest surprises, and the moves we're still expecting to see before Week 1. Fellow Falcoholics, welcome to another episode of the Dirty Birds and Brews podcast! You can also listen to all of our video shows in an audio-only podcast format, available on all your favorite podcast platforms

The initial 2025 53 man roster is here for the Atlanta Falcons. While this will change a lot- we have a tracker for that -we now know the rough shape this Falcons team will take as they

If you read our guy Evan Birchfield's Monday article, you would know FanDuel has Atlanta missing out on the division title for the ninth straight year, but on the bright side, they aren't too far behind, along with some other categories like making the playoffs and scratching just over 8.5 wins in 2025 (according to them... a Super Bowl is still a far cry away.)

Darnell Mooney. Troy Andersen. Kaleb McGary. Storm Norton. Carlos Washington. Clark Phillips. These are all players who are currently hurt, and because of that, the Atlanta Falcons are in a position where they must make tough decisions as they shape their 53 man roster in the days following the final preseason game. For some players, the decisions are relatively easy. Norton will have to go on short-term injured reserve, more than likely, given that he's out for six-to-eight weeks.

The Ringer's Sheil Kapadia ranked all 32 NFL defenses heading into the 2025 season, and there's no love lost for the Atlanta Falcons' ragtag bunch of young talent. Kapadia slotted the upstart Falcons defense 29th, citing how relying on two rookie pass-rushers and a handful of promising secondary pieces may not be enough to drag this unit out of the basement it has occupied for the better part of the last decade.

"The kid wants to go out there and I won't let him... He is wearing me out trying to get out there at practice." - Tori McElhaney (@tori_mcelhaney)

We're trying to develop a culture, a style of play for sure, and part of that is the violence with which we play and aggression, the urgency and all that. Today, at times, it went a little too far and we've got to learn how to manage that.