The Atlanta Falcons on Wednesday started the 21-day clock on the hoped-for return to the roster of top edge rusher Dante Fowler.
And for all parties involved, those 21 days - and a full recovery from a knee injury sustained in Week 5 when the Falcons traveled to London to face, and defeat, the Jets - cannot come fast enough.
Fowler was placed on the Atlanta injured reserve list just before the Falcons traveled to Miami to play the Dolphins.
Atlanta is now 4-4 and starting to imagine itself as a playoff contender, with Sunday’s NFL Week 10 visit to the dangerous Dallas Cowboys (6-2) on tap. The Falcons hope that for now, they can replicate their own success from last week, when they hung on for a thrilling Matt Ryan-led win at New Orleans … and maybe they hope they can replicate some of what the Broncos did at Dallas in their shocking upset win.
Fowler can’t help with all of that quite yet; he was designated to return to practice on Wednesday, and so enters into a 21-day window during which he can return to the Falcons active roster.
The Falcons this week did some other defensive linemen shuffling by signing Anthony Rush and giving a release to Deadrin Senat. Released as well this week was defender Jacob Tuioti-Mariner. (Also Wednesday, the Falcons added cornerback Lafayette Pitts, a good special-teamer, to the practice squad.)
But maybe almost as much as anyone on the Atlanta roster, it is Fowler who has a proven history of making a defensive difference. Atlanta has not yet seen that level of production out of him, though to his credit, prior to the knee injury, Fowler had totaled two sacks and two forced fumbles.
But now the clock starts really ticking … for Dante Fowler, and, the Falcons hope, for offenses needing to account for him.
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