Atlanta’s Defensive Identity Emerging Behind Young Stars

FLOWERY BRANCH – The Atlanta Falcons’ 2025 season has been bruising, chaotic, and at times exhausting. But underneath all that wreckage, something real may be forming. Atlanta’s defensive front is suddenly wrecking games, flipping expectations, and offering the first real glimpse of what this franchise could be.

As a team, the Falcons have 22 sacks in their last four games, and this young corps accounts for 14 of those. All five are under the age of 24, and it has become increasingly clear that youth have taken over in Atlanta. 

Rookies Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. will steal the headlines, and rightfully so. The Falcons’ pair of first-round picks have had tremendous seasons and are appearing to be finding their stride in recent weeks. They now lead all rookies in sacks.

But fans cannot forget about the young defensive linemen who have helped power the defensive turnaround for the Falcons. Brandon Dorlus leads the team with six sacks, Zach Harrison (who has battled injuries all year) is third on the team with 4.5 sacks, and Ruke Orhorhoro has 2.5 sacks this season. 

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“We all are just trying to win and figure it out together,” Pearce said. “I just have to keep learning how I can add to the team and just help them guys help me.” 

Led, in large part, by the young faces on this defense, the Falcons have experienced a marvelous turnaround in their pass rush this season. 

Through 11 games, they are third in the NFL with 39 team sacks this season – for context, they have only reached this total through a full season just twice in the last decade. If they keep with their average of about 3.5 sacks per game, they should finish with about 60 and shatter their franchise record for sacks in a season (55). 

The numbers alone are a welcome sight for the Falcons after such a heavy investment over the last two draft classes, but the hidden metrics should bring them even more excitement. 

Falcons defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich made it very clear that this would be an aggressive team this season. That has been exemplified in many different ways, but especially with the blitz-heavy system he has been throwing at opposing offenses. 

The Falcons have sent a blitz on 40.5% of dropbacks this season, the second-highest mark in the NFL. Believe it or not, that number has been steadily dropping in recent weeks. 

Weeks 11 and 12 were two of the Falcons’ lowest blitz rates of the season, with last Sunday’s win being their lowest by a significant margin – about 2.5 times less than normal. They blitzed the Saints on just 15.7% of their dropbacks, but still managed to record five sacks and their most pressures of the season (20). 

All while sending four-man pressures with some mixture of these four players (not including Harrison, since he is on the injured reserve). After going back and looking at all 20 pressures, Ulbrich sent more than four pass rushers just once. 

“[It’s important to] not have to blitz as much to get some pressure to generate it with our front four,” Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said. “To watch those guys get the pressure, the amount of pressure that they were able to get, the amount of sacks they were getting home with the front four rushing [was great].” 

The strides this unit has been taking have become more apparent as the weeks have gone by, and there is hope that this young group could be the focal point of a defensive renaissance in Atlanta. 

For the first time in a long time, the Falcons aren’t guessing about what their defensive identity could be. The players are young, but the production is real. Atlanta may still be searching for answers everywhere else, but up front, the future isn’t a projection. It’s already on tape.