Falcons gave the green dot to a rookie. Kendal Daniels has loudly validated it.

INDIANAPOLIS — Kendal Daniels celebrates big stops so loudly, so vocally, that his words are audible from the sideline. He trash-talked one of the NFL’s best players, running back Bijan Robinson, one day, then came back a week later and barked at Drake London, the league’s third-highest-paid receiver.

Daniels, the Falcons’ fourth-round pick, is unafraid to use and stretch his vocal cords no matter the height of the challenge. Why would leading an NFL defense be any different?

With starting linebacker and chief communicator Divine Deablo missing the past week-and-a-half because of an ankle injury, the Falcons slapped the green dot on Daniels’ helmet, making the 23-year-old the first point of contact for defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich on the starting defense.

Daniels is responsible for listening to Ulbrich’s play call, comprehending it and perfectly repeating it so the other 10 defenders get the call. Then, he aligns the defensive front, directs any necessary shifts and scans the offense for any clues about the oncoming play.

It’s an uncommon task for any rookie, let alone one drafted at No. 134 overall. Yet Daniels has, by and large, flourished — and the Falcons aren’t the least surprised.

“From the green dot, running the defense has been excellent,” coach Kevin Stefanski said Monday. “That’s kind of who Kendal is, and we knew that going into this. But the operation, and handling that, has been excellent.”

Daniels felt prepared to lead the first-team unit in part because he wore the green dot with the second-string defense through the first two weeks of training camp. But the other reason — the real reason — he’s comfortable being a vocal presence is that he’s been one since his high school basketball days.

“A quiet defense is a bad defense,” Daniels said. “I was that young guy before in college, not knowing a play, and then somebody talking loud just reassures you of what you got to do. So, just being able to communicate helps a lot of things, even saying stuff during the play or after a play if you’re tired, but it helps you out a lot.

“I can’t think what the safeties think, but me communicating out loud, it helps both of us be on the same page.”

Daniels is, to a degree, learning on the fly. Across five years in college — the first four at Oklahoma State, the last at Oklahoma — he never once heard a coach tell him the play call. They used signals, not spoken words. Hearing Ulbrich’s voice and distributing information to his teammates is an entirely new concept.

So, this offseason, Daniels went into meeting rooms and, unsurprisingly, used his voice. He decided to start calling out play calls. “What if we get this call?” he’d ask himself. Then, he’d verbalize it over and over and over again.

There are times, Daniels admits, when it becomes difficult. Not necessarily remembering the calls — many of which are long and loaded with jargon — but delivering them short of breath.

Sometimes, Daniels has to yell out the call after chasing a play downfield or ranging from one sideline to the other. Then, he has to yell it again. The first time isn’t bad. The second time, he concedes, can reveal a glimmer of tiredness.

But that’s his job, and the Falcons’ defense depends on him to do it well. So far, he has.

“Nothing’s easy about playing middle linebacker,” Daniels said. “Having to state a call is probably the hardest thing when you’re tired, having to get a long call to the defense. And once you get the call, you still have to make the checks and set the front, talk to the back end.

“So, everybody’s dependent on you to get the call, and if you’re damn tired and you can’t get a call out, nobody performs well.”

Daniels, who started his college career as a safety, played multiple positions last year at Oklahoma, serving as the “Cheetah” in coach Brent Venables’ defense. He moved around, taking snaps at linebacker and safety with some edge rushing mixed in.

The 6-foot-5, 242-pound Daniels believes learning Venables’ system, which featured considerable in-season installation and evolution, helped ease his acclimation to the NFL. Venables also gave Daniels advice he’s leaned on heavily during a turbulent first professional offseason.

Venables often told his team that every day is a job interview. Players are being evaluated all the time, in everything they do.

For Daniels, the message serves as a motivator to disregard his depth chart placement — he started alongside Christian Harris in the Falcons’ preseason opener, but his Week 1 role remains unclear pending Deablo’s return — and focus on his performance.

So, when Deablo suffered an ankle injury in practice Aug. 8 at Lanier High School and Daniels ascended to the first-team unit the next session, he didn’t view it as “stepping into the role” previously held by his veteran teammate.

His mindset and mentality never changed. He valued consistency, not getting too high emotionally and never, ever worrying about the depth chart.

“Every time I’m out there, it’s going to be the same Kendal Daniels, no matter if we’re going with the ones, twos or threes,” he said. “So just having that mindset, if I go with the twos, I go with the twos. I happen to go with the ones, I go with the ones.

“I haven’t been able to really sit down and really think, ‘Oh, I’m going with the ones,’ and say, ‘I’m going to have to go harder.’ I always go hard.”

That includes during May and June, even when Daniels couldn’t participate in OTAs or mandatory minicamp because of a nagging calf injury. He was in every meeting, took a wealth of mental reps and, according to Falcons’ inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud, “prepared how a veteran would prepare if they weren’t getting all the same reps on the actual grass.”

Daniels’ maturity has impressed the Falcons this summer. He’s only 23, but he’s already married, and he and his wife, Reagan, welcomed daughter Kilyn in February. Collectively, his identity has changed substantially in 12 months. He’s a husband, a dad, an NFL player.

And, finally, in his eyes, a linebacker. That part took a while to grasp. He was a safety for so long that he didn’t view himself as a linebacker during his entire first season playing the position. Eventually, he added enough weight and took on enough blocks at the line of scrimmage to feel he earned the title.

Now, Daniels has a chance to add another layer to his ever-evolving profile: NFL starter. He accomplished that in the Falcons’ 27-7 loss to the Broncos in the preseason, but a regular season starting nod means more.