Falcons’ late pass-rush renovation has paid instant dividends: ‘A good sign’
FLOWERY BRANCH — Jared Ivey is living in an Airbnb in Buford. It’s “very, very nice,” he promises, but only contains a few weeks’ worth of clothes and a washing machine. If you see the Falcons’ new defensive end recycling through the same T-shirts, give him grace.
Everything else he owns is still in Seattle and being shipped his way.
Such is life on the NFL waiver wire. The Seahawks waived Ivey on Aug. 30, the final day of roster cuts. The next morning, his phone buzzed at 9 a.m., delivering news the Falcons claimed him. He packed a suitcase, and by 4 p.m. he was in the air headed toward Atlanta.
On Sept. 13, he played 18 defensive snaps — over a quarter of the team’s total — and made two tackles in the Falcons’ Week 1 loss to the Steelers.
Nestled in between were 13 long days spent watching film on his iPad and listening to voice-overs sent by defensive line coach Nate Ollie to help explain all of the schematic installations.
And Ivey isn’t alone.
The Falcons’ defensive line and outside linebackers room — ravaged by injuries to Jalon Walker and defensive tackle Da’Shawn Hand, and coupled with James Pearce Jr.’s suspension — looks far different from what it did when training camp started.
Of the nine defensive linemen and edge rushers on the Falcons’ 53-man roster, four weren’t in Atlanta for the bulk of training camp and three didn’t arrive until September. The Falcons signed Za’Darius Smith on Aug. 18, traded for Gervon Dexter Sr. on Aug. 30, and claimed Ivey and Yasir Abdullah on Aug. 31.
All of them played against the Steelers. Smith had two sacks and a run-stopping tackle for loss in 16 snaps. Dexter played 39 snaps, tied for eighth-most on the defense, and logged three tackles. Abdullah saw two snaps on defense and 18 on special teams but didn’t record a statistic.
The Falcons’ remade defensive front fared well. Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich blitzed only 11.9% of the time, the fourth-lowest mark in the NFL, according to Next Gen Stats.
Ulbrich said the Falcons let Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers extend a few plays, but the team’s new additions — aided by Ollie and outside linebackers coach John Timu — played a significant factor in what Ulbrich dubbed a strong starting point.
“It’s a great testament to John Timu and to Nate Ollie,” Ulbrich said Thursday. “Both those guys have just spent so much extra time with these guys, getting them caught up, getting them up to speed with what we do. It’s rushing four as one. That sounds cool, but that takes a lot of time on task, takes a lot of cohesion, takes a lot of time together.
“For us to rush as well as we did was a testament to those two coaches for sure, and the players that put the time in. But saying that, we can still be so much better.”
Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski acknowledged postgame the team was still “figuring out roles” for a lot of its new players. There’s a similar adaptation process happening on the other side, particularly pertaining to Ollie’s attacking-style front.
Philosophically, the Falcons are teaching their defensive linemen to do things differently than they’ve done their entire lives. There’s much less emphasis on reading blocks and mastering hand placement, and much more focus on getting off the ball and sprinting through gaps. Defensive tackle Brandon Dorlus described it as an “uncomfortable” acclimation process.
Players, by and large, have to rewire their brain. That’s only made the task more difficult, and the immediate results more impressive, for the Falcons’ new-look defensive line.
“It’s hard for these guys to come into the attack-style front and learn the ways of how to play it, and not just that, but play with different people,” Dorlus said Monday. “It’s a whole different front I’m rushing with from last year, but I’ve learned a lot with these guys in practice.
“I understand what they’re trying to get at, and they understand what I’m trying to get at. And then when we’re on the same page and everybody’s together, I feel like everything works out really well.”
The core principle to Ollie’s approach: there’s an inverse relationship between time spent thinking and on-field results. The less you think, the more productive you are, and the more havoc you create.
Ivey, in turn, has spent much of the past two weeks trying to grow more comfortable. It’s less about the scheme, he said, than the style of play.
“We do something here that only a few teams in the league do up front,” Ivey said. “So, just getting my mindset right and being able to get used to this style of play is more so the bigger transition.
“Right now, all I care about is attack, attack, attack. That’s who I’m going to be.”
Reps are at the forefront of the acclimation process, Ivey said. It’s a universal principle, spanning high school to college and school to school in the modern era of transfer portal popularity. The cycle of joining a new team, learning the system and capitalizing on reps is perhaps more significant, and more common, now than ever.
Abdullah has leaned on Cameron Thomas and Samson Ebukam, a pair of veterans who’ve spent the whole summer working with the first-team defense. He’s tried to be a sponge in meetings with Timu and Ulbrich.
Yet beyond reps and meetings and playbooks, there are, of course, a few other things for the newcomers to worry about, too.
Abdullah has an apartment in the area, but he’s still trying to get his car, clothes and television shipped from Jacksonville, Florida, to Atlanta. He packed as many clothes as he could and stuffed it into a bag with his toiletries and decided he’d figure out the rest later.
Abdullah, like Ivey, also had a stint in an Airbnb. He said he appreciates being on a team that “sees my worth,” and he’s focusing on the positives of his sudden life shake-up as opposed to dwelling on the hectic nature of his past three weeks.
“Just having faith that God put me in this position for a reason,” Abdullah told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Like, I have my family, my mother, father, my sister, my brother, man. They just keep track of me and my mental and physical health. I appreciate them. They keep me going. Of course, God keeps me going.
“I’m blessed to be here. That’s what also keeps you going — Atlanta’s showing me love and I’m trying to show love to them, too.”
If nothing else, Abdullah and the other three members of the Falcons’ new pass-rushing quartet showed they can be factors this fall. They had an encouraging first step, and the more comfortable they grow in the attack-style front — and within their own living environments — the Falcons figure their results will only get better, too.
“With the guys that just came here, it’s a good sign that I’ve seen from the last game that they’re able to pick up on how we rush and how we play at the front really well,” Dorlus said. “I’m really comfortable with these guys.”