FLOWERY BRANCH — The development of Falcons rookie defensive end Zach Harrison has been one of the franchise’s top projects this season.
Harrison, who was taken in the third round (75th overall) in this year’s NFL draft out of Ohio State, is starting to come on late in the season. He’ll get more playing time when the Falcons (6-8) host the Colts (8-6) at 1 p.m. Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
“He’s done a nice job,” Falcons coach Arthur Smith said. “Obviously, Zach being a younger player coming out of a big program and being in a veteran (group) and the way we wanted to bring him along, every week, he’s a very consistent person.”
Harrison has been learning while watching veteran defensive Calais Campbell and how he approaches the game.
“It’s paid off,” Smith said. “You see some of the fundamentals. A lot of the work he’s put in with him getting the opportunity to play a little bit more. He took advantage of it last week, for sure.”
Harrison played 29 defensive snaps (44%) Sunday against the Panthers and was active. He finished with four tackles, two tackles for losses, a sack and a quarterback hit. Harrison’s sack came after he dropped in coverage, came off his man and raced over to sack Panthers quarterback Bryce Young.
It was a technique he’d been working on since training camp.
“It was a play that we had worked on and worked through,” Harrison said. “I did it right in the game, and it turned out to be a sack.”
Harrison has played in all 14 games. He has 26 tackles, two tackles for losses, two quarterback hits and one quarterback sack. Harrison has played 289 defensive snaps (31%) and 98 special-teams snaps (26%).
“I’m definitely getting better every week,” Harrison said. “I still have a ways to go. When we watch the tape, I can see I left so much meat on the bone. Just working every week, trying to get better. Trying to do my job, do my part to help the team win.”
Falcons defensive coordinator Ryan Nielsen works with the defensive linemen.
“Honestly, I was just doing my technique,” Harrison said. “Doing what I was coached to do. Coach Nielsen does a good job of coaching us hard and making sure we know our techniques, the blocks we are going to get and how to defeat those blocks.”
The Falcons defense has not given up a touchdown in three of their past four games. However, they also have given up two game-winning drives.
“Our job is to get stops,” Harrison said. “Our job is to not let teams score. So, that’s the bottom line. All right, they scored nine points, how can we get to six, three and then zero. We’re being extra hard on ourselves.”
The Colts are balanced on offense, but have leaned on their rushing attack. They could get running back Jonathan Taylor back from his thumb injury. Trey Sermon, who played at Sprayberry High, Oklahoma and Ohio State, carried the rushing attack in a 30-18 win over the Steelers on Sunday.
“If that’s the mindset you go out there with that nobody is allowed to score on us, you’re going to play pretty good defense,” Harrison said. “That’s all we can do to help the team win.”
While most have focused on the Falcons’ quarterback switch, the defense also was heavily critiqued.
“Coach Smith calls it how it is,” Harrison said. “It’s very blunt. Very objective. Watch the tape and see how we can get better moving forward.”
The Falcons know they’ll need to play better if they are going to fulfill their playoff aspirations.
“The goal is to win every week,” Harrison said. “We didn’t do that (against the Panthers). We have three opportunities left guaranteed. In the NFL, a lot of things happen. It’s not over, so we just have to take everything one-by-one and beat the Colts. Really, that’s our 100% goal. Beat the Colts.”
The morale of the team remains upbeat.
“We’ve got a lot of good vets, like Calais, Jessie (Bates) and all of those guys have told us, it’s the NFL, crazy things happen,” Harrison said. “You can either go two ways. You can be like ‘OK, tuck your tail in and call it a season.’ Or ‘dig your feet in the ground and win these next three games,’ and hopefully we get our hat in the ring and we go from there.
“Really those are the two mindsets you can take, and everybody in this locker room is going to take the latter. Dig your feet in and go play ball.”
Falcons outside linebacker Bud Dupree had a back injury and missed the Panthers’ game, which indirectly led to Harrison getting more snaps. But the Falcons are convinced that he’s improving.
“Oh, I think you can see leaps and bounds,” Falcons assistant head coach/defense Jerry Gray said. “Now, he’s talking about how he can get another sack. You know, that first one’s always hard to get. When you look at it, he actually hit the guy after he was running with guy and then added to it and ran down a quarterback who’s pretty fast”
