With tight end Austin Hooper out with a strained knee ligament sustained Nov. 10, the Falcons have turned to Jaeden Graham, a rookie from Yale, and veteran Luke Stocker.
Stocker and Graham have split the playing time with Hooper out, as he will be for the Falcons’ game against Tampa Bay at 1 p.m. Sunday at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Graham played 34 of 65 offensive snaps (52%) against the Panthers on Sunday. He’d played 36 snaps over the previous nine games. Stocker, a blocking tight end, played 43 snaps (66%).
“It felt good to be out there and be able to step up and take part in my role in the offense,” said Graham, who caught two passes for 23 yards. “It just felt good to get out there, move around and run around a little bit. Just going out and doing my thing. That was good.”
Graham, who worked his way open in the second half of the 29-3 victory over the Panthers, quarterback Matt Ryan didn’t hesitate to throw him the ball.
He picked up first downs on both of his catches. He had an 12-yard catch on second-and-10 with 8:04 left in third quarter. Later on a third-and 10 with 10:03 left in the fourth quarter, he had an 11-yard reception.
“He has been solid for us,” Ryan said. “He has done a great job in (exhibition) games when he got his chance, and he does a nice job for us in practice week in and week out.”
Graham signed in 2018 and spent all of last season on the practice squad.
“You have got to trust your guys,” Ryan said. “They put the work in on the practice field and when they get their opportunities in the game and the coverage dictates that you go to those spots, you have got to trust them to win.”
Ryan loved the third-down catch.
“Converting that and keeping that drive going and getting us further down and in good field position, that was impressive,” Ryan said. “He was right where you needed him to be in the red area where he caught it over the top of the ball, enough to get the first down. He drop-stepped and protected the ball really well.
“He did all of the things that he has been coached to do, and that’s what you hope to see when guys get their chance – they go out there and do what we have coached them to do.”
Last season, Wade Harman, who’s currently with the Denver Broncos, was the Falcons’ tight end coach and helped to develop Graham.
“One of the things that we do really well here is the Plan D,” Graham said of the team’s development program. “Last year, working with Wade and the veteran in our group Logan Paulsen, they kind of just helped me out a lot of after practice.”
Harman and Paulsen would evaluate Graham’s film, take him aside and work on fundamentals.
“Just working on those every day in addition to the reps that I was on the scout team,” Graham said. “Even scouting reps, they would make them relate to our playbook. That just helped me develop.”
Graham, who’s 6-foot-4 and 250 pounds, can in-line block or Mike Mularkey, the new tight ends coach and a proponent of power football, wouldn’t have him on the field.
“Mike is a great coach,” Graham said. “He preaches physicality and bringing violence to the game. I think that’s what he really pushed for in the (tight end) room. I think you see that on tape.
“Luke had a great game this past game. He put a bunch of guys on the ground. It’s definitely something that (Mularkey) preaches. With that being a focus in our room, you definitely see it on tape.”
Graham, who’s from Aurora, Colorado, was a National Football Foundation Scholar-Athlete and wanted to major in economics.
“Yale recruited me in football,” Graham said. “I never really gave it much thought, but the more I looked at it. I wanted to go to a school that had great academics. When I went and visited Yale, it kind of checked all of the boxes.”
Graham was teammates with Falcons linebacker Foye Oluokun in college.
In the free-agency era, developing young players is key.
“Every team around the league, you have to develop your young guys, whether they were draft picks or whether they were free agents,” offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter said.
“However they got here, you have to develop them. When a more experienced guy moves on for one reason or another, one of those young guys has to be able to step up, and Jaeden had two big conversion plays on a third down and a second down for his first extended time. I thought he did a nice job.”
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