The Falcons’ edge room has gone from speed-first and youth-heavy to something a lot sturdier, a lot older, and a lot harder to pin down.
That shift became even clearer this week when Atlanta signed Za’Darius Smith after the NFL ruled out James Pearce Jr. for the first eight games of the season. Smith gives the Falcons the kind of proven pass-rush presence they were trying to build around, but the bigger story is how much the entire group has changed around him.
Last season, Atlanta’s edge rotation helped fuel a franchise-record 57 sacks. Jalon Walker, Pearce, Leonard Floyd, Arnold Ebiketie, DeAngelo Malone, and Khalid Kareem all got time on the edge in that run. None of them will be in uniform on September 13 when the Falcons open against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
New general manager Ian Cunningham has had to rebuild that part of the roster almost from scratch. What started as a straightforward search for veteran help around Walker and Pearce turned into a much bigger reset after Pearce’s arrest and Walker’s torn ACL in training camp. The result is a room that looks different in personnel and different in style.
At the top of the depth chart now are players who all arrive with something to prove. None of the expected top four - Azeez Ojulari, Lorenzo Carter, Ebukam, and Smith - is over 245 pounds, which tells you plenty about the way Atlanta’s edge group used to be built. That changes as the Falcons move further down the rotation.
Ebukam came to Atlanta as a free agent from the Indianapolis Colts after working back from Achilles surgery. He was productive earlier in his career with the 49ers, then earned a big contract from the Colts in 2023 after posting career highs in tackles, with 57, and sacks, with 9.5.
But the Achilles injury wiped out his 2024 season, and he still wasn’t right in 2025, when he managed just two sacks and started only one game. Ebukam says he feels 100% again, and if that’s true, his one-year, $2.8 million deal could look like a steal.
Ojulari brings a different kind of upside. The former Georgia Bulldog flashed immediately with the Giants, racking up 8.0 sacks as a rookie in 2021 while starting 13 games and appearing in all 17.
Since then, injuries have kept him from building on that start. He still put up six sacks in 2024 despite playing only 11 games, then hit free agency and was mostly sidelined during his 2025 run with the Eagles, appearing in just three games and logging 67 defensive snaps.
Back home in Georgia, he’s trying to put together the kind of full season that could set him up for a major payday in 2027. His deal is for one year and $1.4 million.
The Falcons also have more size in the room than they did before. Bralen Trice, a third-round pick in 2024, has yet to play in his first two seasons because of a knee injury, but he has looked agile in camp and offers the kind of edge-setting bulk the unit was missing. He was out last week and didn’t play against the Broncos, but if he helps shore up the run defense on early downs, Atlanta will have a place for him for a long time.
Morgan Fox? No - the source has Thomas.
Thomas, a 4-3 defensive end for most of his career, was brought in for his ability to play edge too. He played all 17 games for the Browns last season, finishing with 28 tackles and 2.5 sacks.
He opened camp working with the defensive linemen before shifting to edge, and he could handle early-down run work before making way for the quicker rushers later in drives. If some of Cunningham’s other additions click, Thomas could be back with the linemen before long.
He’s on a one-year, $3.1 million contract.
Sample adds another layer. The Shiloh High School and Tulane product was a fourth-round pick of the Bengals in 2021, and the Falcons took cornerback Darren Hall three picks before Cincinnati selected him.
Sample played in most games across his first three seasons as a rotational piece, then missed all of 2024 with injury before returning last season to make two starts in 14 games. He finished with 17 tackles and 2.0 sacks.
He, too, is viewed as a run-game help piece more than a replacement for Pearce’s pass rush, and his contract is a non-guaranteed $1.2 million.
What Atlanta has now is a room built less on one defining trait and more on survival, versatility, and size. The loss of Walker and Pearce takes away the speed and burst that once shaped the group, but the Falcons have added plenty of mass in response.
That may make matching last year’s sack total difficult. It could also make the defense tougher on early downs.
And that’s the bigger picture here: the Falcons are headed into the Steelers game with a completely different edge group than the one that helped power last season’s breakthrough. With so many one-year deals in the mix, it could look different again in 12 months.
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The temptation is obvious in Atlanta, where any encouraging quarterback glimpse can get wrapped in long-term hope pretty quickly. But Strand still profiles as a developmental project more than an answer to the franchises bigger questions, and the safer read right now is that his rise is about earning a role, not redefining the position room. [Read more 🡒]