JD Bertrand’s place on the Atlanta Falcons roster looks shaky again, and the team’s latest waiver claim only turned up the heat.
Bertrand survived the 53-man cut deadline yesterday and edged Josh Woods for the LB5 job, but that does not look like a long-term guarantee under this new regime. Atlanta moved quickly after waivers opened, claiming former Jacksonville Jaguars linebacker Yasir Abdullah, a player who appears to fit defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich’s preferences far better.
Ulbrich wants linebackers who can cover ground and make plays with range and instincts, the kind of athletes like Divine Deablo and Kendal Daniels who can roam the middle of the field. Bertrand, by contrast, is described as the furthest thing from a physical specimen, which already put him at a disadvantage in this linebacker room.
The one thing working in Bertrand’s favor is special teams value, but even that may not be enough to keep him around. The Falcons now have a clean path to move on, especially since Abdullah looks like the more natural schematic fit if both players are going to sit behind Deablo, Daniels, Harold Perkins Jr., and Christian Harris.
Abdullah brings real athletic juice. He ran a 4.47 second 40-yard dash, was a 2023 fifth-round pick by Jacksonville, and spent his first three seasons there while appearing in 29 games, mostly on special teams. The key difference now is that he’s on the active roster, not stashed on the practice squad, so Atlanta has to make a real decision.
That makes Bertrand the obvious candidate to be pushed out, even if there’s a chance he could circle back to the practice squad as depth. He was already a surprise roster survivor, and this move makes his spot feel even more temporary.
There’s also the memory of how rough it looked when Bertrand had to start in Divine Deablo’s place on defense last season. That’s the kind of scenario Atlanta wants to avoid at all costs, and with Daniels, Perkins Jr., and Harris in the mix, the Falcons are clearly trying to leave nothing to chance if injuries hit.
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Morriss path since then has only sharpened the debate, with injury and competition helping push him off the Chiefs roster before he landed on the Cowboys practice squad. Still, the draft-pick criticism around the Falcons may be missing a key part of the equation: the team is expected to make up that lost selection through compensatory picks tied to recent player departures, which changes the real cost of taking the swing. [Read more 🡒]