The Atlanta Falcons had eight players declared out for Sunday against the Denver Broncos, so you likely expected there to be a few moves between Friday afternoon’s injury report and kickoff tomorrow morning. Here they are.
In short, the Falcons:
- Placed defensive linemen Ta’Quon Graham and James Smith Williams on injured reserve;
- Activated center Drew Dalman and outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter from IR;
- Signed cornerback Natrone Brooks to the active roster;
- Elevated outside linebacker Khalid Kareem and safety Dane Cruikshank from the practice squad;
- Signed center Matt Hennessy to the practice squad and released receiver and returner Jakeem Grant.
That’s a pretty dizzying set of moves, and each bit of news deserves a quick blurb of its own.
We’ll start with Graham and JSW. Graham was a useful rotational piece for the Falcons, playing solid run defense for Atlanta while handling between a quarter to a third of defensive snaps most weeks, and will likely be replaced with Brandon Dorlus, Kentavius Street, and others on Sunday. JSW was a solid run defender and coverage option who had one sack on the season and will be replaced more or less 1:1 by Carter…