The Atlanta Falcons are building an elite defense

The Atlanta Falcons appear to be building a championship defense.

That statement may be ridiculed and laughed at by the casual Atlanta Falcons fans but the serious ones know. Championship teams aren’t built overnight, and at times, the best players aren’t seen immediately.

Grady Jarrett, Deion Jones, and Foye Oloukun all fit that mold. None of them were college All-Americans and none of them were first-round NFL picks, the Atlanta Falcons took a shot hoping that they would work out.

All three of them seem to be exceeding any and all expectations and are setting the Falcons defense up for a run that the organization has never seen on that side of the ball.

Every Falcons fan knows how bad this defense has been throughout the history of the franchise and most would agree, had they had just a Top 15 defense during the first 10 years of Matt Ryan’s career, this franchise would have at least two Super Bowls, if not three – 2010, 2012, and 2016.

While Matt Ryan is on the backside of his career, the defense seems to finally be heading in the right direction and Deion Jones and Foye Oluokun are big reasons for this. Jones has been considered to be the top cover linebacker in the NFL for a couple of seasons now and among the best overall linebackers in the game.

Oluokun is just starting to make his name known throughout the league.

Before this season, Foye Oluokun had been held in high regard by the Atlanta Falcons coaching staff and his development has been unbelievable for those paying attention.

At the start of his rookie season, he was a special team’s guy that would play sparingly as a backup to both Deion Jones and De’Vondre Campbell. However, he got an opportunity to start in Week 5 against the Steelers that year and showed a glimpse of what he was capable of.

In all, he would start seven games as a rookie and had beaten out high draft pick Duke Riley at that point.

Last season, Foye started just three games but the Falcons had seen enough from him that they felt comfortable and confident in letting Campbell walk in free agency without an offer and that faith is paying off so far in 2020.

It is not farfetched to say that Deion Jones and Foye Oluokun are forming one of the best linebacker tandems in the NFL.

There are surely going to be people that scoff at that statement and will point to how bad the defense is as a whole or to what the Atlanta Falcons record is in general, but those naysayers should be encouraged to wake up and realize that the young linebackers in Atlanta are ballers and will command respect in the very near future.

Entering the 2021 season, Jones and Oluokun will join the likes of the best linebacker tandem in the NFL. They will be up there with the likes of Bobby Wagner and KJ Wright, Jaylon Smith and Leighton Vander Esch, Lavonte David, and Devin White as well as Benardrick McKinney and Zach Cunningham.

The Atlanta Falcons do not need to rebuild this defense, they need to add a couple pieces and hire a defensive coordinator that is capable of building an elite defense and utilizing the great young pieces that are already here in Atlanta.