Atlanta Falcons: Jaylinn Hawkins has earned a starting job

While the Atlanta Falcons defense has not exactly had the greatest year, they have had individual players who have stepped up.

The backend of the defense has suffered from simply not being able to cover guys or dropping easy interceptions—with the exception of one player who should be given a starting job on the defense.

Falcons owe Jaylinn Hawkins a starting job over one of the two current starters

Currently, Atlanta has Erik Harris and Duron Harmon listed as the starting safeties, and while they do get rotated in and out, they should be replacing one of those guys with the second-year player, Jaylinn Hawkins.

Hawkins has quite literally taken advantage of all the opportunities he has been given. He has two straight games with an interception, being one of two players on the team that even have a single pick for the Falcons defense.

How can you keep him out as a starter for that reason alone?

This is in contrast to the game against Washington where the two starters dropped a total of four interceptions combined. If they even catch one of those interceptions off of Taylor Heinicke, the game likely ends up in an Atlanta win and they would be 4-2 instead of 3-3.

The one argument you can make against players who snag a lot of interceptions from being a starter is if they blow a lot of coverages, but that is not the case with Jaylinn.

As it stands now, Pro Football Focus has Jaylinn Hawkins ranked as the second-highest graded safety out of 87 eligible players in the NFL with a 79.2 overall grade.

The Atlanta Falcons have no argument in keeping the second-highest graded safety in the league from being a starter.

He has played as one of the best in the game when given the snaps, now the next step is to give him the majority of the snaps over the likes of Erik Harris or Duron Harmon.