FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — Grady Jarrett didn't waste any time showing everyone that he's back and better than ever to start year 10.
The stalwart Falcon had a long and arduous road back from the torn anterior cruciate ligament that cost him the final nine games of the 2023 season. That journey was expertly told by Tori McElhaney and the Atlanta Falcons digital team and can be found here.
As a former fifth-round pick who was tabbed as undersized, Jarrett has made a career of outplaying his draft profile. He has long been known as an extremely hard worker that has earned everything he has gotten during his time in the NFL. The mentality that has seen him grow from a Day 3 pick into a premier player was on full display last Sunday against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Jarrett played 44 of a possible 66 defensive snaps and logged three tackles, 1.5 sacks, three quarterback pressures and one run stuff. He added three quarterback hits, giving him 117 in his career and breaking John Abraham's franchise record (115). These stats show Jarrett had a very good game, but if we go beyond the box score, we can see exactly how impressive his return to form really was.
Falcons fans aren't strangers to a strong performance from Jarrett and neither was the man on the opposing sideline calling plays for Pittsburgh on Sunday. If anyone knows exactly the kind of impact Jarrett can have on a game, it's Arthur Smith, a man who made Jarrett a captain in each of his three seasons as the Falcons head coach.
With that knowledge, Smith did everything in his power to limit Jarrett's impact.
The Steelers ran the ball on 41 of 66 offense snaps. Pittsburgh's 41 rushes were the most in the NFL in Week 1 and the commitment to a run-heavy script limited Jarrett's pass-rushing opportunities to just 18 snaps. With a player like Jarrett, you can limit his opportunities, but he is still going to find a way to make his presence felt.
On those 18 pass rush snaps, Jarrett tallied three quarterback pressures and 1.5 sacks, good for a 16.7% pressure rate. Jarrett tied for seventh in the NFL in pressure rate in Week 1 despite playing more run defending snaps than any other player to record a pressure rate of 15% or higher. Despite the Steelers trying to essentially soften Jarrett up by making him defend the run, he was still able to make a difference in the passing game.
While pressure rate gives us a snapshot of how well a player turns pass rush opportunities into pressures, sacks are a money stat. Literally and figuratively. Moving a quarterback off his spot and impacting his timing is important to a defense, but nothing tends to kill a drive the way a sack does, so converting those pressures into sacks is a marquee skill.
In Week 1, Jarrett ranked second in the NFL in sack rate, converting 8.3% of his rushes into sacks, second to only New England's Keion White (10%). Jarrett was also able to turn 1.5 of his three pressures into sacks. His 50% sack conversion rate was tied for the fifth-best mark in the league in Week 1 among players with multiple sacks. He was also one of just three players to record a sack on 18 or fewer pass rush snaps joining old friend Calais Campbell and Houston's Mario Edwards.
According to Next Gen Stats, Jarrett accounted for 42.9% of the Falcons' pressure and generated a positive pass rush on 66.7% of his pass-rushing snaps. His 4.7% pressure over expectation rate — or QBPOE — was the fourth-highest among all defensive tackles.
| Player | QBP over expected |
|---|---|
| Dexter Lawrence | 8.9 |
| Daron Payne | 6.6 |
| Travis Jones | 4.9 |
| Grady Jarrett | 4.7 |
In addition to employing a run-heavy game plan, there are some additional ways a team can look to limit a player like Jarret's disruptiveness. Pittsburgh utilized its short-passing game, with 18 of 23 attempts targeted nine-or-fewer yards downfield, to try and slow down Jarrett. The Steelers also used double teams to try and stifle his impact. According to Next Gen Stats, Jarrett was double-teamed on 50% of his pass rush snaps, the highest double rate of any player to record multiple sacks on Sunday.
| Player | Sacks | Pressures | Double Team Pct. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Grady Jarrett | 1.5 | 3 | 50% |
| DeForest Buckner | 1.5 | 3 | 44.4% |
| Keion White | 2.5 | 3 | 36% |
Jarrett is no stranger to being double-teamed. Since 2018, he has been double-teamed on 39.3% of his pass rush snaps, among the highest rates for any defensive tackle NFL over that span. Jarrett has registered 259 pressures (10%) and 27.5 sacks and has converted pressures to sacks at a 10.6% clip, the 11th highest rate in the NFL.
Over the course of his career, Jarrett has been a player that teams have to account for in both the run and pass game and after the first week of the 2024 season he showed no signs of slowing down.
Dual Threat in the Middle Third
It's no secret the Falcons have a tough offense to face in Week 2 in the Philadelphia Eagles. The team not only added a threat on the ground in Saquon Barkley, who notched a three-touchdown game in Week 1, but Philadelphia already had two weapons on the outside in A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith and a mobile quarterback in Jalen Hurts. The Falcons know they have a challenge ahead of them but with the safety duo of Jessie Bates III and Justin Simmons and the defensive front led by Jarrett, the team is powered and ready to go.
Despite the loss in Week 1, the team did not allow a touchdown, one of only two teams in the NFL last week to do so.
The Falcons only allowed 133 passing yards, the fifth-fewest in the league last week, a testament to the threats in coverage. Simmons was one of five safeties in Week 1 to record a 100% coverage success rate for players with at least two targets, according to Next Gen Stats. With one reception allowed on three targets on Sunday, Simmons' opponent completion percentage (33.3) was tied for the third-lowest in the NFL among safeties with at least three targets.
| Player | Tar./Rec. | QB Rtg. | Cmp. Pct. | Success Rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Justin Simmons | 3/1 | 42.4 | 33.3 | 100.% |
| Quandre Diggs | 2/1 | 56.3 | 50.0 | 100% |
| Jevon Holland | 2/0 | 39.6 | 0.0 | 100% |
| Rayshawn Jenkins | 3/3 | 81.9 | 100.0 | 100% |
| John Johnson | 3/3 | 30.6 | 66.7 | 100% |
Last season, the Falcons defense allowed just 5.8 yards per target on attempts to the middle third of the field last season, a full yard fewer than any other defense, according to Next Gen Stats. The team allowed a 47% success rate on such attempts, the fourth-lowest rate in the NFL in 2023. Last week, the Pittsburgh offense did not target the middle third of the field, the only team in the NFL to not get targeted in that area in Week 1. A coincidence with both Bates and Simmons are in the middle third? Not in the slightest.
Both defenders have notched the second- (Bates, 10) and third-most (Simmons, nine) interceptions since 2022, with at least two of their interceptions coming between the hashes.
Smith knew the type of threat that both Bates and Simmons are when in coverage, specifically Bates, and the game plan for the day showed. With Bates and Simmons on the field for all 30 of his dropbacks, Steelers quarterback Justin Fields did not target the middle of the field on any of his throws in the Week 1 matchup.
In Smith's press conference earlier this week, he was asked why he avoided calling plays in the middle of the field in the game. His answer? As expected.
"That was my respect to Jessie Bates. Again, don't let their best player wreck the game," Smith said. "Like I said, I don't know why more people don't know about him, but he's arguably one of the top players in the league, and he wrecked Week 1 if you watched Week 1 last year."
Smith is not wrong. In Bates' Falcons debut against the Green Bay Packers in Week 1 last season, he was one of two players who notched a multi-interception game in the season opener. It also marked the first multi-interception game of his career.
Since 2023, Bates has generated a -22.0 target EPA, 58.1 coverage success rate and a 25.6 ball-hawk rate, despite being targeted on just 8.2% of his coverage snaps. In 2023, Bates notched a career-best six interceptions, tied for the most in the NFL. Last season, Bates was targeted nine times, 20-plus yards downfield and notched three interceptions and an opponent completion percentage of 44.4%, according to Next Gen Stats.
Smith knows the type of player Bates is, which is probably the reason he wanted Bates in Atlanta in the first place. It'll be interesting to see how other opponents game plan around the safety duo this season.
