Drake London was very good for the Atlanta Falcons in 2025, aside from missing five games. Everything else about the Falcons receiver depth chart was a disaster.
Darnell Mooney got hurt, returned, and was a shell of himself all season. Ray-Ray McCloud produced very little and was clearly angered by the team firing wide receivers coach Ike Hilliard before the team cut him. The team tried to replace production in-house and got a combined 37 receptions for about 400 yards and two touchdowns from everyone
else on the roster, with David Sills accounting for 18 of those catches, 191 of those yards, and both scores. I argued all offseason that the Falcons were playing with fire by not upgrading WR4 and beyond, given that McCloud was coming off a career year, but even I never dreamt things would get that bad.
The ruin and rubble of the wide receiver room suggests sweeping changes are in store, especially with a new offensive-minded head coach in the building. Let’s review the position and look at our outlook for 2026.
Drake London
The gold standard and the player the Falcons have to hold on to in this group. London missed more than one game for the first time in his NFL career, but he was otherwise exactly the caliber of player he’s long been for Atlanta. He flirted with 1,000 yards in just 12 games, averaged a career-high 13.5 yards per reception, and scored seven touchdowns as a matchup nightmare in the slot and generally difficult to defend receiver with underrated, speed, sticky hands, and terrific size.
In just four season, London has rocketed up to 10th on the team’s all-time receiving yards list and 13th in receiving touchdowns despite having Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ridder, Taylor Heinicke, end-stage Kirk Cousins, and a still-improving Michael Penix Jr. as his quarterbacks over that span. So long as he’s healthy and the Falcons have a good gameplan and capable quarterbacking, London should eat, and he’s the obvious WR1 for this team for the foreseeable future.
Darnell Mooney
This is where things really went awry. If you use a lot of two tight end sets, as the Falcons did at times, you can sort of survive a WR3 conundrum like the one we’ll talk more about soon. If you utilize your running back as a receiving option, as the Falcons definitely did, so much the better. But you can’t really survive only having one useful receiver on the field in today’s NFL, and unfortunately Mooney was not a useful receiver.
Mooney played 15 games, but he should not have. He suffered an injury in July we later learned was a broken collar bone, and then suffered an in-season hamstring injury, never fully getting back on track. The Mooney we saw in 2024 was fast, explosive, and dangerous; the Mooney we saw in 2025 was limited, dropped passes, and never seemed fully on the same page with Michael Penix Jr. and Kirk Cousins. His production was more than halved from a year ago despite playing just one fewer game, with just 32 catches for 443 yards and a touchdown on the year. The team’s decision to roll him out there with one significant injury and another one that is inherently limiting looked like desperation and blew up in their faces, as Mooney didn’t really produce at the level they needed him to and the team never seriously explored a replacement.
I don’t particularly blame Mooney, which is not the same as saying he played well, but that 2025 season leaves his future looking cloudy.
Ray-Ray McCloud
Heavy, heavy criticism for Terry Fontenot and Raheem Morris is justified with McCloud, and for multiple reasons.
- McCloud was largely terrific in 2024, putting up career highs of 62 receptions (23 more than his previous career high) and 686 receiving yards (a career high by 409 yards) as a short-range and middle of the field option. Whenever a player has that kind of absurd outlier production heading into his age 29 season, it’s reasonable to hedge against regression; the Falcons did not.
- The weird firing of Ike Hilliard and the team’s close-lipped handling of that firing clearly angered McCloud; the team’s equally secretive handling of McCloud’s absence and release led to the veteran receiver filling the void with vague but critical social media posts that made the Falcons look bad. We don’t know the whole story and we never will, but the team looked reactive firing Hilliard after a terrible game against the Panthers and jettisoned their WR3 for absolutely nothing.
McCloud then showed up in two games for the Giants, catching one pass for five yards, and currently is unsigned. He’s clearly talented enough to be an asset for a team, but 2024 was something of a lightning in a bottle situation where his fit with Kirk Cousins and Zac Robinson’s offense allowed him to truly thrive in a way he never had before. The Falcons either needed to have a good plan for him in 2025 or have insurance for him, and they did neither.
David Sills
Over the years, there have been countless fringe receivers we hoped would get a shot, but Sills is the rare option who actually got one. The team kept him around as the nominal WR6/7, but at times in 2025 he functioned as WR2 in this offense.
He has his moments as a blocker and showcased a little wiggle and solid hands in 2025, enough that I think some team is going to be inclined to give him a real shot to be their WR4 in 2026. But the route running, lack of high-end speed, and occasional drops all reminded us that he was stretched as a potential volume option, which is less his fault than Atlanta’s. His 18/191/2 line was, across the board, a career year.
Dylan Drummond
He had a nice summer working with Easton Stick, and was thrust into a role because of injuries and attrition. His seven receptions for 42 yards were a career-high and he looked capable enough as a short area option, but ideally he’s a practice squad player and emergency call-up.
KhaDarel Hodge
Besides mysteriously being inactive because he did something the coaching staff didn’t like, Hodge was a useful special teamer but very lightly used as a receiver. If he returns—and he should—he’s best as WR5/6, with big play potential if the team can scheme him open.
Casey Washington
Expected to be WR4 heading into the year, Washington was either hurt or ineffective all season. He finished with six receptions for 94 yards in his limited looks, but needs to show better this year to have a shot at sticking on the roster as a reserve.
Deven Thompkins
Like Drummond, Thompskins was pressed into action unexpectedly later in the year and had a couple of nice grabs. He’ll hope for a practice squad spot in 2026.
Outlook: Not good!
When you have Drake London, you have a top-flight option. Everything beyond London, however, is a complete question mark.
The Falcons may actually choose to effectively re-build the group from scratch. I could see a couple of Chris Blair/Thompkins/Washington/Hodge/Drummond/Nick Nash sticking between the bottom of the roster and the practice squad, but I’m not sure Mooney returns at his hefty cap number. The Falcons may need to acquire a WR2, WR3, and WR4 this year, which puts additional pressure on them to either bring back Kyle Pitts or replace him effectively, given how hard it is to retool a receiver depth chart entirely on the fly.
That means that despite the presence of London and the possibility that Mooney could return healthy and effective in 2026, the receiving corps is a real worry spot for this team. They’ll need to address it in order for this offense to rebound.
