This season has rapidly morphed into a nightmare, and the Atlanta Falcons suffered even more losses heading into Week 12’s matchup against the New Orleans Saints. There’s just no way to sugarcoat it: These
are significant losses, and the Falcons could ill afford any more losses.
On Saturday, Atlanta announced that defensive lineman Zach Harrison and rookie cornerback Billy Bowman Jr. are hitting injured reserve. They promoted Cobee Bryant to the 53 man roster in a corresponding move and officially brought linebacker Divine Deablo from injured reserve.
Harrison has had a credible case as the team’s best overall defensive lineman, with tremendous strength and savvy that has allowed him to have standout stretches as a pass rusher and run defender. His loss stresses the defensive line, which relies on rotating fresh players for maximum impact, and takes one one of Atlanta’s better defenders up front. That’s concerning with the team’s struggles to stop the run this year and the importance of their pass rush, and we’ll have to see how they weather the final stretch without him.
Losing Bowman is less of a loss from an impact perspective—Dee Alford has done a good job filling in all year, minus a couple of rough stretches here and there—but is a massive bummer from the perspective of Bowman’s development and potentially availability heading into 2026. A physical player with big play ability, Bowman was fun at worst this year and showed his very real promise on multiple occasions. I was looking forward to seeing him potentially excel down the stretch, and it feels cruel that we won’t get to see him do it.
We will get to see Bryant, however. After he put in a strong showing in limited snaps last week, the promising rookie cornerback deserves some run, something I advocated for earlier this week. This is not how I envisioned that happening, but Bryant’s intriguing coverage skills and aggressive play could put him in the conversation for a major role in 2026 with so many expiring contracts to come. It would be a major coup for Atlanta if the undrafted free agent could do it.
Deablo’s return, meanwhile, can’t save the season but can make this defense much, much better. So many things fell apart with him out that they’re not worth recounting in full—you saw them, after all—but his ability in coverage against tight ends and running backs, ability to free up Kaden Elliss to focus more on rushing the passer, and solid work against the run are massive boons for a defense that has been struggling.
It’s a mixed bag of news, in other words, and the hope is that Deablo’s return helps makes up for the loss of Bowman and Harrison, while Bryant builds on a strong start to his Falcons career. We’ll start finding out if that’s true tomorrow.
