The Falcons have talked about the importance of building up the trenches, and at least on the defensive side of the ball, the money’s echoing that sentiment.
The Falcons came into Friday having signed Samson Ebukam, Azeez Ojulari, and Cameron Thomas to shore up their edge group, and brought back LaCale London and welcomed Chris Williams to help out on the defensive line. But they can still definitely use help, especially against the run, and prioritized that today by signing Da’Shawn Hand.
Hand, coming off a career-high 13 starts, is ticketed as at least a partial replacement for David Onyemata. I say “at least partial” both because Williams will likely factor in there and because the Falcons still could look at the draft for further help; Onyemata played well enough last year that it’s not going to be easy to cheaply replace him. But Hand gives the Falcons size, strength, and a pretty reliable track record against the run, all things they are definitely going to need to build on last year’s defensive improvement. In 2025, Hand also generated the second-highest pressure total of his career and would have been fourth on the Falcons with 13 stops; he’s not often a threat as a pass rusher but can be on occasion. The quality run defense alone makes him worth signing, given Atlanta’s struggles up front in that regard in 2025.
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Give Hand a warm welcome, and we’ll see if the Falcons are done adding to their defensive line group. My guess is that they are not.
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