As the Atlanta Falcons still try to figure out who and what they are offensively, they made a trade on Tuesday that will hopefully bolster that side of the ball when they traded for Los Angeles Rams wide receiver Van Jefferson.
The Falcons are certainly looking for a springboard of sorts for their offense, as they're currently averaging only 16.6 points per game, which is toward the bottom of the league. Part of that is youth, and part of that is perhaps the play at the quarterback position.
Help for Desmond Ridder
The biggest question mark entering the season and now even during the season for the Falcons is that of Desmond Ridder's play. As of last Sunday against the Houston Texans, he's only started in nine games now for his career, which is hardly a large enough sample size to truly judge his potential.
So far, Ridder has been a mixed bag this season, where he's gone from a mere game manager in the first couple of weeks, to then having an abysmal showing against the Jacksonville Jaguars in their England trip, to then having his best career game against the Texans.
Make no mistake about it, head coach Arthur Smith and fellow Falcons staff have attempted to build this offense in every which way to help Ridder, giving him plenty of weapons, like this year's No. 8 overall draft pick in Bijan Robinson. Van Jefferson is perhaps just another piece of that puzzle.
Run-blocking abilities
It's no secret that the Falcons under Smith love to run the ball, that is if they can. They're actually throwing the ball more this season, especially more over the last couple of games due to teams stopping their run game. Coming out of the University of Florida, Jefferson was considered one of the best run-blockers on the team, per Sports Illustrated. However, his initial draft analysis suggested that he wouldn't “spring the running game with blocking ability,” per an NFL report.
It will be interesting to see just exactly how Smith intends to use Jefferson and if one of the areas he wants to use him in is run-blocking.
Where does Van Jefferson fit into the offense?
What made this move by the Falcons so surprising was that they do have enough pass-catchers at the moment. They have a WR1 in Drake London, a first-round draft pick from last season, and then Mack Hollins in WR2. Then they have two impressive tight ends in Kyle Pitts, another first-round draft pick two seasons ago, and this year's free agent pick up, Jonnu Smith.
Bringing Jefferson in would make him a clear WR3, which would obviously be helpful. The problem is that the Falcons already struggle to get the ball to their pass-catchers as it is. They're averaging just under 200 yards per game, throwing the ball 31.4 times per game for a 65-percent completion percentage.
It's obvious that this was a low-risk, high-reward situation for Atlanta, where they're hoping they can revive the once-promising career that Jefferson had going for him. His most promising season was in 2021, where he caught 50 passes for 802 yards, averaging 16 yards per catch, with six touchdowns.
With the Rams, Jefferson was more of a deep-threat, home run ball type of receiver, where he averaged 14.8 yards per reception for his career. And maybe that's his role. The Falcons' longest passing play this season is 45 yards. Jefferson has proven in the past that he has the capabilities to snatch the deep ball.
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