The 2021 season had its defensive highlights, from A.J. Terrell’s emergence to Foye Oluokun’s clutch turnovers to Marlon Davidson’s immediately legendary pick six off of Tom Brady. What it didn’t have was anything approaching consistent greatness, and the lack of an effective pass rush and an abundance of missed opportunities were extremely frustrating for Falcons fans.
As you might imagine, it sounds like it was also extremely frustrating for Dean Pees. The 2021 Falcons defense was the worst-ranked unit of his coaching career in nearly any metric you can think of, and the pass rush might have been the least productive pass rush we’ve seen in Atlanta, which is saying something.