Jimmy Lake was hired to build on an unexpectedly strong year from the Atlanta Falcons defense in 2023, enabled by significant investments and coordinator Ryan Nielsen. Lake is a familiar face for Raheem Morris and someone he clearly trusted after the two were both on the Rams coaching staff a year ago, but the risk was always that a coach who hadn’t had much success at his stop in Washington in college and had no NFL experience as a coordinator might flame out.
He did. The Falcons went from 18th in points allowed and 11th in yardage last year to 23rd in both metrics this year, shedding 11 sacks (42 to 31) along the way and doubling the number of games where the defense allowed 30 points (3 to 6).