Tag: Chris Lindstrom

Falcons’ Chris Lindstrom out, Younghoe Koo will play vs. Panthers

Falcons guard Chris Lindstrom OUT, kicker Younghoe Koo WILL play vs. Panthers in Week 15

The Atlanta Falcons will be without two key offensive linemen when they take on the Carolina Panthers in Week 15. Right tackle Kaleb McGary was ruled out on Friday due to a knee injury and guard Chris Lindstrom was ruled out on Sunday morning.

Replacing McGary and Lindstrom in the starting lineup will likely be Storm Norton and Tyler Vrabel. Norton filled in for McGary in Week 14 while Vrabel was elevated from the practice squad on Saturday.

On the bright side, the Falcons will have center Drew Dalman and left tackle Jake Matthews, both of whom were listed as questionable on the injury report. Kicker Younghoe Koo and linebacker Nate Landman will also be out there against the Carolina Panthers.

Sunday’s game kicks off at 1:00 p.m. ET at Bank of America Stadium.

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Falcons list inactives for Week 15 game vs. Panthers

The Falcons have released their inactives list for Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers

The Atlanta Falcons have released their inactives list for Sunday’s game against the Carolina Panthers and seven players have been ruled out. Offensive lineman Chris Lindstrom and linebacker Bud Dupree are among those out for Week 15.

Kicker Younghoe Koo is active after being added to the injury report due to an illness on Saturday. Defensive lineman David Onyemata and right tackle Kaleb McGary were previously ruled out. Check out the team’s full inactives list for Week 15 below.

Falcons OL Chris Lindstrom questionable to return vs. Bucs

The Falcons have lost another offensive lineman against the Buccaneers. Chris Lindstrom is questionable to return with an ankle injury

The Atlanta Falcons have lost yet another offensive lineman against the Buccaneers. Right guard Chris Lindstrom is officially questionable to return with an ankle injury, ESPN’s Michael Rothstein is reporting.

Filling in for Lindstrom at right guard is reserve Kyle Hinton. The Falcons lost left tackle Jake Matthews after entering the game without center Drew Dalman and right tackle Kaleb McGary.

UPDATE: Lindstrom has returned to begin the second half.

The Falcons currently trail 12-10 to the Buccaneers at halftime. Wide receiver Drake London leads the team in receiving yards and tight end Kyle Pitts caught a 36-yard touchdown.

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Gimme him: One player Titans would steal from Falcons

Shaun Calderon chooses the one player he’d steal from the Falcons for the Titans.

The Tennessee Titans have a massive game on Sunday against the Atlanta Falcons that could decide what direction this team goes for the rest of the 2023 campaign.

A win could lead to the team trying to go on a run in the hopes of potentially saving its season, just like the Titans did in 2019 after a 2-4 start. However, losing to Atlanta should push Tennessee in the other direction and see them sell with the goal of building for the future.

You could argue that Tennessee is already in the latter stage after Monday’s trade of Kevin Byard, but it’ll take more than that to truly signal that a selloff is on.

For now, the Titans are focused on trying to win a game over a Falcons squad that has a ton of familiar faces on the opposing sideline, a list headed by their former offensive coordinator, Falcons head coach Arthur Smith.

Atlanta has several talented pieces that I strongly considered for this article. Some of the players I contemplated were wide receiver Drake London, left tackle Jake Matthews, running back Bijan Robinson and cornerback A.J. Terrell.

In the end, I decided to simply go with arguably the best player on the team who would undoubtedly help the Titans’ offensive line for the long haul.

Right guard Chris Lindstrom has been one of the most consistent and best players in all of football over the last handful of seasons. Since the start of 2021, his overall grade has never been lower than 83.7, per Pro Football Focus.

Further, over the last four years, Lindstrom has finished inside the top 10 at his position with an average overall grade of 85.0, and his highest mark in that span is 95.0 in 2022, the best grade at the position in the NFL.

On top of having the second-highest overall grade this season (84.5), the Boston College product currently ranks inside the top 15 at his position in both run-blocking (85.6, third) and pass-blocking (69.9, 14th).

Adding that type of elite talent to the interior of the line would be a massive game-changer for a unit that could use an upgrade practically all across the board.

When combined with Peter Skoronski, the Titans would have a young (both players are under 27) and very good guard tandem for years to come, assuming Skoronski continues to move in the right direction.

Tennessee would then be able to focus on trying to solidify the blindside in the offseason, something that has proven difficult since the days of Taylor Lewan.

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Gimme Him: One player the Commanders would steal from Falcons

Which player would the Commanders steal from the Falcons?

The Washington Commanders will face the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday in a pivotal NFC matchup for each team. Washington (2-3) looks to snap a three-game losing streak while the Falcons (3-2) look to keep pace with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers atop the NFC South.

Here at Commanders Wire, we do an exercise each week where we hypothetically steal one player from the upcoming opponent to bolster Washington’s roster.

For some teams, it’s easy to pick one player to hypothetically steal, especially if they have a franchise quarterback. The Falcons are in the same position as the Commanders. Both teams have solid rosters but are banking on second-year quarterbacks being the long-term answer.

So, which player would we steal for Washington?

Unsurprisingly, the Commanders look to Atlanta’s offensive line, plucking away Pro Bowl right guard Chris Lindstrom from the Falcons. Lindstrom, 26, signed a five-year, $105 million contract earlier this year after earning his first Pro Bowl last season. Additionally, Lindstrom was named second-team All-Pro in 2022.

While the Commanders currently have Sam Cosmi at right guard, they could move him back to right tackle, giving them a young and potentially dominant right side of the offensive line. Washington could also move Cosmi to left guard.

Lindstrom would give the Commanders their first Pro Bowl offensive lineman since Brandon Scherff departed after the 2021 season, leaving a massive hole in the interior of Washington’s offensive line. Lindstrom is good in pass protection and even better as a run blocker. Like Cosmi, Lindstrom is excellent on the move and perfect for the screen game Eric Bieniemy likes to employ.

The Falcons have other talented players, such as electrifying rookie running back Bijan Robinson, cornerback A.J. Terrell, second-year wideout Drake London and more, but no one player would fit Washington’s needs quite like Lindstrom.

Player Prowl: Which Falcons player would the Panthers want most?

If we could take any Falcons player to magically place on the Panthers roster, who would we choose? Our answer may not be sexy, but it’s certainly safe.

Welcome to the newest season of Player Prowl, where we put the spotlight on a Carolina Panthers opponent by—well—prowling on them. If you’re a fresh face around these parts or just unfamiliar with the series, it’s where we hypothetically claw one player of our choice away from the week’s upcoming challenger to put on the team’s roster.

And a new year brings a familiar foe in the Atlanta Falcons, who actually have a menu of interesting options.

If we start on offense, we could pair rookie quarterback Bryce Young with a young playmaker. Running back Bijan Robinson, wide receiver Drake London and tight end Kyle Pitts—all top-ten draft picks over the last three years—are quite appealing.

The Atlanta defense boasts some studs as well. You may not get much sleep passing up on the likes of lineman Grady Jarrett, cornerback A.J. Terrell, safety Jessie Bates

Nonetheless, that’s what we’re doing here. No Robinson, no London, no Pitts, no Jarrett, no Terrell and no Bates. Instead, we’ll look to help our franchise passer by protecting him—with right guard Chris Lindstrom.

Lindstrom is easily amongst the game’s most dominant interior hog mollies. Per Pro Football Focus, he’s allowed just six sacks over his four-year career. PFF has also acknowledged his growth into an elite lineman—grading him out at 66.6 in 2019, 77.1 in 2020, 83.7 in 2021 and 95.0 in 2022.

Now, yes, the Panthers already have themselves a solid right guard in Austin Corbett. But if his injury has taught us anything, it’s that you can’t have enough depth in the offensive trenches—which is almost a non-existent commodity in today’s NFL.

Sticking to our hypotheticals—we can slot Lindstrom in at right guard, move Corbett to the left upon his return and use Brady Christensen as a top-end swing tackle to give us some flexibility.

So, did we get our first prowl right?

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The NFL’s 12 best interior offensive linemen

From Wyatt Teller to Jason Kelce, here are the 12 best interior offensive linemen in the NFL today.

Of all the players who factor heavily into a football team’s success, guards and centers are often the most overlooked. Unless you’re working with advanced metrics, there are no statistics to speak of, and unless you have access to overhead and (especially) end zone footage, it’s hard to discern what these guys are doing that is so important.

But those in the know, know better. Centers control the entire offense — they make protection calls, they align with their quarterbacks both intellectually and literally on every snap, and they have to take the brunt of the opponent’s decisions to point one or more large angry men in their exact directions.

Guards are often the athletes of their offensive lines as much as tackles are — it’s just a different kind of athleticism. Whether on the left or right side, these big guys had better be able to execute inside and outside zone, man-based snaps in which it’s mano a mano, and all kinds of combinations in which it’s important to coordinate with others.

So, in the spirit of giving these fine gentlemen more play in the court of public opinion. we continue our position lists for the 2023 season with the 12 best interior offensive linemen in the NFL today.

In a recent version of “The Xs and Os” with Greg Cosell, Greg (of NFL Films and ESPN’s NFL Matchup) and Doug Farrar (of Touchdown Wire) got into the attributes for guards and centers at the elite level.

Centers:

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Guards:

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In addition to this list, you can read all of our position rankings for the 2023 NFL season, on the way to our late August list of the 101 best players in the league today.

The NFL’s top 11 offensive tackles
The NFL’s top 11 interior defensive linemen
The NFL’s top 11 edge defenders
The NFL’s top 11 linebackers
The NFL’s top 11 slot defenders
The NFL’s top 11 cornerbacks
The NFL’s top 11 safeties

And now, the 12 best interior offensive linemen in the NFL today.

(All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus and Sports Info Solutions unless otherwise indicated). 

The six players who shouldn’t have made our ’50 most dominant’ list — but did

Here are six players who made the NFL Wires’ recent 50 Most Dominant Players list… but probably shouldn’t have.

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Issac Newton wasn’t alive when people were making lists of the NFL’s best and most dominant players, but he had that statement right, and it applies to any subjective list about anything, whether we’re discussing NFL players or different brands of bug spray.

So, when it comes to the list of the NFL’s 50 most dominant players in the game today, put together by out estimable group of editors and writers, there are arguments for an against some of the people who made the cut, no matter how great they may be. I’ve already made my case for six players who I think should have made this Top 50 but didn’t, and to make things entirely fair, here are six players who did make the Top 50 that maybe should not have.

You can read both parts of the list right here!

50 most dominant NFL players of 2023, Nos. 50-26

50 most dominant NFL players of 2023, Nos. 25-1

NFC South roundtable: Choosing favorite moves from division rivals

Our managing editors gave some props to to the competition, choosing their favorite move from an NFC South squad other than their own.

It’s time to spread the love around the (kinda) contentious NFC South.

Join us and our managing editors—River Wells of Bucs Wire, Matt Urben of Falcons Wire and John Sigler of Saints Wire—as we each pick our favorite offseason move from our divisional foes.

9 winners and losers (everyone waiting on Aaron Rodgers) from Day 1 of NFL free agency

The Bears had a BIG day. Everyone hoping for some real Aaron Rodgers news did not.

What a wild (and weary) way to start this year’s NFL free agency.

At the horn of the negotiation window (there are other creative names for it!), a flurry of deals for foundational talents and upside players started to fly in. It’s almost as if these contracts were talked about in advance. (Noooo, that would never happen. Impossible!)

For example, in Chicago, the Bears revamped their defense. In Denver, the Broncos rebuilt an offensive line in front of Russell Wilson on the fly. What a productive day for both franchises all around.

And in Green Bay and New York?

Well, both the Packers and Jets kind of just hung around a swing together, hoping their mutual misery in waiting over Aaron Rodgers would soon conclude. Some NFL personalities were right there with them, wading in frustration. Who am I kidding? So were we.

As we head into the second day of the 2023 NFL free agency period, let’s break down some of the more notable winners and losers from Day 1.