Last season head coach Arthur Smith praised Parker Hesse as one of the team's unsung heroes, doing all the dirty work blocking assignments as a hybrid blocking TE and fullback. This season, Hesse missed the roster cut with the return of John FitzPatrick, who missed his rookie year last year due to injury. Hesse did stick with the practice squad, but unfortunately he has suffered an injury of his own and has been placed on practice squad injured reserve. Josh Ali was on last season's practice squad, and this year he beat out several other candidates for the last WR spot on the roster. But he has been inactive for a couple of weeks due to injury, and now the team has decided to free up the roster spot by putting Ali on the shelf for at least the next four weeks. To replace Ali, the team has brought back WR Frank Darby, their last pick in the 2021 draft. They signed Darby to the practice squad rather than the roster, so technically he's the replacement for Parker Hesse. But there's a strong chance he'll be a standard practice squad elevation fairly soon, so in that sense the team is swapping out Ali for Darby. And who knows... Darby might have been the one to make the roster in the first place had he not suffered his preseason injury. He played significant snaps on special teams as a rookie. That would likely be his main role again this year if he's called up. Why sign him to the practice squad rather than the roster? The team also plucked defensive lineman Eli Ankou from the Bills practice squad. So he gets the roster spot, at least for a couple of weeks. Why another defensive lineman? He's 325 pounds, so he fills the run-stuffer role that Timmy Horne had filled the last couple of weeks as a practice squad elevation. His job will be to clog a gap and occupy blockers so that Kaden Elliss and Nate Landman can roam free. Ankou is the largest defensive lineman in the organization, followed by Horne (lists at 323) on the practice squad. The next largest defenders on the roster are Grady Jarrett and Albert Huggins, both listing at 305. Ankou has 33 games of career experience with 3 starts.
Josh Ali, Troy Andersen and Parker Hesse all being placed on IR led to an interesting side effect that I can't remember ever seeing from the Falcons this far into a season before. They didn't have anyone at all on the official injury report. When guys go on IR, they are scratched from the 53-man roster and off the injury reports. So there are now 9 guys on regular IR and 2 more on practice squad reserve status, but everyone still standing had full participation Wednesday through Friday. That made the injury reports a blank list for all three days. Hmmm.... does that mean we'll FINALLY have actual participation for Cordarrelle Patterson this week? Interesting move... instead of instantly using a standard practice squad elevation on newly resigned Frank Darby, the Falcons are giving Xavier ("Zay") Malone a call-up for this week's game. I'm happy to see him get a regular game check. Malone caught my eye in practices in training camp, and he flashed pretty well in the preseason games. In one of them, he had two targets - and they turned out to be the two longest Falcons offensive plays of that game. More than likely his role for this one will be limited to special teams, but the elevation means the team thinks he's close to ready for a regular roster spot. He is certainly a prospect to watch. Atlanta's web site lists him as 5-9. I'm not buying that, as he measured 5-7 in March at his pro day. At that pro day (he played for Henderson State, but the workout was held at Ouachita Baptist), he was timed at 4.36, had a 36" vertical, and put up 15 bench press reps (not bad for a speedy little WR). He'd be fun to see on screens or Jet sweeps.
