This guy sticks out to me like a sore thumb in terms of playing moneyball with the AQM role. I think most are familiar with the player from his draft cycle. Less speed to power oriented than AQM. More of a bendy, twitchy DPR type.
He’s basically the equivalent of the solid college starter, the role player, that get over recruited.
Atlanta has been starving for pass rush. Ebikitie’s developmental track was not linear but it wasn’t awful.
I doubt he’s cheap (8-10m? per) and he’s almost certainly have to function in a platoon here in order to hit our run defense threshold for that position.
I really liked him during his draft cycle, but haven’t watched much of him sense. I know he was part of some really bad pressure numbers from Atlanta teams prior to this year, but he was expected to be the main guy. Maybe as a side piece he’ll be better (maybe he already was this year?)
His individual pressure numbers were up and down. But there are multiple stretches of consecutive week excellence according to PFF. And just judging from Falcons fans tweets they seemed fairly sold that they had something both in 2022-23 and then again late 2024. Fontenot couldn’t wait and in Fontenot style went full EDGE overkill.
He’s the perfect sort of guy to target, but sometimes these guys go for surprising prices due to the value of their position. I liked Dorace Armstrong a couple of years ago as a similar punt but he got paid a ton by Washington. Is Ebikitie a FA?
He’s not going to be cheap. I’d guess it’s around 10m per. You are taking a leap. But there are two 8 game pass rushing stretches in his career which are very high level. And it doesn’t sound like his play fell off a cliff. It’s just that Walker AND Pearce was stupid.
I’d be okay with someone like Michael Clemons as a super cheap bully ball base edge. But that would be a cheap depth oriented move. I think AE could be a big part of our pass rush solution. Then we can get a Jacas/DDS type later in the draft. Or maybe that’s AH.
