{"id":371497,"date":"2025-09-16T02:15:09","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:15:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/371497\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T02:15:09","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T02:15:09","slug":"atlanta-falcons-rookie-former-uga-star-records-first-career-sack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/371497\/","title":{"rendered":"Atlanta Falcons rookie, former UGA star records first career sack"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Atlanta Falcons rookie <a href=\"https:\/\/ugawire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/bulldogs\/football\/2025\/05\/13\/jalon-walker-georgia-football-signs-contract-atlanta-falcons\/83571418007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">first-round pick Jalon Walker<\/a> recorded his first career NFL sack in the <a href=\"https:\/\/thefalconswire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Falcons&#8217; 22-6 win<\/a> over the Minnesota Vikings. Walker, who played college football for the <a href=\"https:\/\/ugawire.usatoday.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Georgia Bulldogs<\/a>, was part of an impressive Falcons&#8217; pass rush on Sunday night.<\/p>\n<p>Walker played a key role for the Falcons&#8217; pass rush, which played the best it has in years. Atlanta&#8217;s defense forced Vikings quarterback J.J. McCarthy into two interceptions and sacked him six total times.<\/p>\n<p>Walker finished the contest with two tackles and one sack, but it appears that all of Atlanta&#8217;s investment in its front-seven and pass rush has finally paid off. For years, the Falcons have had one of the NFL&#8217;s worst pass rushes, but Walker and company are changing the culture in Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p>Fellow <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/ncaaf\/teams\/georgia-bulldogs\/3473\/\" data-autotag=\"3248d159-97eb-4f61-bd09-3a6f38114d58\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Georgia<\/a> Bulldog pass rusher Leonard Floyd also recorded a sack for Atlanta. Fellow first-round pick defender James Pearce posted a half sack for the Falcons in a game that provided plenty of optimism for Atlanta.<\/p>\n<p>The Falcons&#8217; next game is on Sunday, Sept. 21 at the Carolina Panthers. Atlanta is 1-1 to start the 2025 NFL season and is tied for the division lead with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.<\/p>\n<p>Jalon Walker&#8217;s first career sack<\/p>\n<p>Follow UGAWire on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/ugawire\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.threads.com\/@ugawire\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Threads<\/a> for more Georgia football coverage!<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Atlanta Falcons rookie first-round pick Jalon Walker recorded his first career NFL sack in the Falcons&#8217; 22-6 win&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":371498,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[247,265,223,254,2554,630,318,339,324,224,7,8673,629,4844,20842,19906,1519,11367,248,267,88,6,245,537,530,326,25414,21400,1602,1982,9,266,1980],"class_list":{"0":"post-371497","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-atlanta","11":"tag-atlanta-falcons","12":"tag-atlantafalcons","13":"tag-bulldogs","14":"tag-college","15":"tag-college-sports","16":"tag-conference","17":"tag-falcons","18":"tag-football","19":"tag-ga","20":"tag-georgia","21":"tag-georgia-bulldogs-football","22":"tag-hub","23":"tag-j-j","24":"tag-j-j-mccarthy","25":"tag-mccarthy","26":"tag-national","27":"tag-national-sports","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-nfl","30":"tag-overall","31":"tag-overall-positive","32":"tag-positive","33":"tag-sec","34":"tag-sec-conference-football","35":"tag-sec-hub","36":"tag-smg","37":"tag-smg-timely","38":"tag-sports","39":"tag-sports-news","40":"tag-timely"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115211568794245568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=371497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/371497\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371498"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=371497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=371497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=371497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}