{"id":863276,"date":"2026-04-10T16:54:30","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:54:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/863276\/"},"modified":"2026-04-10T16:54:30","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T16:54:30","slug":"players-return-as-voluntary-offseason-workouts-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/863276\/","title":{"rendered":"Players return as voluntary offseason workouts begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n In the Nest<\/p>\n

Behind-the-scenes stories, locker room insight into team culture<\/p>\n

Speaking with local media the day after reporting back to the facility for voluntary work, Bijan Robinson made quite the declarative statement.<\/a><\/p>\n

“Me being here for now going on my fourth year and me now being a veteran leader to these guys, it’s pretty cool. I am pretty excited, even just with how I feel,” Robinson said. “They always say, like, (these are) your prime years, but I really feel like this is the best I have felt my whole time being here.”<\/p>\n

Discussing his goals for the next season, Robinson said his creed remains the same, despite setting the bar higher for himself.<\/p>\n

“Last year was a cool year,” Robinson admitted, “but this year I want to be even better in all aspects.”<\/p>\n

Jessie Bates III came to work with a similar mindset.<\/a><\/p>\n

“I say every year you have something to prove,” Bates said. “Every single year you have to prove to whoever it is that you’re still this player, or this leader. Whatever it is, you want to go and prove to somebody that you’re still that guy.”<\/p>\n

He also expressed excitement for the return of Jeff Ulbrich as defensive coordinator<\/a>, stating defense is about precision and having continuity at the coordinator spot allows that precision to flourish.<\/p>\n

“My first three years, I had a new defense, a whole new defensive scheme,” Bates said. “To be able to be in Year 2 in this scheme, I think we can go to a whole other level and continue to build on what we were doing last year with the sack record. Hopefully, this year we can get the interception record.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the Nest Behind-the-scenes stories, locker room insight into team culture Speaking with local media the day after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":863277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2074],"tags":[4955,223,254,2554,4127,224,52518,7,53720,2664,11412,8591,88,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-863276","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-atlanta-falcons","8":"tag-2026-nfl-draft","9":"tag-atlanta","10":"tag-atlanta-falcons","11":"tag-atlantafalcons","12":"tag-bijan-robinson","13":"tag-falcons","14":"tag-falcons-news-now","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-ian-cunningham","17":"tag-jessie-bates-iii","18":"tag-kaleb-mcgary","19":"tag-kevin-stefanski","20":"tag-news","21":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116381461056686524","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863276","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=863276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/863276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/863277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=863276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=863276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=863276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}