April 21, 2026, 8:43 p.m. ET<\/p>\n
Liam Coen recently explained<\/a> why the Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a> were comfortable moving on from Maason Smith and wanted to bring in Ruke Orhorhoro to help bolster the defensive tackle position.<\/p>\n But on the flip side of that, why did the Falcons want to acquire Smith and part with Orhorhoro?<\/p>\n Falcons’ GM Ian Cunningham recently explained why Atlanta had their eyes on Smith.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve evaluated him for a while, since his time at LSU,\u201d Cunningham said, via Falcons on SI<\/a>. \u201cObviously, everybody knows the measurables, but it’s a player that can play nose tackle and the three-tech for us. We really are excited about him in the attacking front and being able to get upfield. He is strong. He’s physical. We’re excited about his upside and getting him with Coach [Jeff] Ulbrich and Coach [Nate] Ollie to see him take that next step.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Smith is listed at 6-6, 315 pounds, while Orhorhoro measures in at 6-4, 295 pounds. That size difference, which favors Smith, better suits him to “work inside,” as Atlanta head coach Kevin Stefanski said, whereas Orhorhoro is more of an “inside to outside” defender. Stefanski adds that the usage of Smith and Orhorhoro does differ.<\/p>\n Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n The Jaguars<\/a> are hoping that Orhorhoro can give them some added pass-rush juice<\/a> from the defensive tackle position.<\/p>\n This is one of those trades that provides a change of scenery for two players who were drafted by GMs who are no longer running their now-former teams. Smith and Orhorhoro now find themselves in systems that should better suit their respective skill sets, making this a potential win-win trade for both the Jaguars and Falcons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 21, 2026, 8:43 p.m. ET Liam Coen recently explained why the Jacksonville Jaguars were comfortable moving on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2060],"tags":[95878,7,212,125,2401,213,6,31186,95933,95882,95936,95935,100474,95906,100763,96099,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-871717","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville-jaguars","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-jacksonville","11":"tag-jacksonville-jaguars","12":"tag-jacksonvillejaguars","13":"tag-jaguars","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnfljaguars","16":"tag-sstsnjaguars","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagjacksonville-jaguars","19":"tag-tagliam-coen","20":"tag-tagmaason-smith","21":"tag-tagoverall-positive","22":"tag-tagruke-orhorhoro","23":"tag-tagsec-conference-football","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116447214560554807","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871717","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=871717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}