{"id":977059,"date":"2026-08-19T03:12:16","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T03:12:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/977059\/"},"modified":"2026-08-19T03:12:16","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T03:12:16","slug":"falcons-sign-3-time-pro-bowler-zadarius-smith-after-james-pearce-jr-suspension-shakes-atlantas-defense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/977059\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons sign 3-time Pro Bowler Za&#8217;Darius Smith after James Pearce Jr. suspension shakes Atlanta&#8217;s defense"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Atlanta Falcons have signed defensive end Za&#8217;Darius Smith, the team said Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p>Smith, who somewhat abruptly announced his retirement last October, will boost a front that has recently lost Jalon Walker to a season-ending torn ACL and James Pearce Jr. to an eight-game suspension following his February arrest after a domestic dispute. Walker and Pearce accounted for nearly 30 percent of Atlanta&#8217;s franchise-record 57 sacks last season. <\/p>\n<p>Smith, who is from Alabama, was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens in the fourth round of the 2015 NFL draft after a four-year college career that included stints at East Mississippi Community College and the University of Kentucky.<\/p>\n<p>The three-time Pro Bowler has had stops with the Ravens, Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Cleveland Browns, Detroit Lions and Philadelphia Eagles during his 12-year career.<\/p>\n<p>Smith will have a familiar face in new Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski. The defensive end and former Browns head coach overlapped in Cleveland for three seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Smith has 321 tackles, 70.5 sacks, 176 quarterback hits, 87 tackles for loss, 16 passes defensed, 11 forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries in 145 career games. He&#8217;s logged 18 tackles, eight quarterback hits, four sacks and four tackles for loss in nine postseason appearances. <\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/NFL<\/p>\n<p class=\"content__tags__label\">In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Atlanta Falcons have signed defensive end Za&#8217;Darius Smith, the team said Tuesday. Smith, who somewhat abruptly announced&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":977060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[254,117,54,7,122,6,15,9],"class_list":["post-977059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl-draft","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-baltimore-ravens","tag-cleveland-browns","tag-football","tag-national-football-league","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-draft","tag-sports"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117119991382678611","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977059","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=977059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/977059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/977060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=977059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=977059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=977059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}