Marlon Davidson is determined to make the Falcons great

The Falcons have, at times, been accused of lacking leadership in the locker room and competitive fire across their football team. I’ve always thought those criticisms were a little bit unfair—it’s hard to know what’s happening on the field and behind closed doors—but that criticism was only going to grow when the team went 7-9 two seasons in a row and had relatively quiet, laid back guys like Desmond Trufant and Vic Beasley dotting the roster. Again, fair or no, they had a reputation.

Enter Marlon Davidson, who has an electric personality and the kind of desire to be great that can’t help but be inspiring. The intangibles are truly intriguing here, but more importantly, Davidson arrives in Atlanta having done phenomenal work for Auburn just a year ago, especially as a pass rusher.

The on-field production is going to be what gets Davidson celebrated and it’s what we’ll be spending most of our time analyzing, but it’s worth noting that Davidson is a lot of fun as a person and he’s made it clear he expects the Falcons defense to be good next year. More than that, he expects it to be great because of him. That’s not an attitude we’ve run into from Falcons defenders all that often.

We’ll see where Davidson is going to play—primarily defensive tackle, is my guess—but he’s going to be fun to follow in Atlanta regardless. If he and Grady Jarrett can wreak havoc together, this defense should legitimately be better.