Grady Jarrett and Jake Matthews could be in legendary company by the end of 2024

Two franchise greats should finish the year in rareified air.

The Atlanta Falcons have future franchise icons on their roster right now, even if we’re not exactly sure who out of the group of Bijan Robinson, Drake London, A.J. Terrell, Kyle Pitts, and Chris Lindstrom will be the ones we remember most fondly down the line. They only have a handful of established franchise icons still on the roster, however, between Younghoe Koo, Jake Matthews, and Grady Jarrett.

Koo will need a couple more years to meaningfully challenge the very top of the kicker leaderboard for Atlanta—he’s already top 3-5 in most every franchise career metric, though—but chances are very good that Matthews and Jarrett will find themselves reaching new heights on franchise leaderboards in 2024.

Grady Jarrett

Quarterback hits have been tracked since 1999, so you do have to know the all-time leaderboard for that particular statistic only goes back about 25 years. Still, Jarrett is virtually guaranteed to be atop that list by the end of 2024, as he’s only a single hit (with 114) behind the great John Abraham there. Jarrett’s also third all-time in tackles for loss (with 68), behind only Abraham and Jonathan Babineaux, and is 10th all-time in sacks. With just four of them in 2024, he’ll move all the way up to seventh, moving past a three way tie between Vic Beasley, Jeff Merrow, and Don Smith.

Jarrett is also 19th in franchise history in games played, tied with fellow legend Julio Jones, and has the chance to get all the way to 15th and pass Greg Brezina with a full 17 game season this time out.

That’s a testament not just to his longevity—he’s the only fixture on this defense since 2015, and one of the very best players on defense throughout that entire span—but his consistent excellence.

Jake Matthews

Matthews already holds the franchise record for consecutive starts, having broken Matt Ryan’s 154 game mark in 2023 and still building on that. He’s at 160 consecutive starts now, and has a chance to make that record virtually unbreakable with another year or two of good health.

As you’d expect given that streak, Matthews is also charging up the leaderboard for all-time games played. With a full 17 games in 2024, he’ll surpass the great Bob Whitfield for seventh in team history with 179 games played, putting him behind just one other tackle (Mike Kenn, who is number one with an incredible 251 games) on the team’s all-time leaderboard. His availability and consistency in pass protection—outside of his rookie season, Pro Football Focus has never given him lower than a very good 77 pass blocking grade—have long been underrated, and he gets the continuity that having Dwayne Ledford stay on as the offensive line coach and a familiar face in Raheem Morris as the head coach. For at least one more season, I’d expect Matthews to be the iron man he long has been, and if so he’ll be keeping some storied company for the Falcons.