The Atlanta Falcons finally found a pass rush last season. ESPN's Ben Solak believes keeping it alive in 2026 could depend heavily on Brandon Dorlus .
Solak named Dorlus the Falcons ' X-factor for the upcoming season after the defensive lineman broke out with 8.5 sacks in 2025. But his reasoning went beyond simply expecting another productive year.
Atlanta will begin the season without two of its biggest young edge rushers, leaving Solak wondering where the pressure comes from if Dorlus doesn't deliver again.
The Falcons went from one of the NFL's least productive pass rushes in 2024 to setting a franchise record with 57 sacks last season.
Dorlus played a major part in that turnaround. He finished second on the team behind James Pearce Jr. with 8.5 sacks, despite starting only nine games. Falcons.com's Terrin Waack noted his sack total ranked second among NFL defensive tackles.
Solak — who had trouble to find an X-factor for Atlanta on the offense — believes the Falcons now need that breakout to carry over.
"Instead, I'll turn to the defense. I called Dorlus the breakout Falcon of last season given the seven sacks he delivered over the back half of the year. Atlanta needs that breakout to be real," Solak wrote.
The urgency comes from what Atlanta has lost before the season begins.
Jalon Walker will miss the entire 2026 season after tearing the ACL in his left knee during training camp. Pearce, who led Atlanta with 10.5 sacks as a rookie, has been suspended for the first eight games for violating the NFL's Personal Conduct Policy.
That removes 16 sacks from last season's defense for at least the first half of the schedule.
Atlanta added help before roster cuts by acquiring defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr. from the Chicago Bears for cornerback Clark Phillips III and a 2027 fifth-round pick. Dexter has 13.5 career sacks, including 11 over the past two seasons.
Solak still believes Dorlus is the player who has to make it work.
"If Dorlus isn't the disruptive looper and crasher this season that he was last season, I just can't find where the pass rush comes from in Atlanta — even with its cut-down day trade for Bears defensive tackle Gervon Dexter Sr.," Solak wrote.
That's a pretty strong warning for a defense that relied heavily on pressure last season.
Atlanta's defensive tackles accounted for 25.5 of the team's franchise-record 57 sacks in 2025. Dorlus led that group, while Walker and Pearce combined for another 16.
Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich now has to manufacture pressure without two of those pieces.
"Defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich will scheme up plenty of games to account for his lack of edge-rushing talent, and Dorlus — a long tweener with a great ability to get skinny through gaps — will become the featured piece of third-and-long designs," Solak wrote. "He doesn't need to be perfect, but he (and Ulbrich) need to be enough to keep the pass rush lively, while the young secondary becomes the new strength of the Falcons' defense."
That places Dorlus in a much different position than he occupied entering last season.
In 2025, the question was whether he could emerge after playing sparingly as a rookie. He answered it with one of the NFL's best sack totals among interior defenders.
Now Atlanta needs him to prove it wasn't a one-year surge.
He might be the player keeping Atlanta's pass rush from disappearing.
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