The Atlanta Falcons' new defensive line coach, Nate Ollie, wants his crew to attack offenses with the ferocity of Iron Mike.
"Everything that we're trying to do now, it's like we're trying to be like Mike Tyson and throw haymakers," Ollie said last week, via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "We're getting off the ball, attacking, throwing haymakers. No jabs. It's all haymakers -- that's what we're trying to do."
Boxing aficionados might take affront to the characterizing of Tyson as a haymakers-only puncher, but Ollie's point stands: He wants his crew to attack.
The Falcons invested heavily in their pass rush in the 2025 NFL Draft, adding first-rounders Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. The move to acquire Pearce cost Atlanta its first-round pick next year. Atlanta also brought in veteran Leonard Floyd, who has generated at least 8.5 sacks in each of the past four seasons.
Ollie joined new defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich's staff after spending 2024 with the Houston Texans as the assistant defensive line coach. In 2021, he worked as an assistant D-line coach under Ulbrich in New York. Ollie's first NFL gig came in 2019 with the Philadelphia Eagles and then-DC Jim Schwartz, whose wide-nine attacking-front style is well known throughout the NFL.
"In this front, you just see collectively around the league that guys that run the front, that have been in the front, that they hit career highs, and they go off and they get paid because you put a lot of premium (on attacking)," he said. "You take the thinking out, you just let them go."
Atlanta finished with 31 sacks in 2024, ranking 31st in the NFL. The Falcons haven't finished in the top half of the league in sacks since 2017 (T-13). Ollie is out to finally change that run of woe. The new blood in ATL gives the Falcons a puncher's chance in 2025.
