Without Darnell Mooney, who steps up for Falcons?

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. — As time passes, the prognosis on wide receiver Darnell Mooney remains a bit TBD.

Mooney took a hard fall on the first day of Falcons’ training camp practices last week. He suffered a shoulder injury on the play, with the Falcons confirming a couple days later that he would miss “a few weeks” as he gets back to 100%.

Asked for further information on Mooney when the pads came on Tuesday, particularly if he would be ready to go by Week 1, head coach Raheem Morris kept the receiver’s potential return date open ended.

“We’re going with a few weeks right now, and then we’ll play it out after we get to that point,” Morris said. “When we get to that point, we’ll figure out where we’re at.”

Hopefully, Morris continued, everything looks good and the Falcons are ready to welcome Mooney back as the regular season commences. However, he did not say for certain if that will ultimately be the case. So, it begged the follow up question: If Mooney needs more time to recover, who do the Falcons tap to replace him?

Morris and offensive coordinator Zac Robinson have often used the term “clones” when describing how they build offensive depth. Whereas the offensive line and Dwayne Ledford have often said its about putting the best five linemen on the field, when it comes to wide receiver, the roles (and what those roles ultimately need) are a bit more defined. It’s not a one-for-one swap — Drake London, for example, is a special enough talent that you can’t fully mimic it — but you can get close in body type and play style.

There are opportunities for certain players to step into Mooney’s vacant foot path. But who?

To answer that, you have to look at Mooney’s role, itself. He’s the X in Robinson’s system. When he missed the season finale in 2024 (also because of a shoulder injury, though whether that is the same injury re-aggravated now is up for debate), it was Ray-Ray McCloud who was asked to fill that role, primarily. Meanwhile, the Falcons still continued to find success with London working out of the slot half the time, and then splitting out to the Z.

With Mooney out for the foreseeable camp future, that continues to be the case for Atlanta, which has McCloud taking on Mooney’s role, and oftentimes KhaDarel Hodge filling in wherever London isn’t when they’re in a triple receiver look. Tight end Kyle Pitts was not working in team drills during Thursday’s practice…