Atlanta Falcons

Atlanta Falcons tight end Hayden Hurst spoke about his history with depression and the misuse of substances on Breaking the Stigma: The Hayden Hurst Story. 

The Falcons released the two-part video Thursday:

Hurst described what it was like living with depression:

"I can't really explain it. It's hard to unless you go through it. The depression...you feel like nobody's there. Despite my family being so close, and they're willing to do whatever, but when you're in that headspace and you're in that dark spot you do, you feel alone. Nobody's there. Nobody cares. So I guess for me, in those years, that's why I turned to drinking and pills and cocaine and anything I could get my hands on to numb that feeling of embarrassment where I wouldn't have to explain myself to my family as to why my life was unraveling."

That cycle of depression eventually led to Hurst attempting to take his own life in January 2016. Hurst spoke to Dan Pompei of The Athletic about his experience after.

"I sat there, looked at the walls, and made a promise to myself. I was going to change my life," Hurst told Pompei. "I wasn't going to keep doing the things I was doing. I knew if I kept doing what I was doing, I was going to end up dead. I didn't want to disappoint my family."

After Thursday's video series released, Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love—who has spoken publicly about his own experience with mental illness—praised Hurst for sharing his story:

More and more athletes are entering discussions about mental health. Hurst reached out to Dallas Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott earlier this season after Prescott spoke about his depression and the suicide of his brother Jace.

"When you are the quarterback for the Dallas Cowboys and you're scrutinized so much already and you come out and you talk about, 'Hey, I was feeling this way with depression. I suffered loss in my family with suicide.' You don't realize how much courage that takes to come out and talk about that," Hurst said of Prescott.

The Atlanta Falcons will be shorthanded offensively with wide receiver Julio Jones and running back Todd Gurley both ruled inactive. 

Gurley is struggling with knee problems and will miss his first game of the year after starting each of the first 10 games. He has 610 rushing yards and nine touchdowns in his first season in Atlanta after coming over in an offseason trade from the Los Angeles Rams.

He hasn't missed more than three games in any season of his career but has been limited by knee issues for the past few years.

Jones has dealt with hamstring injuries throughout the season but appeared in 14 or more games in each of the previous six campaigns. He played just five games in 2013 but has otherwise been notably durable throughout his terrific career.

The University of Alabama product is a seven-time Pro Bowler and two-time All-Pro selection who led the league in receiving yards in 2015 and 2018. He posted 99 catches for 1,394 yards and six touchdowns last season, which was his sixth straight with more than 1,300 yards through the air.

Jones has followed up with 677 yards and three scores on 45 catches in 2020.

There is no question the Falcons are nowhere near as effective on the offensive side when he is sidelined, but they do have other options at wide receiver who will see more targets while he is out.

Look for Calvin Ridley to serve as the No. 1 option, while Russell Gage and Olamide Zaccheaus will likely be on the field more than usual. Brian Hill could get the majority of snaps at running back.

Atlanta Falcons running back Todd Gurley is injured yet again, this time with a knee injury, leaving fantasy players to question how the backfield snaps and workload will shake out between his backups, Brian Hill and Ito Smith.

Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network reported Gurley has been ruled out for Sunday's Week 12 game against the Las Vegas Raiders.

So which of those two reserves is the better option for your fantasy team? It's not an easy call with both players taking on limited roles so far.

To this point, Hill has registered 261 rushing yards, 16 receptions for 111 yards and one total score. Smith, meanwhile, has offered 46 rushing yards, seven receptions for 43 yards and no touchdowns. Gurley, who's scored nine times, is clearly the guy in Atlanta. 

History might offer a better clue of which player will offer the bigger upside, however. 

Smith got some run as a rookie in 2018, with 467 yards from scrimmage and four touchdowns. He saw less time last year before his season ended in November with a concussion, and it appeared Hill had moved up the depth chart after getting 78 carries for 323 yards and two scores. 

Coming into the season, Hill looked like the player most likely to secure the backup role to Gurley.

If you have to pick for fantasy purposes, go with Hill. 

But this looks like a muddled backfield, with the possibility that even Qadree Ollison could see touches. This has the feel of a platoon, with none of these players likely to get the steady workload to be a major difference-maker for your team. Atlanta has a good passing game it can lean on. 

So while Hill is your free-agent priority, he's a low-end RB3 or high-end RB4. Smith and Ollison sit firmly in the RB4 range as speculative adds. None are great starting options, with Hill the safest bet if you need a plug-and-play option in your flex for Week 12.

The Atlanta Falcons announced Friday that running back Todd Gurley will not play Sunday against the Las Vegas Raiders because of a knee injury, according to ESPN's Field Yates.

Gurley joined the Falcons on a one-year deal after he was released by the Los Angeles Rams in March. The move wasn't totally surprising after he averaged 3.8 yards per attempt on a career-low 223 carries in 2019, but it came just two years after he signed a four-year extension with the Rams.

Things haven't improved much for Gurley through 10 games in Atlanta. He's averaging 3.7 yards per attempt but has scored nine touchdowns on 167 attempts.

Overall, Gurley has 610 rushing yards this season, and he has also caught 16 passes for 82 yards, which is a far cry from what he used to accomplish as one of the top pass-catching backs in the NFL.

Gurley played just 23 offensive snaps before getting injured in last week's loss to the New Orleans Saints, rushing eight times for 26 yards.

The Falcons' bet on Gurley to upgrade their rushing attack hasn't paid off. Brian Hill has been better on a per-carry basis with 4.4 yards per attempt.

Gurley hasn't played a full 16-game regular-season schedule since 2016. Given his ongoing knee problems, Atlanta is taking a cautious approach in holding him out of Sunday's game.

With Gurley out against the Raiders, Hill is likely to start in his place and could be an under-the-radar asset in fantasy football in Week 12.

Ito Smith also figures to get additional touches out of the backfield as Hill's primary backup.

The Atlanta Falcons expect an update on Julio Jones' hamstring injury on Monday.  

"Julio, we'll find out what's going on more tomorrow," interim head coach Raheem Morris told reporters. "But, obviously, he was not able to come back in the game because of the hammy. He did it pretty early, and those guys went out there and battled. We've got to see what's going on with Ju Jones."

Jones had two catches for 39 yards in limited action during the loss to the New Orleans Saints on Sunday.

The 10-year veteran had a slow start to the 2020 season as he tried to follow up his sixth consecutive Pro Bowl appearance.

He was overshadowed by Calvin Ridley to start the year. The 2018 first-round pick collected 349 yards and four touchdowns on 21 catches through the Falcons' first three outings of the season, compared to 11 catches for 181 yards from Jones, who missed Week 3 with a hamstring injury.

Jones returned for the team's Week 4 loss to the Green Bay Packers but exited with another hamstring issue in the first half and did not return. The 31-year-old did not play in the team's Week 5 loss to the Carolina Panthers. 

When the Alabama product returned in Week 6, he added eight catches on 10 targets for 137 yards and grabbed his first two touchdowns of the season. He followed up that performance by posting 288 total yards and a score through the Falcons' next three games.

If Jones is unable to play going forward, the Falcons will turn to Ridley even more, while wide receivers Russell Gage and Olamide Zaccheaus can also expect more touches. 

The Atlanta Falcons announced that they have placed defensive end Dante Fowler Jr. on the reserve/COVID-19 list.

As Justin Felder of Fox 5 Sports in Atlanta noted, Fowler's placement on the list means he either tested positive or was in close contact with someone who has.

Atlanta is on a bye this week. The Falcons' next game is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 22, at 1 p.m. ET at the New Orleans Saints.

Fowler, 26, has 17 tackles, six quarterback hits and two sacks in eight games for the Falcons. He joined Atlanta on a three-year, $45 million contract last offseason after playing with the Jacksonville Jaguars and Los Angeles Rams during the first four years of his career.

Players' timetables for returning off the reserve/COVID-19 list are dependent on whether they tested positive in addition to exhibited symptoms (if any), per Tadd Haislop of Sporting News.

An asymptomatic player can return 10 days following a positive test. However, a player can also return after five days if he gets a pair of negative PCR virus tests within 24 hours of that five-day period.

A symptomatic player must wait 10 days after symptoms first appeared and 72 hours until after symptoms ended. That player must also take additional tests and be cleared by his team's head physician before returning.

Players who tested positive must also undergo cardiac screening.

All NFL players are tested for COVID-19 on a daily basis except for on game days. The daily tests also occur during bye weeks, which was the case for Fowler.

Todd Gurley's highlight reel was almost filled with laps on a track rather than offensive snaps. 

In an appearance on the Truss Levelz podcast with Cam Jordan and Mark Ingram, the Atlanta Falcons running back revealed that he was recruited to run track at Cornell and Princeton after he taught himself to run hurdles and qualified for Team USA.

Gurley said (around the 3:40 mark) one a track coach he knew invited him to a race in South Carolina that was—unbeknownst to him—a national team-qualifying event. 

"I guess that was like the pre-trial to qualify for the USA team," Gurley said. "Bro, I did not know! And, I end up winning. And they was like, 'All right, you got your passport? All right, we 'bout to go to Italy for a whole week.'"

He traveled to Italy with Team USA, though he didn't place in any of his races with the team. Gurley did catch the eye of some Ivy League schools, however, which he said sounded like a great option at first: "I'm a kid, I'm in the hood, I'm in North Carolina, nobody makes it to an Ivy League school [from here]. I was like, 'Yeah I'm definitely going here.'"

In the end, he decided to stick with football and headed to the University of Georgia, where the St. Louis Rams drafted him out of in 2015.

But his national team-worthy speed remained, with Gurley ranked as one of the most explosive runners in the league for the 2019 season after he ran at least 15 mph on almost 20 percent of his rushing attempts.

Atlanta Falcons running back Todd Gurley is doing more than scoring touchdowns in his return to Georgia. 

He's helping make the state a home for military families as well.

Gurley teamed up with Pillsbury and Operation Homefront—a nonprofit organization that helps military families thrive inside their communities—to help bring "The Welcome Home" initiative to the Atlanta area. It will provide rent-free, Atlanta-based transitional homes for military families, and Gurley welcomed Trevor, who is an Air Force aircraft mechanic, along with his wife Brittany and their five-year-old son to their new home.

"Being able to do that with Trevor and Brittany, being able to see the smiles on their faces," Gurley told Bleacher Report when asked what inspired him to join the cause. 

"I think that's the whole deal and what it's about," he continued. "Being able to bring the whole family together and just show the love and for them to have a place to call home. And there's no better way to do that than to come back to Georgia and then be able to do great stuff in the community."

Trevor served for seven years and two deployments and grew up in the Atlanta area. So did Brittany, meaning they will be near their families for the holidays in their rent-free transitional home.

"It's just a no-brainer," Gurley said when discussing working to help military families. "You don't even need to know someone in the military to appreciate what they've done ... It feels good to be able to be at home and then welcome someone home and being able to do that with military families."

Gurley is no stranger to charitable endeavors. He helped establish the Make A Difference Every Day (M.A.D.E.) Foundation to help children through sports, education and community involvement.

He was also part of the NFL's making a game plan to vote campaign along with Seattle Seahawks head coach Pete Carroll, Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle.

Gurley, who said he is a registered voter in Georgia, appeared in one of the commercials and said he was "glued to the TV for three or four days in a row" as the 2020 presidential election unfolded.

"Happiness all over," he said when recognizing Georgia was one of the states in the national spotlight along with Pennsylvania, Nevada and others. "There was definitely something different about this election."

While Gurley has focused on a number of endeavors off the field, his Falcons have hit their stride of late on it following an 0-5 start. They have won three of the last four games following Sunday's victory over the Denver Broncos and still have an opportunity to make some noise in the NFC South with a combined four remaining matchups against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and New Orleans Saints.

"Just executing and minimizing mistakes," Gurley said when highlighting what has led to the recent success. "Previous weeks we might get penalties on third downs, whether on the offense or the defense. You watch the game [Sunday] and Matt threw two great touchdowns on third down. If we didn't convert on those, you can take those 14 points off the board."

Perhaps most importantly, the Falcons have held on to leads in the fourth quarter during their three recent victories.

That was a problem in the early portion of the year when they blew a 15-point lead in the fourth quarter to the Dallas Cowboys, blew a 16-point lead in the fourth quarter to the Chicago Bears and lost to the Detroit Lions on a final drive that was only possible because Gurley accidentally scored instead of running out the clock for a game-winning field goal on the previous possession.

"We've always been up, but we didn't feel comfortable finishing," the three-time Pro Bowler said. "I feel like we're at a point in the season where we're getting comfortable and we know what to expect out of each other being in these situations. We know what to expect, and we know what we need to do."

If that comfort level continues to lead to more wins, the military families Gurley is helping move to the Atlanta area through "The Welcome Home" initiative might just get to watch a late playoff push.

The Atlanta Falcons waived former first-round pick Takk McKinley on Monday, days after the defensive end called the team "clowns" on Twitter for turning down supposed trade offers for him (h/t Will McFadden of AtlantaFalcons.com). 

On Wednesday, McKinley tweeted that the team declined offers for him both this year and last season, ending his claim with clown emojis. Jason Butt of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that "no proposals of that nature took place" in either year, and interim Falcons coach Raheem Morris said the team would "move on accordingly."

McKinley, who was drafted at 26th overall by the Falcons in 2017, will end his career in Atlanta with 79 tackles (22 for loss), 17.5 sacks and 45 quarterback hits through 25 starts with the Falcons, though he has added just eight tackles, seven quarterback hits and one sack through four games this season as he struggles through a groin injury.

The team declined the UCLA product's fifth-year option this offseason. 

According to Butt, the team explored moving McKinley before last week's trade deadline but did not find an acceptable proposal. Morris said last week that he would not rule out a suspension or other forms of punishment for the 25-year-old (h/t Butt): 

"The wrong way to go about is definitely the way Takk is handling it now with a pout. So, as soon as we get an opportunity to talk to him about those things, and how he's handling that situation, that will be the first and foremost thing you handle first. Then you figure out getting him healthy as far as his groin and then you figure out if he's even going to be on the team, if that's even possible at this point."

McKinley will get his ticket out of Atlanta after all, and a team in need of some help on the defensive side of the ball will have an opportunity to add an experienced linebacker into the mix. 

Having played the bulk of his career alongside Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff, Atlanta Falcons running back Todd Gurley found at least one similarity between his old quarterback his new one, Matt Ryan.

"They rich as hell," he told Pro Football Talk.

Ryan signed a five-year deal worth $150 million back in 2018, and the average annual value of $30 million made him the league's highest-paid player at the time, while Goff signed a monster four-year, $134 million deal last offseason. 

On the other hand, Gurley's one-year deal with the Falcons is worth $5.5 million. 

Perhaps money talks, as Ryan's Falcons are just 3-6, compared to the Goff and the Rams, who are 5-3.