Drake London likely to be in lineup for Falcons despite hip injury
The Atlanta Falcons have been one of the NFL's major success stories in the first half of the season. Quarterback Kirk Cousins has given the offense a lift with his accuracy and big-play ability and wide receivers Darnell Mooney and Drake London have exceeded expectations.
Falcons WR Drake London, listed as questionable for Sunday due to a hip injury, is expected to play vs. the Saints, per source. pic.twitter.com/ckkkmYO9wD
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) November 9, 2024
London plays a very physical game and will go over the middle to make difficult catches and he has taken more than his share of abuse this season. He has been on the injury list with a hip injury throughout the week, but it looks like he has made enough improvement that he will be in the lineup Sunday when the Falcons go to New Orleans to play the archrival Saints, per NFL insider Adam Schefter.
London is the team's second leading receiver this season in terms of yardage, having caught caught 50 passes for 552 yards with 6 touchdowns. Cousins clearly likes to look to London when the Falcons need to keep a drive alive as 30 of his receptions have resulted in first downs.
Cousins has demonstrated that he is an excellent triggerman for their attack. The former Viking has completed 204 of 295 passes for 3,328 yards with 17 touchdowns and 7 interceptions through the first 9 games of the season. Cousins has a passer rating of 101.9 and is completing 69.2 percent of his passes.
Darnell Mooney has become the Falcons' primary receiver
Prior to Cousins' arrival in Atlanta this season, Darnell Mooney had been considered a good-but-not-great player during his during his previous four seasons with the Chicago Bears. While he had a solid season in 2021 with 81 receptions for 1,055 yards and 4 TDs, he could not exceed 40 receptions in either of his last two seasons.
He has shown he can be a go-to receiver this year with 41-588-5 and many of his catches have been of the spectacular variety.
The Falcons offense works well in large part because Mooney and London share nearly equally in the pass-catching responsibilities and running back Bijan Robinson gets the job done on the ground.
