Falcons sign LB Caleb Johnson, cut WR Phillip Dorsett

Atlanta adds a special teamer at the expense of one player in a deep receiver room.

The Atlanta Falcons are known to tinker with the roster all spring and summer, and they’re at it again now that the dust has settled on the 2025 NFL Draft.

This time, it’s adding linebacker and special teamer Caleb Johnson, giving Atlanta another option for the final linebacker spot with a focus on teams that Tae Davis, Josh Woods, and others have filled in recent years. Veteran receiver Phillip Dorsett is on his way out in a corresponding move, removing one name from an extremely crowded receiver depth chart.

Johnson was the rare tryout player at Falcons rookie minicamp who latched on to a spot after his workout, which is always worth applauding. He spent the last three seasons with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the 2021 season with the Chicago Bears, who he joined as an undrafted free agent. He has 38 career combined tackles—many of those came on special teams—along with a forced fumble and a fumble recovery. He’s been targeted once in his career and that pass was incomplete, but any sweeping conclusions about his value on defense has to acknowledge that he has played exactly five defensive snaps in the NFL.

He’s here for that special teams value, and has played at least 63% of the special teams snaps in the 65 games Johnson has appeared in thus far in his career. If he makes the roster, he’ll likely latch on as a fourth or fifth inside linebacker in terms of his on-paper place on the roster, but primarily he’ll be a valued member of Marquice Williams’ unit asked to chip in on coverage teams. His competition, then, is not so much the team’s crop of inside linebackers as their core special teamers, though Josh Woods occupies the same position and was around last year, thus making him probably Johnson’s most direct competition.

Dorsett is an experienced receiver who has played sparingly in recent years, and whose position on the roster became shakier and shakier as the Falcons continued to sign receivers. Casey Washington, Makai Polk, Chris Blair, David Sills, and undrafted free agents Nick Nash and Quincy Skinner are among the many names left to compete for what’s likely to be one roster spot and a handful of practice squad slots, and it should be a feisty summer for that group.

We wish Dorsett well at his next stop, and give Johnson a warm welcome to Atlanta.