Falcons Introduce Jimmy Lake as New Defensive Coordinator

Introduced as the new Atlanta Falcons defensive coordinator this past week, Jimmy Lake stood in front of a room full of media people for the first time since he was let go as the University of Washington head coach in 2021.

Over 28 months, Lake still has never addressed his firing in Montlake, a thorny subject either too sensitive for him to address or one he stubbornly chooses to ignore.

Yet as he recently shared himself in Georgia, Lake told how he received a lesson in leadership from coach Sean McVay while with the Los Angeles Rams last season in his return to football after taking a year off from coaching.

“Such a growth experience for me, and if you had to boil it down to one thing, it was his leadership through the ups and downs of the season, and the way Sean handled that," he said. "We had an extremely young team. His leadership through the OTAs, through the offseason program, his leadership through our three-game losing streak never wavered. He stayed the same.

"You lose three games going into the bye week. We could have easily went the other way, but then we ended up going 7-1 after the bye, and it was really because of Sean’s leadership and how he displayed that in front of the team. He never wavered.”

For Lake, he spent much of last season in Los Angeles working with the offense for the first time in his coaching career while reclaiming his football reputation.

Offense, of course, was one of his downfalls with the Huskies, who struggled to move the ball throughout his season and three-fourths in charge, leading to UW offensive coordinator John Donovan's abrupt in-season firing even before Lake was dismissed.

Donovan currently is a senior offensive analyst for the University of Florida, joined on that staff by former Husky secondary coach Will Harris and recently reunited with former UW safety Asa Turner, who just transferred to the Gators.

Interestingly, Lake was asked about the play-calling differences between the NFL and the college ranks, and he noted how the pros are using more one-back formations similar to the college level and cited some examples of the latter. The UW wasn't one of them.

“What’s different right now is the NFL game is going from two-back more to one-back. … Those offenses are now trickling up to the NFL," he said. "So a lot of the plays that we’re seeing and that everybody is seeing around the league are a lot of plays that you saw at Oregon, at Ohio State."

Lake again has never publicly addressed getting fired at Washington during the 2021 season and whether or not he felt he was treated fairly.

As close as he ventured to referencing his previous coaching job was in discussing this new one in the NFL in Atlanta.

“This has been a dream of mine for my whole coaching career,” Lake said. “Most guys, their dream is to be a head football coach. My dream is to be a defensive coordinator in the National Football League. This has been an awesome journey. I’m so excited for this moment and this opportunity.”

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