Vote for the best Falcons returner from 2000-2025

Matt Bryant crushed Younghoe Koo in the competition for best Falcons kicker of the past quarter century—obviously—and Matt Bosher handily won the punter gig. Now it’s time to close out our specialists voting—no, we are not litigating long snapper and Josh Harris’s role there—with returner.

Honorable mentions go to Devin Hester—an all-time returner, but one who only spent two years in Atlanta—and Darrick Vaughn, who scored a bonkers four kick return touchdowns but also just spent two years on returns. Avery Williams also had a couple of really nice seasons there, but again, we’re rewarding excellence and longevity here. Jerious Norwood, Cordarrelle Patterson, and even Jacquizz Rodgers are not included here because they didn’t do both kick and punt returns. I also set the minimum number of returns on the all-time leaderboard at 30 for the purposes of rankings.

We’ll choose two returners here, so there many not be a lot of intrigue in terms of who makes it. Let’s decide the top option, though!

Allen Rossum

The raw stats: 250 kick returns (1st), 5,489 kick return yards (1st), 1 kick return TD (T-4th), 22 yards per kick return (20th), 154 punt returns (1st), 1,723 punt return yards (1st), 2 punt return TDs (T-1st), 11.2 yards per punt return (3rd)

Rossum has a very credible case as the team’s best returner ever. Only Deion Sanders (5), Darrick Vaughn (4), and Tim Dwight (3) have as many combined scores as a returner, and Rossum has both the top volume numbers in team history and some of the better rate numbers. He’s only outside the top five in yards per kick return, where he’s handily bested by the next guy on our list.

There are some non-Falcons highlights in here, but you can really get a feel for what made him an excellent returner: A combination of excellent vision, real patience and breakaway speed when he needed to use it. Returners fall out of peoples’ memories pretty quickly unless they’re Hall of Famer caliber players, but Rossum was awesome.

Eric Weems

The raw stats: 147 kick returns (T-2nd), 3,724 kick return yards (2nd), 1 kick return TD (T-4th), 25.3 yards per kick return (4th), 120 punt returns (3rd), 1,309 punt return yards (2nd), 1 punt return TD (T-4th), 10.9 yards per punt return (4th)

Weems is one of the more underrated Falcons of the past three decades, remembered perhaps as fondly for his role in Michael Turner’s toss as his work as a special teamer. He was an occasionally useful receiver, a relentless special teamer in coverage when called upon, and a talented and efficient returner. His long tenure with the team and lack of flash despite his fine work meant he fell in and out of favor with Falcons fans over the years, but his numbers speak for themselves. Weems was one of the best returners in team history.

Is he better than Rossum? He doesn’t have the raw volume on kick returns that Rossum did or the same number of scores, but he was nearly as good on a per return basis on punts and clearly superior on kicks. I’ll leave that vote to you.