Atlanta sent Ruke Orhorhoro to Jacksonville for Maason Smith in a rare straight-up draft do-over
Two years is apparently all the time some NFL teams need to decide a draft pick is not working out. The Atlanta Falcons and Jacksonville Jaguars made that clear today when they agreed to swap second-round defensive tackles from the 2024 NFL Draft, straight up, no draft capital attached. Atlanta is sending Ruke Orhorhoro to Jacksonville in exchange for Maason Smith, and the deal tells a quietly honest story about how quickly a new front office can walk away from a predecessor’s investment.
Two similar players, two teams ready to move on
The most telling detail about this trade is how little separates the two players on paper. Orhorhoro, selected 35th overall out of Clemson, has appeared in 25 games with eight starts, accumulating 36 tackles, 3.5 sacks, seven quarterback hits and one pass breakup during his time with Atlanta. Smith, taken 48th overall out of LSU, has appeared in 24 games with seven starts, posting 32 tackles, three sacks, four quarterback hits and four pass breakups in Jacksonville.
Those numbers are close enough that calling either player the clear winner of this deal would be a stretch. Both are entering the third year of four-year rookie contracts of similar value, Orhorhoro on a deal worth roughly $9.9 million and Smith on one worth approximately $8 million, leaving neither team with a significant financial motivation to make the move. This is not a salary dump. It is an evaluation reset.
New regimes, new verdicts
Both franchises underwent significant front office and coaching changes following the 2024 draft, and that context matters enormously here. When a new general manager and coaching staff inherit a roster, they are under no obligation to honor the scouting conclusions of whoever came before them. The players that fit the previous regime’s vision do not always fit the new one, even when those players have done nothing particularly wrong.
Orhorhoro had been a three-year starter at Clemson and earned third-team All-ACC honors in 2023 before Atlanta selected him. Smith arrived from LSU as a one-year starter who had earned freshman All-American and freshman All-SEC recognition in 2021. Both had the pedigree to justify their draft slots. What neither could fully control was how a regime change would alter the lens through which they were evaluated.
In 2025, Orhorhoro appeared in all 17 games for Atlanta and finished with 25 tackles, four tackles for loss, 3.5 sacks and one pass defense. Smith played in 13 games for Jacksonville and recorded 15 tackles and one pass defense. Neither line suggests a player who has clearly underperformed his draft position, which is precisely what makes the swap so interesting. Atlanta is not moving on from a failure. It is moving on from a fit.
What each team is actually betting on
Jacksonville led the entire NFL in run defense in 2025. Atlanta ranked 24th against the run. Both teams are expected to address defensive tackle again in next week’s draft, with the Falcons holding the 48th pick and the Jaguars selecting at 56. Neither club has a first-round pick.
For the Falcons, acquiring Smith suggests they see something in his profile that the new staff believes a different environment can develop. For the Jaguars, adding Orhorhoro to what was already the league’s best run defense indicates they view him as an asset who could thrive in a more established defensive system.
The absence of any additional picks changing hands keeps the stakes measured. Both teams are effectively saying the same thing: the player we drafted two years ago may be more valuable somewhere else, and the player you drafted two years ago may be more valuable here. It is one of the more straightforward admissions the NFL offseason occasionally produces, and it arrives just days before both organizations will walk back up to the draft board and try again.