{"id":22105,"date":"2025-07-25T22:03:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T22:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22105\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T22:03:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T22:03:08","slug":"falcons-sign-former-chargers-wide-receiver-dj-chark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/22105\/","title":{"rendered":"Falcons sign former Chargers wide receiver DJ Chark"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/raimondi_marc.png&#038;h=80&#038;w=80&#038;scale=crop.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Marc RaimondiJul 26, 2025, 07:40 AM<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"icon-font-after icon-close-solid-after\" href=\"#\">Close<\/a>Marc Raimondi&#8217;s first year covering the Falcons was 2024, but it wasn&#8217;t his first year at ESPN. He joined the company in 2019 and was a top combat sports reporter. He also covered professional wrestling and wrote the book &#8220;Say Hello to the Bad Guys: How Pro Wrestling&#8217;s New World Order Changed America,&#8221; which was published by Simon &amp; Schuster in 2025. Raimondi also worked for the New York Post and Newsday, beginning in 2009, covering high school and college sports, plus the NFL, NFL, MLB and NHL.<\/p>\n<p>The <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"49fd392a-86fe-4df3-1b77-9bbfa18b2ad5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/atl\/atlanta-falcons\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Falcons<\/a> have signed former <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"84caf62b-c753-71ea-a787-44fd224a4294\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/lac\/los-angeles-chargers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Los Angeles Chargers<\/a> wide receiver <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3115394\/dj-chark-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DJ Chark<\/a>, his agent Todd France confirmed with ESPN.<\/p>\n<p>Chark played in just seven games last season due to a hip injury. He started 21 games the previous two seasons combined with the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"56caffee-178d-f6f2-a076-b277486b8c32\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/det\/detroit-lions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit Lions<\/a> and <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"647c27bf-ab86-550e-5b83-91c29e73e4a9\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/car\/carolina-panthers\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Carolina Panthers<\/a>. Chark&#8217;s best season was 2019 with the <a data-clubhouse-guid=\"ca6fb778-cbf6-d9a3-3e93-01230335fcab\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/jax\/jacksonville-jaguars\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jacksonville Jaguars<\/a>: 73 catches for 1,008 receiving yards and eight touchdown receptions.<\/p>\n<p>NFL Media was the first to report the news.<\/p>\n<p>Editor&#8217;s Picks<a name=\"&amp;lpos=story:editorspicks:inline:1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com.au\/nfl\/story\/_\/id\/45703984\/2025-nfl-training-camp-atlanta-falcons-updates-buzz-intel-position-battles\" class=\"img-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/r1523363_2_1296x1296_1-1.jpg&#038;w=130&#038;h=130&#038;scale=crop&#038;location=center.jpeg\" width=\"65\" height=\"65\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Chark, 28, could be a depth piece for the Falcons, who needed that at wide receiver. However, he could end up being more.<\/p>\n<p>Falcons wide receiver <a data-player-guid=\"6890b787-7649-3a5f-a8c6-4d050014d456\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4040655\/darnell-mooney\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Darnell Mooney<\/a> dived for a pass Thursday in practice from quarterback <a data-player-guid=\"28022fa1-9050-eee1-5160-c77a6a379ec2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4360423\/michael-penix-jr\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Michael Penix Jr<\/a>. and appeared to be shaken up. He walked off the field under his own power, but did not return to practice. The Falcons have yet to provide an update on the extent of his injury, if any.<\/p>\n<p>Mooney is the team&#8217;s No. 2 wide receiver, behind <a data-player-guid=\"4eb7948a-431b-ee11-32de-2f4044548c60\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4426502\/drake-london\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Drake London<\/a>. <a data-player-guid=\"03843667-8060-0924-b23f-b765d636f5c0\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3728262\/ray-ray-mccloud\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ray-Ray McCloud III<\/a> filled out the starting lineup as the third receiver last season and is expected to be that again in 2025. The Falcons also have <a data-player-guid=\"da675704-aeba-bd90-bbc6-03f72e44f6bd\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/3047876\/khadarel-hodge\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KhaDarel Hodge<\/a>, a playmaker though more of a special-teams ace, and second-year wideout <a data-player-guid=\"663889c6-6dff-7a6f-ad95-93547f3fd7c5\" href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/player\/_\/id\/4428796\/casey-washington\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Casey Washington<\/a>, who caught just one pass last season.<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta didn&#8217;t have much starting experience at the position beyond London, Mooney and McCloud, but Chark has started 51 games in his career and gives the team more speed at the position. He ran a 4.34-second 40-yard dash coming out of LSU.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Marc RaimondiJul 26, 2025, 07:40 AM CloseMarc Raimondi&#8217;s first year covering the Falcons was 2024, but it wasn&#8217;t&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,593,85],"class_list":["post-22105","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}