$1.3 dead, will save something like $2.8 I believe. I understand the move just wish we would have used this thought process towards other pieces (RB, Vic, etc) and not necessarily the one lock we have had the last few seasons. Really just comes down to whether or not Tevecchio will be as good as he looked this season. Bryant will get picked up by someone I am sure if he is indeed interested in playing longer.
We need two guards. One could argue we need two tackles as well. We need a couple DT's and probably another DE. We have no pass rush. We've got 30 young DB's it feels like. None of which blow anyone away. Both safeties coming off serious injuries. Need another corner. Coleman is a FA. Freeman hasn't really been seen since 2017. Our OC is a retread and failed head coach. We don't have a real threat at TE. Can't wait for the season!!
One couldn't really argue we need two OT's. Matthews is a good LT. Hooper is a good TE, too. I dont see how he's not a real threat. I like out safeties, even tho both are coming off injuries. I agree with the rest
Any free agent DTs worth a shit that we could get at a decent price? We are resigning Grady, and we have huge cap hits at QB, RB and WR.
I'll let you have Mathews for now, but Hooper a middle of the pack TE? When game planning for the Falcons I don't think anyone is losing sleep over Hooper.
Hooper is middle of the pack? Man, I'd hate to see your list of TE's then. Hooper is a good player, man. He was like 4th in catches from TE's and 6th in yards
The good news is this is Ryan's cap hit isnt as big this year. He's like the 14th or 15th highest paid QB next year. Need to restructure his deal after this year
Maybe it's the anger I still have for wasting all of our offensive talent last year under Sark. Lets go with that...
You defended the OL prior to last season. It sucked ass. Matthews is good, not great. And he is about to begin aging. He could extend his career by swinging over to Right Tackle (be very elite there) and the Falcons make a play for the future by finding someone young on the Left side. We cant keep surviving on this current OL composition. Time to start making appreciable investments there. Early in the draft.
I did defend it and didnt expect both OG's to get hurt and Schrader to be complete ass, but that has nothing to do with Matthews. Matthews was one of the only bright spots up front. He's not really getting up there in age either. I'm 100% on board with getting another OT. I never said otherwise.
The first three rounds have to be some order of OT, DT and DE, right? Or are we rolling with Vic/Takk? I'm sure we will re-sign Irvin.
Tru, Kazee and the Colorado kid and who else? OG, we've drafted some G5 bum every year since I was born.
A bunch of bums. Are we moving Kazee to the slot? We're gonna have to find a way to keep him on the field with Allen and Neal.
CB: Trufant, Oliver, Kazee Others: Bethel and Breh-Wilson are FA's S: Allen and Neal - no idea how they will come back Others: Neasman, Richards, Ishmael(didn't he move to LB?) OG: Beadles forgot about that little addition, Sweitzer, Garland IR: Levitre and Fusco, both should be cut. So yea, we need two guards unless Sweitzer is in our future plans OT: Mathews, Sambarilo and Schraeder - nothing special about that group at all.
I wish they would have drafted Carlton Davis last year. I got roasted on here for suggesting it, but he was the most battle tested corners coming out of college by a large margin. He was lined up over the #1 WR on Clemson, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, etc since his freshman year. It was obvious he was going to be a really good pro, and he's just really physical. Maybe Oliver will make strides in year 2, he pretty much has to now.
Defense shouldnt be a huge issue considering all the injuries last season. Beasley needs to just be a pass rush guy until his contract is up. Kazee gets a ton of penalties. Dont know about him being a starter going into the season. Draft OL.
By Jeff Schultz Feb 20, 2019 23 If you’ve lost track of all the changes on the Falcons’ coaching staff this offseason — and of course you have — here’s a recap of the metamorphosis and, to some degree, bloodshed: Six coaches and staff assistants were fired. Head coach Dan Quinn took over as the defensive coordinator. Dirk Koetter returned as the offensive coordinator. (They’re getting the band back together.) Ben Kotwica was hired to fix the special teams. Mike Mularkey, another ex-Falcons offensive coordinator, returned as the tight ends coach. (The only thing missing now is Matt Ryan’s high school coach.) On the undercard of changes: Quinn hired a time-outs/clock management coach (Bob Sutton), two staff assistants (Bob Steele, Will Harriger), moved a scout to offensive line assistant (Bob Kronenberg), a running backs assistant to special teams (Bernie Parmalee) and a wide receivers assistant to running backs (Dave Brock) and kept two assistants who most assumed would be gone (Chris Morgan, offensive line; Bryant Young, defensive line). Also, fish sticks no longer will be served on Fridays in the cafeteria. At the center of all this is Quinn. “Emotionally tiring,” is how he summarized the changes. Yeah, well, desperate times, desperate measures. So sayeth Hippocrates, a former Greek head coach. Quinn was celebrated in 2016 when he led the Falcons to a Super Bowl berth and near title. Two years later, having to answer for a slide that has seen his team’s regular-season win total drop from 11 to 10 to 7 and a postseason fizzle from Super Bowl to second-round exit to out altogether, everybody is looking at him. At least everybody who’s left. The staff has been blown up, the owner is watching closely, and the fan base is divided on him. “The way I look at it, it does come to me first — to make sure we’re going to get the most out of the coaches and the players in every capacity,” Quinn said. “The changes are hard, but you have to do them when you don’t think it’s going to be exactly set the way you would like.” The Falcons decided to make their new coordinators available to the media Wednesday — for up to 10 minutes each, and not a millisecond more, or surely you would perish — before the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis next week. This wouldn’t normally be a thing Quinn would attend. But when he decided to fire his defensive coordinator for the second time in three seasons (Richard Smith, Marquand Manuel) and assume control of the defense, he qualified for coordinators media access day. Make no mistake about this: Quinn’s best chance to return the Falcons to title contenders is to fix the defense. The team certainly subjected itself to criticism during the OC search when it fumbled an opportunity to hire the best name on the board: Gary Kubiak. But it’s not like an offensive staff with Koetter, Mularkey, Greg Knapp and Raheem Morris coaching a unit with Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Devonta Freeman, Mohamed Sanu and Calvin Ridley is going to faceplant. If the offense fails, the problems are bigger than we ever imagined. This is about defense. This is about Quinn. The only time the defense played to its capability, produced takeaways and competed with the edge Quinn seeks came after he quietly took over play-calling for the soon-to-be-fired Smith in the final month of the 2016 regular season. (Quinn didn’t confirm he was calling plays until Super Bowl week.) This season’s struggles largely could be attributed to injuries. But Manuel wasn’t blameless. Even with the team heavily dependent on backups, lapses in key moments ate at Quinn. So did the slow development (Takk McKinley) or under performance of some players (Vic Beasley, Brian Poole, Robert Alford). So enter Quinn. Again. This time officially. If he fails, the DC won’t be the only one who gets fired. “If I can have an impact on a defense and have us really play to a style, I should be the one making the calls,” he said. What does he believe he brings to a defense? “I’ve been a pretty good connector, so I’m hopeful I can increase communication, player to player, and I’m certainly going to try to feature the guys in the things that they do best,” he said. “Not calling things in-game can certainly be a big difference.” Quinn isn’t on an island in this regard. At least five teams are expected to have head coaches call defensive plays next season: the Falcons, Minnesota (Mike Zimmer), Denver (Vic Fangio), Carolina (Ron Rivera) and Seattle (Pete Carroll). At least three other head coaches heavily influence play-calling and/or game-planning: New England’s Bill Belichick, Buffalo’s Sean McDermott and Detroit’s Matt Patricia. Quinn said he felt all of the staff changes were necessary after concluding “the compass was off.” Specifically, he said, “Offensively our ability to have more balance in the run game. Defensively our ability to play at a more physical style.” As for the emotions of having so much turnover, he said, “As much as I love football, I love the players and the coaches even more. Those relationships, when you have to move on from them, it’s hard. But you have to do what’s best for the team.” So coaches are gone. Players are gone (Alford, Poole, Brooks Reed, Matt Bryant, Ben Garland). More changes are coming. If this extreme makeover doesn’t work, it won’t be pretty in Flowery Branch. Two years ago, nobody could have seen this coming.
Most of the mocks have us taking Ed Oliver. I'm ok with that assuming he test well at the combine. I want an OL in the second.
I don’t think Oliver will be there at 14. He’s going to test well at the combine to move him back to the top 10.
And this is from yesterday: Falcons defensive end Vic Beasley isn’t going anywhere before next season begins, at least according to coach Dan Quinn. Speaking in an interview with Vaughn McClure at ESPN, Quinn made it clear that the team plans to keep Beasley around for at least another year. Although Beasley’s performance has been frustrating to say the least following a breakout season in 2016, Quinn says he wants more consistency from the former first-round pick but he also believes in him, per McClure’s article. “I think it’s going to take really good preparation and really consistent play. . . But if I didn’t think that he could do it, I wouldn’t [commit]. So that’s our belief as an organization, to say, ‘Hey, man, we believe you can get the job done.'” Beasley posted a league-high 15.5 sacks and also led the NFL in forced fumbles (six) three seasons ago. He’s managed just 10 sacks and one forced fumble in the two years since, though. Email Like this article? Sign up for the Falcons Wire email newsletter to get our top stories in your inbox every morning While it’s true that sack numbers can be notoriously fickle from season to season, Beasley’s drought has extended too long to blame statistical variance. On film, Beasley still showcases the speed and instincts that made him an appealing draft pick for the Falcons in the first place. He’s often in position to make a stop, but has shown a maddening inability to finish. At this point, there’s clearly a mental hurdle involved. The decline has been steep. Pro Football Focus ranked Beasley No. 103 out of 106 edge defenders this past season. Beasley is probably never going to repeat the numbers he posted during Atlanta’s Super Bowl run and that’s alright. If he can return to being a double-digit sack threat and stop being such a liability in run defense, that might be enough to make a long-term investment in him. Quinn isn’t ready to go there yet. He told McClure that Beasley will need to prove himself in 2019 before they sign him to an extension. In related news, Quinn also told ESPN that the team hopes to re-sign defensive end Bruce Irvin and wants to avoid using the franchise tag in order to keep DT Grady Jarrett.
Wilkins. Really don’t want us to draft Gary, and I doubt we take either of the Miss State guys because of their off the field concerns. I could also see one of the OT’s going with the first pick, and CB being the least* likely choice of the three main needs.
Honestly, the more I think about it, the more I'm sure we bring Dontari Poe back. The staff will act like we've addressed our DL problems
Wilkins is a great football player but also a program changer. Not sure how that would translate to NFL but he would definitely be an awesome and talented guy to have around. Probably my favorite Clemson player