NFC South Preview: Atlanta Falcons – Part 1 – The Offense

By Robert Knarr

The Falcons began their season with a lot of turnover off the field.

They fired their head coach, Mike Smith, after a reasonably successful tenure.  He was named 2012 Sporting News coach of the year and took the team to the 2012 NFC Championship game.  They suffered a tough loss, but the season was exciting and the Falcons were good.  He also had more regular season wins than any coach in Falcons history.  However, he was also 1-4 in the playoffs and had gone 10-22 in the last two seasons.  A change was at least justified, and probably needed.  They hired Dan Quinn, defensive coordinator for the Seahawks, and he brought in Kyle Shanahan to be the new offensive coordinator.  Quinn should be a great fit in Atlanta.  They need to rebuild their defense, and who better than the defensive coordinator of the Seahawks.

Projecting head coaches is difficult, but I expect great success for the Falcons under Dan Quinn, just not in 2015.  When I started to evaluate the upcoming season for the Falcons, I had extremely low expectations.  But, after looking at their draft, I think they can be a good team fighting for playoff contention as early as 2016.  They’ve had a good offense for years now, but the defense has sunk them time and time again.  Ideally, they’ll maintain their level of offensive play, maybe even improving, while rebuilding the defense.  Off to a good start, they got tremendous value from their draft picks, and plugged several holes on their defense.  They still have a ways to go, which left me wondering how they managed to even win 6 games last year.

In Part 1, let’s preview the Falcon’s offense for 2015.

Quarterback

Although he’s been criticized from the beginning, Matt Ryan has been an excellent quarterback, who plays at a consistently high level.  Living in Georgia, I hear plenty of people complain about his play, and just shake my head, not even bothering to argue.  Who can argue with people who spew nonsense?  Some think he’ll never be elite, and that a team needs a top 3 quarterback to win the Super Bowl.  There’s an argument to be made there, as many Super Bowl winners have truly elite, hall of fame caliber quarterbacks.  However, his play is underrated and it could easily be argued that he’s a top five quarterback.  Also, it isn’t absolutely necessary to have a Favre, Brady, Manning, Montana, etc. to win a Super Bowl.  Let’s not forget that Trent Dilfer has a ring.  And Ryan certainly isn’t the reason the Falcons have been so bad or struggled in the playoffs.  The Falcons have had a consistently below average defense even when they were making the playoffs a few years ago.

Ryan has been a top quarterback the last three years.  His arm strength isn’t elite, but he makes up for it in so many ways.  It’s also not as though he is incapable of throwing the ball deep.  This isn’t Alex Smith we’re talking about here.  He is accurate, stands tall against the pressure, and is capable of tossing the ball deep enough to stretch the field.  He manages the game well and has put up excellent numbers despite a mediocre offensive line in front of him.

In 2014 he had 4694 passing yards, 28 touchdowns, a completion percentage of 66.1, and 14 interceptions.  The two years before that he posted eerily similar numbers, hardly deviating from any of those stats, with not too significant changes in QBR either.

Matt Ryan is a top tier quarterback, bordering on elite.  Last year, Pro Football Focus had him ranked as the fifth best quarterback.  Maybe you think that ranking is overinflated, and perhaps he never leads the league in passing, but he’s been consistently stellar for three years now.  Some people will point to his weapons, and say that’s the reason for his success.  But, in the last couple of years, he’s been successful with limited weapons and a mediocre line.  He put up pretty great numbers in 2013 when Julio was hurt most of the season, and had almost no production from his tight end or running backs last year.  For all the people complaining about Matt Ryan, try looking at the many holes on the team, and maybe then you’ll understand why the team has been so bad the last two years.

Running Backs

The running game has been a problem since Michael Turner started to fall apart in 2012.

They finished 29th in rushing yards per game that year, last in 2013, and 24th in 2014.  They began to address this issue with the drafting of Davonta Freeman out of Florida State in in 2014, and drafted a potential stud in this year’s draft in Tevin Coleman.  Freeman isn’t incredibly powerful or fast, but is still quite talented.  He stands 5’8”  and weighs 206 lbs.  He ran a 4.58 40, so he won’t be a burner and is a little small to plow through lineman.  However, he has shown good ability, and is well rounded.  He was able to catch the ball out of the backfield at FSU, and generates enough power with his lower body to get some yards up the middle.  He might not have have elite upside, but should play well in a committee, able to do many things well.

Tevin Coleman was lauded as a potentially great pick in the third round.  He has fantastic speed, and should play as a great part of a committee, or possibly a lead back in the future.  He ran a 4.4 40, so his speed is game changing.  He stands 5’11” and weighs 206 lbs.  Scouts say he tries to rely on his speed too much, and needs to show more patience and vision.  His ability to break tackles has been criticized as well.  I don’t think he’ll be that kind of back.  He’s not gonna turn into Beast Mode, but could break off some serious runs with his speed.  He certainly needs to work on the finer points of his game, but should have an impact immediately with his explosiveness.  The Falcons made a great pick here, and their running game should be improved this season.  Although, it’s also likely that it takes another season for Freeman and Coleman to adjust to the league and be truly productive.

Wide Receivers

The Falcons wide receivers should be productive again this year.

They have one of the best in the game in Julio Jones.  He has been hailed as a freak ever since the Falcons traded pretty much their entire draft for him back in 2011.  He has lived up to the hype, but has a few injury concerns.  He missed most of the 2013 season after fracturing his foot.  But, he has been healthy other than that.  Last year was his best season as he put up 1593 yards, 6 touchdowns, and ranked sixth among wide receivers according to Pro Football Focus.  I expect him to have more touchdowns than that next year with his size and ability.  Even still, he was a beast.  As long he stays healthy I expect him to be one of the best in the game again, contending for top wideout in the league.

Roddy White’s production has dropped a little in the last couple seasons, and he will be playing his age 34 season.  Most wide receivers see a gradual decline in their early 30’s, and then start to fall apart at age 35.  Roddy White is getting close to that mark, but should have one or two more good seasons.  He will probably be a productive second wide receiver, but I wouldn’t expect him to continue to play at a high level for much longer.  Time destroys all things.  He still has a good quarterback, though, and Jones will garner a lot of attention, making things easier for him.  A season with about 1000 yards and 6-7 touchdowns is a reasonable expectation.  It’s always possible he falls apart ahead of the curve, but I don’t see it happening with his situation.

The Falcons lost Harry Douglas, but his production can likely be replaced by Justin Hardy.  He isn’t a tremendous talent with incredible upside, but he should slide into the slot well.  Another solid pick from the Falcons, he is polished with good hands.  He isn’t a burner as he ran the 40 in 4.56, and only stands 5’10”.  But Hardy isn’t being asked to step in and be the #1 wide receiver.  He only needs to fill the slot, and seems poised to do so.  Hankerson and Hester will fill out the depth adequately.

Tight Ends

The Falcons missed Tony Gonzalez last year, and are going to miss him again this year.

Tony Moeaki and Jacob Tamme were brought in as free agents, so the knife shouldn’t cut quite so deeply.  The pair should perform decently and be a slight upgrade over Levine Toilolo, who has played poorly since being drafted in the fourth round of the 2013 draft.  Toilolo was ranked as the fourth worst tight end according to Pro Football Focus.  He didn’t do well in the pass game or in run blocking schemes either.  He had 31 catches for 238 yards and two touchdowns.  That’s a far cry from Tony Gonzalez’s hall of fame production.  Tamme has been decent in the pass game before, posting 555 yards in 2012, but then gave way to Julius Thomas.  Tony Moeaki may be the starter over Tamme, although I think they’ll split production.  He has had trouble staying healthy, but is athletic and has the size to post respectable numbers.  With the two veterans, the Falcons should be better in this area, but still aren’t going to get close to replicating the days of Tony Gonzalez.

Offensive Line

The offensive line for the Atlanta Falcons is a point of contention, mainly because of the play of Matthews.

Many people see the line as below average, because of his struggles.  Last year, the Falcons gave up 21 sacks, 38 hits to the quarterback, and 141 hurries.  The hurries were third most in the league.  The line performed very poorly last year.  The team drafted help last year with their first pick in Jake Matthews, but his struggles were well documented last year.  He played hurt for much of the year and had a rough rookie season.  In fact, Matthews was rated as the worst tackle according to Pro Football Focus, and scouts didn’t like his play either.  He graded equally poorly in pass blocking and run blocking.  However, this is a particularly unfair characterization of his talent.  He played with a high ankle sprain for much of the year, and should’ve missed more games than he did.  Additionally, it was his rookie season and it’s difficult enough to adjust to the NFL when healthy.  I expect much better things from him this year, health permitting.  He had foot surgery in the offseason, but is supposed to be completely healthy now.  I defer to his draft profile, which had him ranked as one of the safest picks; a 308 lb. lineman who should be at least above average for a long time.  His experience and health alone should make the line better than last year.

The rest of the line is fairly mediocre, but Asamoah played well last year, and hopefully Hawley can put in a full year at center.  Hawley missed 12 games, but is a capable center if he can stay healthy.  The Falcons signed Chester, which should provide a veteran presence, and he has only missed two games in the last 8 years.  He is a solid player, but unspectacular.  The consistency he provides should be a boost though.  At right tackle, the Falcons have Schraeder who is a bit of an unknown, but played well last year, once he took over the position.  He only allowed 3 sacks, 2 hits, and 13 hurries over 9 games.  He will need to build upon his year, but could turn into a good tackle.  There’s some promise in this group, but also a lot of youth.  The line should be better, probably average, but could be good if Matthews figuring things out sooner than later.

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Join us tomorrow for Part 2 as we preview the Atlanta Falcons defense for 2015!