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Ryan 'excited' about Falcons' draft picks

By Dan Parr
dparr@pfwmedia.com
Associate editor



The Falcons didn’t have a first-round pick this year after trading it to the Browns at last year’s draft to move up in the first round and nab WR Julio Jones, but they did make six picks, spending the first three on offensive players to help protect the face of their franchise, QB Matt Ryan.

Ryan told PFW Monday he liked the haul of prospects GM Thomas Dimitroff delivered over the weekend.

“I think it’s good,” Ryan said. “I think Thomas and his staff have done a great job the last four years in our drafts and picked up guys that have helped contribute to our team. I have a lot of faith in what he does. I think we got some good players coming in — guys that can help us out next season.”

Atlanta’s second-round pick, C-OG Peter Konz, was the most highly regarded center in the draft and could be the team’s starter at right guard from Day One. Third-rounder Lamar Holmes will get a chance to compete at offensive tackle and FB Bradie Ewing, a fifth-round pick, could eventually take over for FB Ovie Mughelli.

The Falcons addressed defensive needs with their last three picks, selecting DE Jonathan Massaquoi (fifth round), SS Charles Mitchell (sixth round) and DT Travian Robertson (seventh round).

“Whether it’s offense or defense, I think it’s just trying to improve our football team as a whole,” Ryan said. “I think that Thomas has a vision and felt like he needed to make some moves on the offense early in the draft. I’m excited about that. I’m looking forward to getting to meet these guys and working with them, learning some things about them and getting them adjusted to our system.”

All three of the Falcons’ division rivals spent their top pick on a defensive player, so Ryan’s task didn’t get any easier over the weekend. He has a pretty good idea of the kind of player the Panthers landed in the first round with the ninth overall pick, LB Luke Kuechly — Ryan’s fellow former Boston College Eagle.

“Luke’s a great player,” Ryan said “I’m happy for him as a fellow Boston College alum. I think he’ll do a great job (in Carolina). He’s going to be tough to play against. I think he’s going to be a very good player in the NFL.

“That will add to the rivalry that we have with them and just keeps improving an already tough division in the NFC South.”

Point of order: Ryan says he's excited about TD's strategy, not the draft picks. I cannot see how you could possibly be excited by this draft. Satisfied? Maybe. Excited? No.

Ryan is a company schill. What else is he gonna say?

Well I really liked it and don't see what their's not to like when we didn't have a #1 and Samuels must count in this draft since we gave up a player for him.....

My pick only because I watch a lot of S.C. college football; I think #7 Travian Robertson is the best of the bunch!!

Why shouldn't he be excited? Ryan is the one who stays awake at night fearing for life with Baker (the pylon) protecting his blind side.
Everyone agrees that the trenches needed to be fortified....yet when it happens, people still complain.

Thus, the danger of speaking.

It's not a complaint, it's a comment. It is not an exciting draft: There's 1 possible immediate starter there and everything else is a project. Even the starter comes with a bit of an asterisk, as it assumes that the 3rd and 4th rounders from two years ago aren't developing as expected. That excites you? Clearly, it must as you label my comment a complaint.

Also, you miss the main point: Ryan is not excited about the players, he's commenting on TD's strategy, so he's not proven to be excited about the draft. Quick, cut him: He's a complainer.

Finally, you don't seriously think that the 3rd round tackle is going to replace turnstile Baker next year, do you? I doubt Ryan feels any better about the LT position than he did midway through the Bears game. Time will tell if Baker was just injured, but ATL has done nothing to improve the LT spot since they drafted Baker. They deserve the same excoriation that the Lions got for refusing to replace Backus: The hood ornaments don't matter if the car cannot get out of the garage.

I get what your saying samedi. It's hard to get excited when the fat-bodies are getting drafted. But at least they are trying to address a need. Try and be excited about that. We got our shiny-hood ornament last year.

You've been on this board long enough to know that every move is met with skepticism and criticism. Some have gone as far as to say Blank has told TD not to shop around because he can't spend the money due to his divorce!
If we drafted a tight end early as many here are clamoring for, they'd complain about ignoring the line. The list goes on. What's done is done. For anyone to think the team doesn't have a direction or bitches because we don't sign every big name free agent that comes along needs to put the controller down and step away from the Playstation.

Yes, every move is met with skepticism; that's the nature of an imperfect science. My enthusiasm is a bit tempered at this point: We haven't progressed meaningfully since the first year and I'm not particularly sold on the personnel moves.

I think that a number of people, Pudge mainly, have accurately questioned the direction of the team without trying to trade Garret Reynolds for Carl Nicks. It wasn't an exciting draft; they have a lot to prove. If they advance into the playoffs this year, then I'll be excited. Short of that . . .

I don't have a problem with the draft. I rarely do (last year being one of the exceptions). What I have a problem with is that one year they go left, and then the next year they go right. And so the question becomes what are they gonna do next year?

Because what people don't seem to be grasping, is that the veering right, i.e. the course correction is because of the decisions they made last year. They had to spend 5 of their 6 picks to help out in the trenches, because of last year they spent so little of their picks to help out in the trenches.

You're right though, every move here is NOW met with skepticism. That wasn't always the case. But that's just a part of critical thinking. That's being able to receive information, discern for yourself what is right/wrong or true/false, and then come to your own conclusions. Rather than just having everything spoon-fed to you.

It's why I do all the college/draft evaluations I do. I started doing them in '01, then stopped after '04. And then from '05 to '07, the Falcons wound up with Roddy White, Jimmy Williams, and Jamaal Anderson. And I started back up in '08 because I didn't like being surprised by the fact that some of our picks underachieved while others (e.g. Michael Boley) overachieved.




If you have a goal, then you should take significant steps towards reachign that goal. If the goal of your team is to be a power-oriented football team that can win football games by controlling the line of scrimmage. You're not going to score 40 points a game by running the football. Instead, you're going to win most games by scoring 20 points. So it's important that you do your utmost to hold that other team to 19 points or less, correct?

So thus, if you're going to be a power-oriented team, then you need to be strong in the trenches, be able to control a game on either side of the line of scrimmage.

So that means making both your OL and DL the best it can possibly be. And currently, you can argue that those are the two weakest parts of your entire team.

So you have available in an offseason arguably the best OG in the league (Carl Nicks), as well as one of the 5-8 best DEs in the league (Mario Williams). So then you have to make a decision, that if you wait until the draft to address those areas, will you get comparable players. The answer is no.

So if the goal is to excel in the trenches, then it probably makes the most sense to get the best possible players there. And in the case of those two, if you had to choose between which one is the better "get" it's probably Williams because he's a much rarer commodity because of the high premium teams put on players of his position and ilk.

The fact that you don't get Williams doesn't mean you've failed. But you're essentially adopting a flawed strategy. Because you're trying to reach your goal with lesser players (our current DL which we know can't win in the trenches) and/or unknown resources (i.e. future drafts/free agency periods).

So what is the best strategy? 1) Pay $100 million for Williams, knowing that he's going to definitely get you a few steps closer to reaching your goal of dominating in the trenches 2) Hope that you can find a Williams-like talent which is rare in itself and even rarer at the later portion of the draft that you believe you'll be picking at for the forseeable future or 3) Hope that you can find lesser talent that can potentially exceed the value that WIlliams adds.

Option 1 is obviously the best short-term strategy, and I think you can make the argument that it is also the best long-term strategy, given that you have been trying to pull off Option 3 for 4 years and have subsequently failed to do so, so why then are you assuming that things will suddenly change for the better in the future?

Well, I'd say we are building for the long term. Maybe TD learned something from the Redskins "philosophy" you haven't.

I personally like the way he mixing in the FA's with the draft. But I'm also a realist. No way we can sign Mario and Nicks and Samuels without it being a death sentence cap wise at some point.

It's not the Redskins philosophy, which you don't seem to be able/willing to comprehend. The Redskins give premium contracts to No. 3 WRs (Pierre Garcon, Antwaan Randle El). If you don't grasp the difference between giving a premium contract to a premium player like Mario Williams and that, then I might as well be talking to a brick wall.

I'm also a realist as well. You're right, you're going to pay someway for a huge deal given to Williams. But why such an investment in Williams is a good thing is because Williams is the type of player that can make multilple players around him better. He is a foundation player. He's a guy you build around. So it means you don't have to premium players at all of the other positions in order for things to work. So basically you can cut costs at other positions because you're paying a high premium for Williams.

If you were to adopt a strategy where on offense, Matt Ryan, Julio Jones, Roddy White, and perhaps Tyson Clabo are your highest paid and core players, and everybody else is forced to work for scale, that can work for your team. If you were to adopt a similar strategy on defense where Mario Williams, Grimes, Spoon, Samuel, and perhaps Moore are your highest paid and everybody else has to work for scale, then that can work.

The problem is that the Falcons are paying too much for guys like Turner, Robinson, Blalock, Edwards, Nicholas, etc. and thus it completely throws off the scale.

Look, I'm also for mixing draft and FA. But you have to be measured in FA. And the problem is that the Falcons haven't been particularly measured in past FAs by overspending on players like Robinson, Blalock, etc. and therefore it's precluding them from striking when the iron is hot now on players like Nicks & Williams that I think most would agree that if you had the choice between signing one or the other, you would choose to sign Nicks/Williams.

Is there an insult in there somewhere? Anyways, I'm talking about this Redskin philosophy that you seem to want.

What makes a bad free agent signing? It’s a combination of things. First, you have to look at their production before they came to your team and then after. If it was a huge drop, then you probably made a bad decision. And second, how much money did you pay for that player to embarrass himself on the field?

5. WR Brandon Lloyd (2006)
You could’ve made a highlight reel filled with Brandon Lloyd’s catches from his run as a 49er. In his three years in San Francisco, Lloyd caught 105 catches for 1,510 yards and 13 touchdowns.

So when he became a restricted free agent in 2006, the Redskins traded away a third and fourth-round pick for his services. Then signed him to a $31 million deal with more than $10 million up front.

However, Lloyd would only play in 23 games a Skin, catching just 25 passes and no touchdowns. Lloyd never lived up to the hype in Washington (or Chicago the next year) before making the Pro Bowl in 2010 as a Denver Bronco

4. LB Jeremiah Trotter (2002)
Jeremiah Trotter was originally drafted by the Philadelphia Eagles where he played the first four years of his career. There he recorded a whopping, 361 tackles, nine sacks, five interceptions, and four forced fumbles. The Eagles tried to place the franchise tag on the middle linebacker, but opted to pursue a long-term deal.

That’s where the Redskins came in. Signing Trotter to a seven-year, $36 million contract which included a $7 million signing bonus.

Although his stat-sheet was impressive in his two years in Washington (204 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and 2 interceptions), the Redskins opted to release Trotter after a season-ending injury. Trotter would return to Philidelphia and play in the Super Bowl (probably spending Snyder’s money the entire time).

Trotter was productive in Washington and remained that way when he returned to Philly. Although this doesn’t look like a bad signing, shame on Washington for giving up on Trotter after giving him all that money.

3. S Adam Archuleta (2006)
Adam Archuleta made a name for himself playing in St. Louis. While under Lovie Smith’s defense, Archuleta recorded 409 tackles, 15 sacks and three interceptions in five years. He started 69 games in that span.

That prompted Daniel Snyder and company to sign the Tampa-2 specialist to a seven-year $35 million deal which included a $10 million signing bonus.

Archuleta would only spend one year in Washington. He was benched after eight games and cut after just one year. Archuleta was out of football two years later.

2. CB Deion Sanders (2000)
The man we all know as “Primetime”, Deion Sanders was known as a “shutdown corner” throughout his career. After years in Atlanta, San Francisco, and Dallas, “Neon Deion” was released by America’s Team and free to sign with whomever he liked.

In a move that left Cowboys fans stunned, the Redskins signed Sanders to a seven-year, $56 million deal which included an $8 million signing bonus.

Another example of a player not staying with the Skins for long, Sanders only played one year in Washington. He recorded four interceptions before his first retirement at the end of the 2000 season. Sanders would never live up to the hype (and circus) that he brought to Washington, leaving a bitter taste in fans’ mouths.

1. DT Albert Haynesworth (2009)
Let’s be honest, you knew this was number one the second you read the title of this article.

Haynesworth spent seven years as a Tennessee Titan, making a reputation for himself as one of the best defensive tackles in the league. He recorded 199 tackles and 24 sacks while in Nashville, excelling in a system that allowed him to attack the quarterback.

In 2009, he became an unrestricted free agent and signed a seven-year $100 million contract on the very first day of free agency. The deal included $41 million guaranteed and could even reach as high as $115 million if all of the incentives were met.

His reputation in Washington was that of a crybaby. Haynesworth was very vocal about the defense, once claiming in 2009 that he could not, “survive another season in this system”. And was suspended in early December of 2010 for conduct detrimental to the club.

He recorded 42 tackles and 6.5 sacks as a Redskin before being traded to New England.

Like I said, you're not getting it. You're assuming that paying huge money for every player is the same, and it simply is not. And comparing Mario Williams to Albert Haynesworth or any of those players you listed reveals your lack of clarity or comprehension.

What you are failing to grasp is that what the Redskins have done is continued reliance on free agency, and spending money on players that don't fit their scheme. It's playing premium dollars for a player that either doesn't deserve it or one that does, but then plugging him into a scheme that isn't designed to maximize his abilities. The fact is that the Falcons have already been doing this with signings like Dunta Robinson (paying a #2 CB like a #1 CB and then putting him in a scheme that doesn't suit his skillset) rather than the potential Mario Williams signing.

Instead of giving us the requisite "I love all the picks" that I've never met or heard of....Go LIFT some weights.