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The quarterback position for the Atlanta Falcons is as predictable as any in the NFL. With Matt Ryan cemented as the franchise QB, and the ever-reliable Chris Redman as his backup there's little chance either will be unseated during training camp. It's the battle for the third spot between incumbent John Parker Wilson, and two UDFAs that will be the focal point that determines how the depth chart at QB will shape up for Atlanta.

With Redman now at 34 years old the need for Atlanta to find a long-term backup is accelerated. They're living on borrowed time behind Matt Ryan, and have to find someone they can plug in for the next decade. Parker Wilson was at one time thought to be that guy, but has looked decidedly mediocre in preseason during each of the last three seasons. This surely motivated the Falcons to pick up two QBs as undrafted free agents, to try and unseat Parker Wilson and give them some reliability.

First is East Carolina's Dominique Davis- who transferred from Boston College. Mechanically he's nothing to write home about, but he's an above average athlete who is lauded for his hard work. Davis is also very solid outside the pocket and has an above-average ability to throw on the run. He will get a chance to show what he can do in training camp, and perhaps show enough raw ability that he makes the squad.

The second is Casey Therriault who's more news story than quarterback. His life became de-railed when he became involved in a manslaughter in 2008, and has been fighting to get back on track ever since. Therriault had an impressive career at Jackson State, but faces a serious uphill battle to make an NFL roster.

When it's all said and done I think we'll see much of the same in 2012 for the Falcons at QB. That's a depth chart of Matt Ryan/Chris Redman/John Parker Wilson. Atlanta need to upgrade their reserve Qbs, but I don't think this is the year they make a change.

http://atlanta.sbnation.com/atlanta-fal ... uarterback

Well, I haven't heard that Therriault has signed. He was reported on Saturday night after the draft, but the team didn't list him on their official moves and he doesn't appear on the roster. So I can only assume that they invited him to workout rather than actually sign him.

As for the QB competition, barring the Dreamboat having a stellar summer, I think this is just a waste of time. Davis is a marginal NFL prospect at best and thus I can't fathom the team sees him as a potential No. 3 or p-squad player. And unless the Falcons feel that Dreamboat is ready to take the #2 spot then it's time to move on from him.

The goal of the Falcons this summer should have been looking for a brand new #2 QB since Chris Redman is a short-timer. Unfortunately, I believe that the Falcons have failed in terms of reaching that goal. Complacency.

Snowball = Chance in hell. We should have grabbed the Tanney kid from Monmouth if we were gonna go clean off the reservation.

You certainly complain a lot. I know you're going to disagree, but back-up quarterback this year was the least of our problems. It gets tiring seeing people bitch just to see themselves bitch.

Really? We're complacent because we kept Redman, who is more than capable for a game or two. Which is all you ask your back-up QB to be.

Or when people bitch about your bitching... What do you think these boards are for than to provide YOUR OWN opinion? I think you're stance on the state of the team is weak, but I don't try to point it out in every thread.

fail. Redman used to be capable for a game or two...Now, he's not even that. I would tend to agree if he didnt stink up the joint the last 2 times he was called upon.

I think they should have cut bait with LPW, gotten a FAQB and making Redman the THIRD option.

Pfft. Just because I don't complain about every move, and I mean every move, doesn't make my stance on this team "weak". I've suffered through years of s***ty teams that had no light at the end of tunnel. Do I agree with everything that's been done over the past 4 years? Nope. Is the franchise better off now than 4 years ago? Yup.

Pardon me if I enjoy the decent run here the past few seasons more than others. So widetrack, go complain that we didn't find a replacement back up QB this off season, I'm lead to believe that it's a crushing blow to our franchise's future. As you say, that's what these boards are for, to bitch. Silly me, I thought it was a fan forum.

Complacency is a systemic disease like metastasized cancer. It doesn't show itself in one giant festering sore in the middle of your chest for all to see, it's something that slowly eats away throughout the entire body until nothing is left.

You're right, keeping or cutting Redman is not a big deal when you look at the whole picture. But when you take it in conjunction with several other "lesser problems" they add up to a fairly big problem.

You're also right that the Falcons could do a lot worse than Chris Redman as their No. 2 QB. But there is no more a symbol of complacency on this team than Chris Redman, a guy that has ABSOLUTELY NO DESIRE to be a starting QB in this league. He's just happy to basically collect a check without doing any work. Redman has been a free agent 3 times since joining the Falcons in 2007, and has not once tried to test his market value.

The best backups in the league are those that see themselves as starters and thusly put in the effort to be the best QB they can be. That is not Chris Redman, and thus why he is just an average No. 2 at best.

I do complain a lot. And it tends to come in the off-season because I firmly believe that you have 8 months out of the calendar year to set yourself up for success during the regular season. By that point, whatever moves you've made in the previous 8 months come to fruition and you either sink or swim.

I've made it very clear since the first week in January that I wanted this team to dump Redman: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16540&p=106188

The fact that they didn't move on didn't surprise me. I expected that to happen, and thus not disappointed. But I am disappointed that the team made MINIMAL effort to try and upgrade the position.

The goal of every off-season is to improve your team all over the roster, whether that is from paying $50 million to a free agent or adding an undrafted guy off the street that can enhance camp competition. The team has made more effort to upgrade their long snapper this off-season than 80% of their roster. And are you going to argue that Joe Zelenka wasn't the least of the least of our problems?

Oh Come on Pudge; if you yourself made a list of the Falcon priorities for this season; getting a better second string Qb would not be in your top 4 wish list!! I'd like everyone to be better; but we needed those linemen; and getting A.Samuels will
help our secondary with not only good depth but a decent nickle; and I've not given up on Owens.

Your second string Qb becomes important when you need him; most NFL teams unless they don't have a solid starter; have a
a guy there they think they can count on; even though their usually not positive since they usually don't play much!!

You're right Cyril, Redman and the No. 2 QB position was not a priority. Those were improving the O-line (which they have done), retaining Grimes (which they have done) and getting better on the D-line (which they have not).

But just because something is not a priority doesn't mean you don't strive to improve. This is what I'm talking about as an example of complacency. Davis isn't terrible, as from what I've seen he's a poor man's Dennis Dixon that needs a lot of work with his footwork, mechanics, and pocket awareness. Maybe he comes in and has a nice summer and makes the p-squad. I doubt it, but it's certainly a possibility. But the improvement this team is supposed to have at the No. 2 QB position basically rests entirely on John Parker Wilson blossoming in a brand new offense, which if you played the odds would be very low.

That's complacency. To say we're OK at backup QB because Redman is competent, and thus put in minimal effort to upgrade the position and to promote the competition that Smitty & TD like to talk up and say they bring to the table, but rarely do.

If they were about competition, then they would have tried to bring a veteran like McCown, Trent Edwards, or David Garrard that knew Koetter's offense and thus would have been an actual challenge to Redman, Wilson, etc. rather than an UDFA with marginal NFL talent. Oh, you can't afford $600,000? Well, who's fault is that?...

The Falcons are not compacent. Actually, I think it might be their "sense of urgency" that has been more their undoing in recent years--esp last year. What do they mean "living on borrowed time" with Ryan?

PUDGE you have no debate here...... You admit Qb was not a priority; but you go on to say we should have still tried to upgrade??

That's just not how you put things together..... You get your 6 most important things where you need to get better; then you
prioritize those 6 items......In any business you usually do not obtain your goal of the 6 biggest prioritizes; maybe you just get one but hopefully two and maybe even three!!

However if you get off your goals or priorities you'll just be chasing your tail on whatever seems "like a good idea" and you'll usually accomplish nothing.

I agree next year replacing Redmon may be a much higher priority; because I agree John Parker Wilson isn't going to be a #2
IMO and next year Redmon is older and hopefully our needs in other areas are less!!

If we were really complacent we could not continue to have winning season's!!

Yes we could. You need to read up on what the term complacent means.

From Merriam-Webster:
1: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies
2: an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction


Football doesn't work like that Cyril. Because every year, you're going to add between 30-50 new faces/bodies to your roster to bring into training camp. Given that much turnover, just addressing your priorities means that you are squandering the new talent that every team adds each and every year.

Priorities are key areas of your roster that MUST be addressed. And as you say, it's harder to address those areas, so unlike in business, you don't pick 6, you pick 2 or 3. But that doesn't mean that you stand pat every where else on your roster. Because of that high turnover rate, you have ample opportunity to address other non-priorities.

The pathway (ignoring it because it wasn't a priority) you suggest is in fact complacency. Because EVERY SINGLE POSITION on your roster always has room for improvement, and as a general manager if you just stand pat then you're being complacent.

Even if the team had signed/drafted someone worth a damn to push Redman, they may not still have gotten better at the position. But you'll never know until you try. And the conditions were ideal for them to make a change. They have a new offense that Redman doesn't know, so his experience and value are lessened because he is new to the offense. Typically when teams introduce a new offense, they introduce a player into the mix that knows that offense to help out the other players. This was the exact player that Redman was in 2007 when he was signed because he knew Petrino's offense. We retained Joey Harrington in 2008 because he knew Mularkey's offense. Yet, the Falcons did not maintain this practice this off-season. Why? Not because there weren't players available that they could sign that knew the offense? Trent Edwards, Luke McCown, David Garrard, and Todd Bouman.

I don't know the answer why, but given their overall body of work, I think it's because they're complacent. TD's emphasis on retaining the core of the team to me is another indicator of that. Why was retaining the core so important? Because I think TD & Co. believe that this team is a tweak or two away from winning a Super Bowl. That's that "unawareness of actual deficiencies." This team is not a tweak or two, but several top-level playmakers and a massive shift in coaching philosophy away from winning a Super Bowl.

From Merriam-Webster:
1: self-satisfaction especially when accompanied by unawareness of actual dangers or deficiencies
2: an instance of usually unaware or uninformed self-satisfaction
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Like I said if we had either of these we would not continue winning or making playoffs.

Each position on the team can be a priority; you can upgrade more than one!!

Your notion of just picking one thing or two spots is just not how good business men (and the Gm is a businessman; ) do business!!
You have more priorities listed in case you get a break and get the 3 you hoped for; but you can't decide on the fly what
you fix next...... Samuels was unexpected; I mean if you do better than you hoped what would you do just decide one day
we need to exchange Redmon? No these are already spelled out in importance so you can be ready for your next priority
should things fall together.(which seldom happens)

Sorry you had to use the dictionary to look complacent (:

Your previous statement is why in the past I've said you don't quite understand personnel.

You're not making decisions on the fly. You're going into several meetings between the end of the season and the beginning of the off-season (Combine & free agency) and making calculated decisions.

Priorities are the areas of your roster that you say to yourself, "If the only thing we do this off-season is 'fix' these problem areas, what will they be?" And the very nature of how many resources you have during the off-season (cap space, draft class, free agent class, etc.) limits how many of those priorities can be set. You have to look at both the free agent class and entire draft class position by position and then determine where there is value. Where can I get the most bang for my buck. This is something that TD from the get-go has said was his philosophy/approach to the off-season, but IMHO he has not practiced what he has preached very well over the past few off-seasons.

Addressing the backup QB position was not one of these priorities. But however because you're going to add at the very least a 4th QB to the roster anyway, it would have behooved you to make that player the best possible player. The fact of the matter is the Falcons would carry 4 QBs into camp this year, and only one of them was seen as a long-term option. Which meant if the Falcons had chosen to do so, they could have brought in up to 3 new bodies in the hopes that they would have found another guy worth keeping/developing over the course of the next 3-5 years. They chose not to do so, instead taking the easy way out and re-signing Redman because he was cheap and a known commodity.

And in the end nothing will change. Barring a strong summer by JPW, he along with Davis will likely be cut. Redman will be a FA once again after this year, and will be looking to collect a check without doing anywork. And the Falcons will be back at the same place they were last year and the year before at the QB position, with no growth until they make changes. They are going in circles there rather than improving their roster at that position.

Well I sure hope you don't think, I think you understand personnel; or building a business!!

Now I have great respect for most of your analyzing during the season; and how you see the game.....
I also respect most of your posts until you throw Obama's health care law in with all 3,000 pages;
I mean I like it here; but I can fall asleep late at night reading all your stats that you give, to desperately try to be right (:

Tis a shame really Cyril, because everybody that reads my posts in their entirety is made slightly smarter.

No I have to quit so I don't catch what you have (: I read most of your posts in its entirety; Jeez I try to compliment you
and you can't handle it.....Respect for your posts during the season is a big deal; I just figure you get all smoked up in the summer or whatever - or perhaps its my dementia; you know that starts around sixty (: