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Who Really are the Falcons?

Tiny by Vishnu_falcon on May 2, 2012 3:12 PM EDT

I started writing a fan post on Matt Ryan in 2011 ,but I realized the Falcons are much bigger than Ryan which made me wonder "Who really are the Falcons?".

The answers to the above question range from Falcons being an overrated team, NFC Playoff contender, average team winning close games and an above average running team with an overrated QB etc. Lets jump in to the post to find "Who really are Mike Smith's Falcons?" and more importantly how the Falcons compared to rest of the league in 2011.

Star-divide

Personally, I am not a big fan of averages or over all high level stats. Football is a situational game, different situations dictate different strategy,scheme and play calling for both offense and defense. To win in NFL, more often than not the team which scores more Touchdowns than opposing team wins the game. Lets take a look at the following three game situations (game with in a score,leading by 10+ points,trailing by 10+ points) which most of the Offenses and defenses have to deal with.
Clutch time Drives: Game with in 1 score for either of the teams(+ or - 7 points)

This is where most of the teams try to play their best football and score as many TD as possible. Its important to score points to take a lead,increase the lead or come back and tie the game before its too late. The table below shows the TD Scored% by an offense and TD % allowed by defense. The net grade is difference in Percentage points between TD Scored and TD Allowed. This is the phase of the game where most of teams play more than 50% of their total drives.

Team

Off Drives

TD Scored%

TD Scored % Rank

TD Allowed%

TD Allowed% Rank

Net Grade

Net Grade Rank
GB 79 51.899 1 18.18 11 33.719 1
NE 104 37.500 2 19.42 17 18.080 2
PIT 89 26.966 7 11.24 3 15.726 3
NO 91 34.066 4 19.32 16 14.746 4
BAL 94 24.468 10 10.64 2 13.828 5
ATL 84 35.714 3 22.09 21 13.624 6
HOU 109 24.771 9 13.21 4 11.561 7
DET 101 25.743 8 18.10 10 7.643 8
SF 115 13.913 25 9.01 1 4.903 9
DAL 116 20.690 15 18.35 14 2.340 10
SD 95 27.368 6 26.09 28 1.278 11
ARI 140 15.714 21 16.18 6 -0.466 12
MIA 107 18.692 17 19.63 19 -0.938 13
TEN 100 17.000 19 18.18 12 -1.180 14
CHI 106 16.981 20 18.18 13 -1.199 15
OAK 118 21.186 14 22.73 23 -1.544 16
NYG 129 24.031 12 25.81 26 -1.779 17
SEA 126 14.286 23 16.13 5 -1.844 18
MIN 102 20.588 16 22.55 22 -1.962 19
NYJ 102 17.647 18 20.00 20 -2.353 20
PHI 99 24.242 11 26.67 29 -2.428 21
CAR 102 27.451 5 30.00 30 -2.549 22
CIN 134 14.925 22 18.66 15 -3.735 23
CLE 120 11.667 28 16.81 7 -5.143 24
DEN 124 11.290 29 17.46 9 -6.170 25
KC 106 10.377 30 16.98 8 -6.603 26
WAS 111 13.514 26 24.79 25 -11.276 27
JAC 97 12.371 27 23.76 24 -11.389 28
STL 84 7.143 32 19.42 18 -12.277 29
BUF 90 22.222 13 35.48 32 -13.258 30
IND 92 8.696 31 26.04 27 -17.344 31
TB 71 14.085 24 35.37 31 -21.285 32

Key Observations:

The Green Bay Packers scored TD on more than 50% of the drives when the game was with in a score. Now, if any one had doubts why Aaron Rodgers was MVP last year not Brady or Drew Brees, its time to let go of those doubts.
Atlanta Falcons offense ranked 3rd only behind GB and NE in scoring TD% when the game was with in a score, Falcons defense however ranked 21st and Falcons ended up with a net grade ranking of 6. It is surprising when you consider the awful play calling and the least successful running game in NFL on first downs.
NYG,CIN and DEN are the only Play off teams outside the top 12 grades. All there of the above teams played more closer games than other teams, each of the teams had at least 120 Drives when the game was with in a score.
Baltimore Ravens ranked fifth if you consider Net Grade, however the offense ranked 10th in TD scored%. If you consider just the passing TD and the rushing TD from with in 10 yards, the TD scored % drops to 10%. Imagine where Falcons could be if Ryan had the Ravens Defense to support the offense.
Tampa Bay sank to the bottom in the grades, now thats expected if the team gets blown out for 10 games in a row. Carolina ranked 5th in TD scored % with equal number of rushing and passing TD,however the Panthers Defense ranked 30th in TD allowed.

Drives with 10+ point Lead:

The Falcons ranked 25th in the league for the net grade with just 16% TD Scored and 32% TD allowed when leading by 10+ points. This is not surprising as the Falcons shut down their offense followed by end less parade of Punts. This is one area I would like to light a fire under Mike Smith, he should get his players and coaches to put the game away and crush the opposing teams.

One more thing, this is one phase of the game Saints really do well, the TD % Scored for Saints jumps to 45 % when they are leading by 10+ points. Now I want Mike Smith to do the same so Ryan can score lot of points and pad up his stats.

Trailing by10 Points or more Drives :

This is one area Falcons were bad in 2010, even though the Falcons were 13-3. They went ahead and added Julio Jones to become more explosive. DId It work?

Yes and No, Falcons ranked 16th in TD scored % and 25th in TD allowed % when trailing by 10 points or more. Falcons erased a ten points or more defect in 3 games( Carolina,Eagles and Saints first game) and won two of those games. How ever there were two games (Saints second game and Bears game) where the Falcons could never comeback. This phase for Falcons is work under progress hampered by Offensive Line which doesn't let Matt throw 40 times a game nor protect him longer than 2 sec.

Now back to the question: Who really are the Falcons?

The Falcons are a team like someone with Multiple Personality disorder. The Falcons are a team with an offense in top 3 when the game is on the line with a struggling defense ranked in the twenties. However Falcons also have one of the NFL's worst offense and defense when the lead is more than 10 points. Another area of improvement is coming back when trailing by more than 10 points.

I want the Falcons team to have the killer instinct and have identity of dominating other team. I personally think Head coach ,Coordinators are more to blame for the inconsistencies than players. What do you think?

http://www.thefalcoholic.com/2012/5/2/2 ... he-falcons

I would agree with his last point. I think the Falcons suffer from not having anything on their team that can really scare teams that will cause most opponents to really be shaking in their boots.

The closest thing being Julio Jones, but he was poorly used by the last coaching staff. We'll see if the new coach will use him better. But given that this team is still using Michael Turner as their feature back/centerpiece of their offense, it still probably won't be enough.

Please Dirk, don't let Smitty get into the offensive meetings.

Julio will scare the hell out of everyone in his second year!!

Its Ryan that worries me; because he's got to hit Julio when he's open which is often!!

Cyril, what I don't understand is how you can be so down on Ryan (who is the best QB in franchise history) and be so up on Jones. (who will never be worth what we gave up to get him) Julio Jones will never lead this team to the superbowl. He will never carry the team on his shoulders. Julio Jones is simply a pawn in our scheme. It baffles me to no end how people can be so supportive of giving up 2 potential starters to land a #2 WR. That is to say, I have no doubt at all that Jones can be an elite WR in this league... But are the Falcons going to use him in such a way?

I sincerely hope that with Mularkey out of the way, that this offense changes considerably. If we build the team around Ryan, we will be superbowl bound. If we continue to scheme around Mughelli and Turner, we will not get a whiff of the big game. (unless the defense is suddenly one of the best in the league)

As long as they try to hit him in stride on 40 yard passes, they won't be using him properly. The point of a Plaxico, Aj Green, Fitz, V Jax type player is you put the ball "in play" and let those receivers use their abilities. Overthrowing these kinds of receivers is ridiculous. The coaches have to let/tell Ryan to put it in play, and Ryan has to trust and do that. Otherwise, a 5th round speedster would have done the same. Let Julio use his skills. Then the deep ball is there on this offense. That helps the rest. That's pretty much the only area that gives me hope this year...I hope Koetter implements screens, and he makes sure that Ryan puts the ball in play on the deep ball. I think that's good for taking this offense from fine to very good.

I've had to pin my hopes on that, because we're obviously not going to do versatile RBs, versatile TEs. But ball in play deep balls, and screens could make a big enough difference to be valid. I hope.

I'm just nit-picking and I apologize, but Steve Bartkowski is/was the best QB is franchise history.

Matt Ryan has played in 62 regular season games over 4 years. He has 14,238 passing yards, 95 TDs, a 60.9 completion percentage, and a 88.4 passer rating. He is the first QB in franchise history to lead the team to back, to back, to back, to back winning seasons, making the playoffs in 3 of his first 4 years in the league. However, the team has not won a playoff game under Ryan.

Steve Bartkowski played in 123 regular season games over 11 years as a Falcon, had 23,470 passing yards, 154 TDs, completed 56% of his passes, and had a QB rating of 76. The Falcons had 3 winning seasons in the course of Bartkowski's career, making the playoffs in each of those seasons. The Falcons record in the playoffs was 1-3 under Bartkowski.


At what point will you believe that Ryan is better than Bartkowski? Within 3-4 years Ryan will surpass Bartkowski in every significant passing category. Maybe he doesn't yet have the stats, but he is obviously the best QB that the Falcons have ever put on the field.

We'll see if the coaching staff makes Julio into the scary entity he's capable of. As takeitdown outlined, the team needs to modify how they approach the deep ball. But I believe Mike Smith's fear of turnovers has helped limit Ryan's progression there. They need to have an offensive mindset that doesn't fear turnovers and INTs because they believe they are explosive and potent enough offensively that they can easily make up for that. That's a championship-caliber swagger that this team has rarely possessed. The Falcons rely far too much on being perfect, and when things go wrong, this team has a tendency to crumble under the pressure. At least they certainly did last season.

They also need to use a lot of complementary routes which make guys like Julio, Gonzo, Roddy, and HD complement each other by moving coverages and defenders to open up other receivers. Mularkey did this rarely, and only really emphasized it in games in which Julio was out. Because this is really the only way that you can make a player like HD effective because he's not a guy that is going to be able to simply beat man coverage in the very vanilla routes that Mularkey used to call.

Hopefully Koetter will take advantage of Julio's abilities/potential to play in the slot, something that was rarely used by Mularkey. There, he presents an extremely difficult matchup that can draw coverages and challenge defenses.

But there's only one football to go around. The Falcons need to feed Turner to make him effective because he's not a guy that is going to be able to produce with just 10-12 touches per game. He's a guy that needs 18-20 to really be his most effective, because so much explosiveness has been lost in his game, and much of it relies on wearing down opponents so that he can break those longer runs in the 2nd halves of games. And because of that, that's 6-8 plays that cannot be given to Julio Jones. In an ideal world where Julio and Roddy do indeed represent the No. 1 and No. 1A receivers, each will see 10-15 targets per game. A slow week (usually a result of facing top competition) might mean as few as 7 or 8 targets. But for Jones last year, 7 or 8 targets were some of his larger workloads. That needs to change before he can become scary.

I think Ryan probably will be the best QB in franchise history at some point. But, I am guessing you are too young to have watched Bartkowski back in the day. He threw one of the prettiest balls....ever IMO.

Stats don't mean much as it was different game back then. The West Coast Offense was still just a lump in Bill Walsh's slacks. More deep balls, the defense could actually touch a receiver and imagine this, they could actually hit the quarterback and often did after the whistle with no flags.

Believe me and I'm sure some of the other old timers here will agree, Bartkowski was the best.

Bartkowski had a very pretty deep ball... Ryan doesn't... But having a pretty deep ball is more important than leading the franchise to 4 consecutive winning seasons? Ryan's two best seasons are already better than Bartkowski's two best seasons with the exception of TD passes, by which Bartkowski trumps Ryan by having 2 more TDs. Of course, Bartkowski had a LOT more interceptions than Ryan in their best years.

In 10 years, this won't even be a discussion.

Chandler is saying "Bring on the Broncos!" and it looks like Robinson is saying "Bring on the prostitutes!"

When it's all said and done, Ryan will be the best, I agree. Right now, it's still Bart. Numbers/stats don't mean anything. It was a different game back in the late 70's.

You just think I'm down on Ryan; I'm not; but he must improve!! Ryan isn't leading this team to a Super Bowl either, its gonna take a better defense; and more balance on offense!!

No different for you guys who are down on Smitty or Thomas D. Their the best we've ever had; but at this point
why always say good stuff when they can all do better!!

In December and January, you were very down on Ryan. You said you would trade him for Matt Cassel straight up.

Ryan for Matt Cassel? I didn't know Josh McDaniels son was on the site.

Like I said he must improve!! He played liked a big pussy in his zero point game against the Giants; if he doesn't improve
the Falcons won't improve; and please don't blame it all on the Coaches.

Yes Ryan heard footsteps all December and January; that was probably an emotional statement for him playing like a pussy!!
He's our Qb so I'm trying hard to like him......