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Sorry AJ51, but there's no way I can slice it other than you're talking out your ass. Run out of town because he paid mid-level FA price to a #3 WR? Yeah, the same fan base that hasn't run him out of town yet for how poorly he handled the O-line last year, or the poor quality of the nickel CB spot for 2.5 years, or the fact that the Falcons have had a lackluster pass rusher for 4 years? Oh, but giving Lee Evans a 1-yr. $1.5 million deal would have been the one time they got upset? Or the fact they gave Jacoby Jones a 2-yr./$6.5M because he could be a competent returner and replacement for Weems plus being a significant upgrade over our current No. 4 WR would have been the move that fans got upset over.



Look if our fan base runs TD out of town for making a significant upgrade to the No. 3 or 4 WR spot by bringing in someone that can actually get open and make Julio Jones into a better football player, then we have the dumbest fan base in the league.

If you consider that I feel we have bigger needs than a #3 receiver to spend what little cap room we have on, than I guess I am talking out of my ass.

All the players you want to cut and all the players you suggest we sign on in place of, I don't think makes us a better team. Even at best. But your football IQ is far superior than most, so I stand corrected.

And I'm sure you know what I'll say about that...Who's fault is it that we have little cap room? It's not like he inherited this team. This team's cap situation is of his own doing. Every big contract that this team currently has, is one he gave out: Ryan, Gonzo, White, Turner, Clabo, Blalock, Edwards, Babineaux, Robinson, Samuel etc. The only exception to that was John Abraham, and now he has a new deal after he came off their books.

What are our bigger needs in your eyes that at this point we should be spending our money on? Are you going to get a starter at some position at this point in the off-season? IMO, these moves should have been things that they did back in February and March. Are you saying we should have spent what little money we had back then on other positions?

I'm not sure what other positions you think are bigger priorities: Quarterback? Left Tackle? Middle linebacker? Before or currently?

Straight up.

But the way Quizz ran when he got the ball last season, and watching those highlights with the Ducks, I think Turner's carries will go down

His carries will go down, but by how much.

You can break down starting RBs into 3 basic categories/tiers of work load:

1) 18+ carries
2) 15-18 carries
3) 12-15 carries

Turner has consistently been one of the upper tier players for all of his Falcon career. And I think his running style at this point in his career is conducive only to that tier of running. He is a guy that isn't prone to break big runs every carry because of the dramatic loss of burst that he has undergone after over 1000 carries. Or perhaps more accurately, his big play ability isn't diminished, but his "little play" ability is diminished. Meaning when he is not breaking a long run for this team, he is adding very little value to the offense. Thus, he's a guy that the more carries he gets the more effective he is. Part of his skillset is his ability to wear down on defenses which then open up opportunities and big runs later in games.

We talked a lot about success rate with RBs last year, and with Turner I think because of his declined, you're going to have a lot more unsuccessful runs for every successful run he has at this point in his career. His success rate in many of the games I charted on 1st down was abysmal. But he was better on 2nd down, which was because IMO in those 2nd & long situations, teams were much more geared towards stopping the pass than expecting the run. A lot of that has to do with the O-line not being able to get push, but I think a lot of it has to do with Turner being unable to hit the holes quick enough.

With Quizz, he hit the holes a lot harder and quicker than Turner did last year. I don't think Quizz is ready to be a 15-carry/16-game starter by any means. I think he'd really only be that sort of player in a zone-blocking heavy scheme. But I do think he needs to be used much more than being a 3-5 carry running backs. He needs to be 8-12 carries, which is the "4th tier" and would be a premium backup RB throughout this league.

I think Turner has reached a point in his career is that if you dramatically reduce his workload, he'll be a less effective player. He needs to accumulate carries in order to get those successful runs. I also think that TUrner leaves a lot more yards on the field than people seem to think. The old Turner was also able to make his blocking better by being able to get 1 or 2 more yards than the holes allowed. And I really think that is the key to what makes you a quality starting RB in this league as opposed to a run of the mill starter or a backup. And IMO from watching him play last year, I believe that ability is pretty much gone. And therefore that's why I think he's now a below average to average starting RB. IMO, that's something that fresh legs gives you.

It's not to say Turner will never have a good game from this point on, but IMO for every good game you get, you're likely to get 4 or 5 games where he is either hurting your offense or he's not adding anything to it. And that's not a good situation to be in when you have a "break even" starter in a key position such as we do at RB given how much "balance" our team stresses. To me, you cannot build a balanced offense with that sort of RB leading the way.

Now I could wind up being wrong, and Turner turns in a really strong season. And if that's the case, for the 2nd time in my life, I will say I was dead wrong about Turner. But given that he's been on a steady decline for 4 years now, I say the odds are on my side.

Turner is still a top 10 RB in the NFL. That is why he is still getting paid, why the hell would he accept a paycut when he knows this might be the last year he gets paid? I don't much buy the RB-by-committee talk, although I don't expect to see Turner in 3rd down situations anymore (save for 1-2 yards to go).

Mughelli is still a free-agent. If he was still as good as advertised, somebody would have picked him up by now. That works both ways, as he is still available if we don't think Ewing is ready when TC starts rolling.
There are plenty of ways we can create cap room if we need it.
Also, Koetters base offense after a 2 WR, FB, RB set up will be a 3 wide setup, which wouldn't leave room for a 2nd TE. And I'd rather a three wide setup over a 2 TE setup anyday (unless we were the Patriots obviously).

As far as signing another WR, don't we have a #3 in Douglas? Why dish out another 2-4m a year for a WR to not only push Douglas off the field in 3 WR sets, but act as a decoy on the outside for Jones in the slot? We can already do that with TG and Meier.

I'm sorry Nuccah, but if you think Turner is on par with players like Ray Rice, Fred Jackson, Frank Gore, Chris Johnson, Adrian Peterson, Maurice Jones-Drew, LeSean McCoy, Arian Foster, Darren McFadden, and Matt Forte at this point in his career, then you are taking crazy pills. There is no way that you can watch those guys play and think that Turner is performing on a comparable level. Which doesn't include players like Marshawn Lynch, DeAngelo Williams, Jonathan Stewart, LeGarrette Blount, Beanie Wells, Rashard Mendenhall, Ahmad Bradshaw, Ryan Mathews, Jamaal Charles, etc. that also all are performing at comparable if not higher level than Turner as well.


Because given the market for 30-year old RBs who can't catch, accepting $3-4 million from the Falcons would have likely been more than he would have gotten on the open market. Look at Brandon Jacobs, who is Turner's most favorable comparison (same age, similar running style, similarly very limited on 3rd downs), he got a 1-yr. $1.5 million deal. Mike Tolbert and Peyton HIllis are 26 and have a similar skillset as Turner except they are more adept 3rd down players, and they got deals that number less than $3 million. Hillis got 1-yr. $3 million from KC, and Tolbert got a 4-yr. deal with $2.7M guaranteed. Michael Bush is 28, and got a 4-yr. deal with about $6.5M guaranteed, which if you figure Turner being 2 years older would have gotten roughly have as much guaranteed considering he would only be able to play half the shelf life of that contract. The Law Firm is 27 and got $4M guaranteed as part of a 3-yr. deal from Cincinnati and he too is also a "power" runner that doesn't do much on 3rd downs. The point I'm trying to illustrate is that the MARKET VALUE for a player like Turner is clearly around $3 or $4 million.

You're right, if the Falcons had approached him to re-do his deal, he and his agent could have told them to go screw themselves. But if that was the case, on the open market as a free agent, he wouldn't have made more than the $3.75M or $4.5M this year that I think it would have been fair for the Falcons to offer him as part of the restructuring.


While the off-season still technically continues from May until the end of July, the truth is the off-season ends at the draft. Very few FAs get deals done after the draft. Go look at the NFL.com transactions page for the months of May and June, and see how many non-rookies get signed. Ovie's ability to find another team is extremely prohibitive at this point in time in the NFL calendar, because teams have settled on what their 90-man training camp rosters are going to be give or take 1 or 2 players. And unless a team has a strong, pressing need for a lead blocker (which isn't likely to be the case because it's a dying position/role), then they aren't likely to make a change. For players like Ovie that are currently unsigned, they are basically waiting for injuries that come in camp to occur or some competitions to fall flat on their face. It wouldn't surprise me at all, if Ovie winds up with a team like New England.


The point I'm trying to get at is that one of the justifications (helmed by the great DOL) for cutting Ovie was because the Koetter offense would make less use out of the fullback position than the Mularkey offense. Not sure what the great Ledbetter was basing that off because the Jags consistently used Greg Jones more often than we used Ovie over the past 4 or so years. And even if that is true, then it means we wasted a pick on Ewing in the 5th round. But the point is that if you take away the fullback, then it directly affects the PT of the #2 TE. The less/more you use a FB, the more/less you use 2 TEs.

Now while the Jags were a relatively FB-heavy offense under Koetter over the years, they still made ample use of the 2-TE formations. Last year, their #2 TE, Zach Potter played on average about 20 snaps per game last year. Douglas will play a lot more than that (probably 30-40), but it still leaves 25-35 snaps per game that must be filled by other personnel, which includes a 2nd TE.

But the primary reason why the Falcons should upgrade their #2 TE position is not for that role player, it's in the event of a significant injury to Tony Gonzalez. The #1 skillset of a receiving TE or WR in this league is the ability to separate from and beat man coverage. If you do not possess that skillset then you have little to no value as a receiver. This is a skillset that Gonzo has in abundance (as do all of the top TEs), but something that most backup TEs lack, thus why they are backups. This lacking skill is why Justin Peelle had a career high of only 29 catches, and never caught more than 15 passes as a Falcon during his time here. This is also a huge question mark for Michael Palmer going forward.

And what a lot of fans don't know about Palmer is that when you examine all 15 of his career catches, only 1 of them have come where he was asked to beat man coverage. And guess when that was? This past year's season finale against the Bucs.

Thus if you have an injury to Gonzalez, your offense reverts back to a state similar to as it was before he came here, which is basically now allowing opposing defenses to no longer account for the TE most downs. You're playing 10 on 11 football whenever you pass, which puts you at a distinct disadvantage. That means the opposing teams safeties can risk vacating the middle, doubling Roddy and/or Julio and you don't have that threat at TE that can make them pay for that.

Thus any TE that you can sign that has more ability to beat man coverage than Palmer is a potentially significant upgrade to your roster. And competition could also cause Palmer to elevate his game. But that's not competition he's going to get from players like Tommy Gallarda, Aron White, and Adam Nissley.

The Falcons are an ankle/knee/shoulder injury away from once again being one of the league's least explosive offenses as they were in 2010 and before. And a good GM should not put his team in that position. Whether that means signing Jeremy Shockey, Visanthe Shiancoe, Daniel Graham, Chris Baker, etc. then so be it. Are they going to solve the Falcons problems? No. But they are band-aid solutions because the team has neglected the TE position in each of the past 3 drafts.

http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stat-a ... on-offense

The Falcons were a Top 3 offense last year when it came to play-action passing. So maybe I'm being overly critical of Michael Turner because he certainly did add some value because of his ability to help open up the play-action pass.

But it's interesting to me that the 49ers, a team that according to FO's numbers ran play-action about the same as the Falcons and similarly were among the Top 5 or 6 teams at being most effective at it, did this past off-season. They signed Brandon Jacobs and drafted LaMichael James at RB. They also got 3 vertical stretch receivers in Randy Moss, Mario Manningham, and A.J. Jenkins. It's clear that the 49ers intend to strengthen their strength. They also modified the weakest part of their O-line (the RG) position by moving Alex Boone there and drafting Joe Looney.

Contrast that to the Falcons, who made no additions at RB, adding no proven vertical threats at WR, and largely ignored their weakest OL position (the LT spot). But I'll hand it to the Falcons that they did at least beef up their own RG spot, so it's not a complete wash.

But it speaks to the lack of identity that the Falcons have offensively. Can they continue to be a very good play-action team? Sure. But it doesn't seem like it is intended to be their identity offensively. In fact, it seems like they are going away from that considering all we've heard this off-season.

Again, I think one of the issues with the Falcons offense is complacency. And that comes from their lack of excellence because of the minimal adjustments they've made at the skill positions. They do seem to be a team striving to excel at anything. I think that attitude is personified in the continued presence of Michael Turner on this roster, in building around a player where the arrow is clearly pointing down. I don't understand how anyone can sit there and say that is a smart strategy to center an offense around a declining player. And the counter is that they aren't centering their offense around Turner, but then why is he among the highest paid players on the team.

It's an indefensible position that our front office is in. Either way you slice, they are wrong. Father Time is undefeated.