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Julio dropped a higher percentage of passes than Roddy last year, and has not really done a great job improving his hands. Those were the biggest question marks coming out of Bama, and it appears those questions remain.

http://espn.go.com/blog/nfcsouth/post/_ ... ped-passes

Falcons lead league in dropped passes
October, 17, 2012
7:49 AM ET
By Pat Yasinskas | ESPN.com

The Atlanta Falcons have the best record (6-0) in the NFL, but they’re also leading the league in a dubious category.

The Falcons have dropped a league-high 16 passes, according to ESPN Stats & Information. They were tied for the league lead with the Saints at 15 last week, but New Orleans had a bye. The Saints are still No. 2 with 15 team drops.

The Buccaneers are tied for No. 20 with nine drops and the Panthers are tied for No. 27 with six drops.

Julio Jones has been Atlanta’s biggest offender. He’s tied for No. 2 in the league with five drops. Tampa Bay running back Doug Martin is one of those players tied with Jones.

New Orleans’ Marques Colston and Jimmy Graham are among a group of players tied for No. 6 with four drops each.

On the positive side, Tampa Bay’s Vincent Jackson and New Orleans’ Devery Henderson are among a group of 25 players with a 100-percent catch rate (no drops) and Atlanta’s Roddy White, who led the league in drops last year is right behind them at 97.4 percent. White has dropped only one pass while being targeted 51 times and coming up with 37 catches.

Both Jones and Gonzo have dropped a lot more than I expected them to this year. Gonzo dropping passes is unthinkable... But it's happening.

Yet Gonzalez is having one of the best seasons of his career. Big deal of this stat, the guys are still producing.

When you pass as much as we do you are going to have more drops but, yeah, that was one of the knocks on JJ coming out of school. Turner has got to be up there somewhere but his percentage of catches might be below 50%. Good on Roddy for cleaning that up. In his first year or so here RW dropped a lot of crucial passes. JJ has dropped potential game winning passes and others that a big time WR just has to make. He is making Ryan's "bomb numbers" look worse than they are. He has been a bit quiet the last couple of weeks but the Chiefs game demonstrates that he has to be dealt with and so teams are likely doing this and opening it up for Gonzo and RW. Somewhere Green in Cinncy and JJ were compared to Rice and TO (minus bagggage) respectively. I think that is a pretty good comparison.

We also lead league in least penalties, rank well in winning the turnover battle;
and have done very good in the red zone.... A dropped pass is not as bad as a holding call that brings back a touchdown!! Or so it seems.......

Seems like we give up a lot of yards with pissed tackles; or missed tackles.

The Julio trade gave this team an intangible of " striking fast" no matter how bad you
hated the trade....... If we had a running back; this offense might even have some swagger!!

Trading Lofton was our worst off season move!!

It is really odd to me that our running game has become so suspect when you consider we are lighting it up in the passing game. By all rights, we should have them "back on their heels." On obvious run downs such as on the six inch yard line this won't help quite as much but at other times it should. This is going to be a real Achilles Heel for this team as the season progresses and you really have to wonder if it is "fixable" given the components we have to work with and the fact that it was becoming an issuse last year as well...esp in playoffs.

I'm not sure if the "intangible" of the big play is better than the "tangible" of the big play. But here's something that I'm sure many people will find interesting...

In 2010, in terms of big plays (20+ yarders) in the passing game, the Falcons were dead last in the league. In 2011, the addition of Julio Jones bumped them up to 18th in the league. Now in 2012, guess where they rank? 28th.

This year's offense doesn't really have the quick strike capability. Last year, they were just average as far as that went. This year, they are among the dregs of the league once again. And developing that ability will greatly increase our chances of success going forward.

The idea that Julio's presence has greatly enhanced this offense's ability to generate big plays appears exaggerated/overrated. Last year, this passing attack was as explosive as teams like Washington (16th), Cincinnati (17th), Chicago (19th), and San Francisco (20th), teams that few would really call "explosive/scary" passing attacks. Interesting enough is that WAS & CHI both now rank in the Top 5, SF has moved up to 11th and CIN is about the same at #20.

But you're right, I do think that "intangible" quality makes teams more fearful of our offense than most. But at a certain point, when push comes to shove, intangibles don't win playoff games. This team has to develop the "tangible" ability to generate big plays. Like I've said the past few weeks, the success of this team later this year IMHO is going to rest on the offense's ability to carry the team. And they can only do that if they can challenge opposing defenses and dictate them to play us a certain way. We haven't done that in recent games, and we need to get back to doing it. And if we don't see that over the next 4 games, then I think the glory that is supposed to be the 2012 may never truly come to fruition.

No doubt if guys don't get open for one long pass a game; teams won't forget about Julio but they'll really start wanting us to beat them with the pass if possible. They know we can't beat them with the run.

Cyril Wrote from another thread

Yes I want to be clear that I don't expect glory in 2012. A much better team than I thought at the end of preseason; but our defense will not stand up for 16 games IMO. Oakland, Washington, & Denver, could have all beat us. Most of these teams are average at best, but I really think this team is better than last year's.

Agree it's an improvement over last year's team because this team has an identity. Last year's team wanted to be a physical smash mouth team that could sell throw with the best of them. They thought at made them balanced, but they weren't because the ground game was lackluster at best, and the OC didn't know how to properly run a pass-first offense that didn't have a steady ground game.

This year's team is wiser and frankly doesn't even care about running the ball because they know they can't. Although having something of a running game is likely going to be critical to trying to win at least one playoff game. It's hard to see a team as one-dimensional as we are offensively winning the 2 or 3 games required to wind up playing in February.

I'm just not sure if this team is improved over the 2010 team which is a major reason why I'm critical of Dimitroff.