The Tampa Bay Bucs are going to be an interesting team to watch in 2013. Josh Freeman is entering the final year of his contract, and recently it was reported that the Bucs wouldn’t mind seeing rookie Mike Glennon get an opportunity.

How Josh Freeman handles this sort of adversity could impact the next five years of that franchise. I think Freeman is a talented quarterback, but I’ve never thought he had the intangibles to be a top-level starter. I liked Mike Glennon a lot, as he was the highest-rated quarterback in this draft class for me.

But I don’t think Glennon will really work as a rookie starter. The main issues I had with Glennon was that he wasn’t particularly mobile, nor does he have the intangibles that I think he could flourish as a rookie starter. In Dan Pompei’s piece linked to above, they make the comparison to Joe Flacco.

I do think that fits somewhat. You may or may not be surprised to discover that I don’t think Flacco possesses ideal intangibles. Flacco is a player that I think has benefited greatly from being on the right team. In Baltimore, he became a rookie starter because of injuries to Troy Smith and Kyle Boller. He made the most of that opportunity. But I think it helped greatly how much of the Ravens were a run-first, defensive-minded team that already had a leader in Ray Lewis. Flacco essentially never really had to assert himself as the guy up to this point. Moving forward with Lewis and others gone, and fresh off a Super Bowl he will now.

I think that’s why I’ll likely always consider Matt Ryan to be a better overall quarterback than Flacco. I know Flacco has better physical tools, and he’ll make throws look easy that Ryan will never be able to make in a million years. And for that, there are those that will consider him the better player. But I think given what Ryan has had to be in Atlanta from the very beginning, a stabilizing force, that makes him the better overall player. I just believe that if you had put Ryan in Baltimore in 2008, you’d likely to get the same if not better results. If you had put Flacco in Atlanta, I don’t think he would have had the same success. Flacco reached a level the past two years (running no huddle) that Ryan was doing Day One.

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I’m not sure if this is my final takeaway from the Falcons 2013 draft, but I the more I look at it, the more I like it. At least if judging on this lone criteria, that being that the Falcons targeted athletes.

My main takeaway from the Falcons loss against the 49ers this past January was that the 49ers were clearly a better team. I had been hopeful that the Falcons could get off to a fast start which could negate that somewhat. Because I knew that over the course of four quarters, the 49ers were just a better team, with more athletes that could dominate the game physically in the trenches as well as at the offensive skill positions.

So when I look at the 2013 draft, I see the Falcons appearing to be targeting more athletes than normal. Players like Robert Alford, Malliciah Goodman, and Levine Toilolo really epitomize that in that all three I would consider players with a lot more athletic upside than polish as of today. One could label all three projects, which is something the Falcons haven’t seemed to target in their previous five drafts under Thomas Dimitroff.

I don’t think those three players or any of the Falcons rookies this year really would slant things in the Falcons favor if they were to meet the 49ers again, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Which leads me to my next point, which is what are the expectations for the Falcons 2013 season. I know there are many within the fanbase that expect the Falcons to get over the hump and into the Super Bowl in 2014. You won’t count me among them.

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This weekend the Falcons conducted their first rookie mini-cap. Forty-eight players participated, including 24 undrafted free agents that signed contracts with the team and 17 that did not and are only in Flowery Branch for a tryout. There’s also the six 2012 rookies that were carried on last year’s practice squad and Brian Banks.

It’s going to be interesting to see if any of the tryout players earn a spot. I expect at least one will. Last season, three players were signed following their tryout. I have not seen really any of them, but I did like a bit of what I saw of Marcus Sales in a few Syracuse games I watched.

The site has grown fairly quiet since the draft, and I apologize. I have been traveling heavily for my job, and just don’t spend as much time maintaining the site on the road. That travel should end after this upcoming week, and I fully intend on making up for it. I still am going to post scouting reports on the six remaining Falcons draft picks. You can also expect several new podcast episodes in the coming weeks, hopefully to stem the “doldrums” that exist in the NFL calendar between the draft and the openings of training camps.

I also intend to write several articles looking at many of the up and coming young players on the Falcons roster, as well as veteran players that could play key roles in 2013.

As for the remainder of this column, I will in fact use it to give some of my own takeaways and commentary on many of last week’s NFL events and revelations.

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The Jaguars reportedly used advanced statistics to help them with their decision to select an offensive tackle with their top pick in the 2013 NFL Draft. I think it’s a promising revelation for the league going forward. Advanced statistics are relatively in their infancy as far as the NFL is concerned in comparison to baseball (which is approaching middle age) and basketball (adolescence). But as the years progress and the techniques evolve, I think we’ll see advanced stats become more commonplace on the professional football landscape. Maybe we will reach a point, where we could effectively calculate the “PER” of a left guard. PER refers to Player Efficiency Rating, which is supposedly the all-in-one stat for basketball.

I don’t think advanced stats will ever reach the point they do in baseball and basketball. Football features 11 players, and it’s very difficult to calculate how each one of those players relate to one another. It’s much easier to calculate the efficiency of units rather than individuals.

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The 2013 NFL Draft was held this past weekend, and as usual it was an intriguing affair. I told my brother, who did not watch one minute of the draft mainly because his wife detests football, that this year’s draft was much like recent NBA Drafts meaning that in future years the 2013 draft class won’t be particularly memorable with its star appeal. Not to say this draft won’t produce good or even great NFL players, because every draft does, at least everyone that I can recall. But as we often heard over the weekend, this was a draft in which the linemen were front and center. Try as they might, ESPN and NFL Network did their best to insert as much “star appeal” as possible by spending as much time as possible talking about this quarterback class and Manti Te’o.

The media desperately wanted to talk about those players, but ultimately I think the quarterbacks and Te’o will be largely forgotten in the NFL. Ultimately the best you’re going to hope from the group of quarterbacks drafted this year is that they produce a Matt Schaub or David Garrard-caliber passer. They may be competent to good starter, but the only time they’ll be really discussed by the media by and large is to talk about how they aren’t great.

Also, it’s not that I doubt Te’o will be a good NFL player, it’s just that his infamous catfishing incident may ultimately eclipse his NFL career. I think Te’o probably winds up playing a decade in the NFL, most of it as a starter. But I think he winds up being comparable to players like Curtis Lofton or Lofa Tatupu, capable starters that their respective team likes, but are rarely mentioned among the best in the league.

I know it’s unrealistic to think that I could turn on league’s flagship channel or the Worldwide Leader in Sports, and expect them to spend hours talking about the greatness of Luke Joeckel, Eric Fisher, Dion Jordan, or any of the players at “blue collar” positions. But there were really good players in this draft and none them played quarterback or middle linebacker for Notre Dame, but you wouldn’t know that from watching the television coverage as they never went more than fifteen minutes without mentioning one of those lesser players.

My final comments on the draft before I start to discuss the Falcons picks specifically is that I do think it’s interesting that quarterbacks did not get pushed up the board. I talked about that in an earlier column this off-season. And at that time, it was difficult to fathom that there wouldn’t be any Top 10 selections at the quarterback position. I compared it to the 2011 class, where a number of lesser prospects went high in the draft and ultimately none of those teams are better for it. I still think the passers did get pushed up the board, but not as far as they normally do. So I tip my hat to NFL teams for not reaching too far on subpar passers. We’ll see if this trend continues next April.

But onto the Falcons…

I liked the Falcons draft. It’s not very sexy, nor is it one that I think people will look back and say made a huge impact on the team. But it’s a solid group of players. I think moreso than in recent drafts, the Falcons seemed more intent on looking at players that had higher ceilings. I think a hallmark of some of the Falcons post-2008 drafts has been targetting players with high floors, but relatively low ceilings. I think the opposite happened this year.

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Last week, I promised that I would go over the Falcons Day 3 draft plans. But of course news and rumors picked up steam that the Falcons were planning on moving up via trade in the draft. I do think the two issues are somewhat related, which I will delve into later. But for now, let’s talk about the Falcons potential third day draft possibilities.

The meat of the Falcons draft lies on the third day of the draft, where rounds four through seven will be selected. The Falcons hold eight of their eleven total picks during this stretch of the draft. The third day of the draft is typically where teams try to build their depth. A few players will emerge as starters, but they are few and far between.

Using previously discussed draft grades, only 14 of the 153 players selected in the final four rounds in 2008 earned C grades or higher (i.e. became solid starters after five seasons). That number is 22 out of 156 players from the 2007 class. In 2008, five of those 14 starters were fourth rounders, while that number was 12 in 2007.

Because the Falcons draft for need, they are going to lean towards targeting players that have a high probability of making the roster. Basically operating under a simple principle that there’s no way you can help the team if you don’t make it. So to determine what areas and positions the Falcons might target on the third day of the draft, you have to take a closer look at the team’s current roster. Here’s a quick breakdown position by position, with the number in parentheses indicating the current number of players at the position that have a strong probability of making the final roster:
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It’s now less than two weeks until the 2013 NFL Draft kicks off on Thursday night, April 25. In past years I would have for the top prospects in the draft. I have not done that this year. My job had me traveling a lot in the fall, so I didn’t watch as much college football as normal. Once the winter hit, and now that we’ve rolled into spring, I have a lesser workload but not by a huge margin. And since I typically do a poor job managing my time anyway, I did not get to make up for lost time as much as I would have liked.

So this year, there aren’t going to be many scouting reports on draft prospects. At least not before the draft. After the draft, I intend fully to dive into breaking down the players that the Falcons draft. Although again, because my workload is likely to be hectic that might take a month or so especially if the Falcons wind up making eleven picks.

But I do hope that in the next ten days that I will put a few scouting reports online of some of the players that the Falcons are potentially targeting in the early rounds of the draft. I really want to look at some cornerbacks as well as some pass rushers because I feel that these are the most likely players the Falcons will come away with in Round One.

We have five years of drafts under Thomas Dimitroff to gauge in order to try and guess who the Falcons are taking with their top pick this year. Frankly, that’s all it really is: educated guessing, because none of the many bloggers around the interweb that cover the Falcons really know what is going to happen.

To be honest, I’m not very good with guessing who the Falcons will take with their top pick. In 2008, I was split on Glenn Dorsey and Matt Ryan. That was understandable to a degree because it was Dimitroff and Mike Smith’s first draft, and their tendencies were unknown. In hindsight, it’s obvious why they ultimately chose Ryan but at the time it seemed like a toss-up. Mike Smith was a defensive coach, and Dorsey was widely hailed as the best interior pass rusher since Warren Sapp. And many weren’t high on Ryan. I can proudly thump my chest, and say I wasn’t one of them. I wrote this about Ryan in that 2008 draft guide:
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They say you can’t judge a draft until after three years. I would generally agree with that statement. It’s unfair to judge a draft until at least three seasons have gone by. But I really think you have to wait five years before it’s really an accurate judgment.

By that point, most if not all of a team’s original picks have finished their rookie contracts and hit free agency. And you can really determine the strength of a draft based on how many players lasted long enough to hit free agency, and how many of them managed to earn second contracts.

For grading drafts, I have come up with a fairly simple grading system that after five seasons assigns a grade of A, B, C, D, or F to every player drafted. I’ve added examples from the 2008 class.

A – An elite or near elite player. Mike Lombardi would call these “blue chip” players. For quarterbacks, it’s modified to players that are good franchise quarterbacks. Example: Matt Ryan, Ray Rice.

B – Mike Lombardi would call these “red chip” players. They are universally considered among the better players at their position and definite impact players. They are typically among the best players on their respective teams, and would be considered so on any team. Examples: Chris Long, Jamaal Charles.

C – Solid starters. Guys that are fairly entrenched as starters and could start on a significant percentage of NFL teams. Examples: Sam Baker, Cliff Avril.

D – Backups or low-level starters. They are role players or may be starters, but are widely considered to be very underwhelming starters: Examples: Felix Jones, Early Doucet.

F – These are players that are out of the league. Examples: Kentwan Balmer, Chevis Jackson

I try not to overemphasize their most recent performances, trying to look at a player’s five-year career as a hole.

So far I’ve looked at the 2007 and 2008 draft classes, looking at where they were at the end of 2011 and 2012 seasons, respectively. After this upcoming season we should be able to judge the 2009 class. Here’s how they stack up with number of players with each grade.

Grade	2007	2008	2009
A	5	6	1
B	10	10	9
C	46	40	55
D	80	90	108
F	114	106	83

It’ll be interesting to look at what the 2009 draft looks like after this season when we reach the five-year deadline. But it’s interesting that the 2007 and 2008 have very similar numbers. That simply could be a coincidence, but if we see the 2009 draft shift towards similar numbers, it would be hard to argue that is still merely a coincidence. And we could start to assume that in general drafts produce roughly the same amount of talent. What differs is not the overall talent brought into the league, but which teams do the best jobs finding that talent.

You could use this rating system to assign a Grade Point Average per team to judge how well they drafted by assigning four points for an A, three for a B, etc. For 2008, the Saints wound up with the highest GPA, averaging 1.50 points per pick. Carl Nicks was their A-level player, and Sedrick Ellis and Tracy Porter were C-level players. DeMario Pressley gave them credit for a D-level player as he was on injured reserve with the Bears this past year. Taylor Mehlhaff and Adrian Arrington were Fs. What’s interesting is that none of those players (assuming Ellis is not re-signed) are currently with the Saints.

If you’re curious to how the Falcons 2008 draft graded out, it placed 7th with a GPA of 1.18 points. Jacksonville had the worst draft with a GPA of 0.20. The only player that did not receive a F grade among the Jaguars five picks that year was Quentin Groves, who was a backup with the Cardinals last year before signing with the Browns last month. Read more…

Brent Grimes is gone. Falcon fans should lament, although I’ve seen quite a few that are not. Are the Falcons defense doomed without Grimes? No. But they will miss him. How much remains to be seen. It seems very likely that cornerback will be one of the team’s top two picks in this year’s draft.

Will that mean that the Falcons won’t sign another player between now and then to help them at cornerback? No. I think it is possible, although I’m not sure I’d say it’s a likelihood. What is a likelihood is that the Falcons will let the market come to them. We haven’t received the details of Osi Umenyiora’s contract yet. But it was reported that $5 million of his deal was guaranteed, and according to other reports that encompassed his first-year salary. Given the way that the Falcons usually negotiate their contracts, it’s likely that guaranteed money includes his first-year base salary as well as an initial signing bonus. How that breaks up is unknown, but more than likely it will result in a cap hit in 2013 that is between $3 and $4 million. Regardless of where it falls on that spectrum, it means that the Falcons cap situation is relatively tight. I’ve calculated that if the Falcons don’t trade any of their picks, they will need roughly $5.65 million to sign all of them. From the cap numbers I have, if Umenyiora’s 2013 cap hit is $3.5 million, that gives the Falcons roughly $3.5 million in cap space for the season. Not enough to sign the rookies.

Now after the draft the Falcons will almost certainly get to work on extending Matt Ryan’s contract. When that deal is done, that should give the team at least $5-6 million in cap space, giving them them enough to sign their rookies and also have some room left over as insurance in the event of injuries. But in the mean time, the Falcons will likely be frugal with their spending. And that will likely result in the Falcons letting the cornerback market come to them. They probably won’t make huge efforts to pursue any free agent corners between now and the draft. But if some come to them at the right terms, then I believe we should see the Falcons add a veteran stopgap at cornerback before the draft. The right terms likely will be a one-year, veteran minimum deal that will include a very modest signing bonus (less than $100,000). If a veteran corner is willing to accept such terms, then he may be a Falcon. If not, then the Falcons will be content to try and answer their problems at the position solely via the draft.

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Reports on Saturday indicated that the Falcons signing Osi Umenyiora was very imminent. Not sure if by the time this posts Monday morning if that deal will be official, but given the sources (Pro Football Talk and Adam Schefter), I trust them.

I don’t have a problem with that move. The problem with the move is that it is at best a lateral move for a team that struggled with their pass rush throughout 2012. It’s a toss-up between the lack of pass rush and the run defense as to what was the Achilles heel of the Falcons defense last year. At least for the run defense, there were some strong performances down the stretch. Not sure, if I can say the same for the pass rush.

I don’t think Osi is better than John Abraham, but the dropoff is not huge. If you asked me who I would rather have for one season, my answer is definitely Abraham. If you’re asking me who I would rather have for three seasons, then I’d probably choose Osi just because he is a few years younger. But I definitely don’t think Osi is going to be as good or better than Abraham is at age 34.

This is why I think adding pass rush help will remain a priority for the Falcons going into the draft. I think there is a strong possibility that the Falcons will use their top pick to help there.

Once Osi signs, the focus will shift firmly to cornerback as the Falcons top need. While I won’t say that the team won’t draft a corner with their top pick, there is still a lot of time left before the draft (31 days to be exact). There are just too many good veteran corners available, that I’d be surprised if the Falcons didn’t try and pursue one in that time span. It seems inevitable that Brent Grimes won’t be returning to the Falcons at this point, despite my overwhelming desires. So if not Grimes, then the Falcons still have options. Antoine Winfield is probably the best, but he’s 36 and at that age is really only a one-year stopgap. But Winfield would be a good player to pair with Asante Samuel for a season. Winfield still played at a high level last year, and is one of the league’s most consistent run-defending corners in the league. You could possibly make the argument that Winfield is one of the best run-support corners in the last twenty years. Terence Newman brings many of the physical traits to the table that Robinson did that had Falcons officials gushing over him three years ago. He was decent last year in Cincinnati, but it’s hard not to forget his struggles in Dallas the previous two years. Quentin Jammer is another corner with a reputation for physicality, but I’m not sure he can really run anymore, which is the same complaint about Nnamdi Asomugha. Rashean Mathis is a guy that Mike Smith is very familiar with, but he’s struggled with injuries the past two years, so may not be a reliable starter. There are other players such as DeAngelo Hall, Mike Jenkins, Kelvin Hayden, Marcus Trufant, Stanford Routt, Cedric Griffin, and Tracy Porter that will also potentially be in the mix. And I can’t forget about Charles Woodson either.

That’s just too many serviceable to good starters out there for the Falcons to stand pat at cornerback. Right now, there cornerback position consists of Samuel and Robert McClain, and that’s about it. Dominique Franks is on the roster bubble. He didn’t contribute anything as a returner last year, and has not contributed anything on special teams coverage, making his hold on a reserve spot tenuous at best. Backup defensive backs have to contribute on special teams, and Franks does not. So unless the Falcons really like Terrence Johnson and/or Peyton Thompson, you can be fairly confident that at least two significant additions will be made at the position. Probably one on the first two days of the draft, and likely one in free agency.

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My initial reaction to the moves the Falcons made this week weren’t overly positive. I thought the team overpaid Sam Baker and wasn’t a huge believer that running back Steven Jackson would help that much. After a few more days to mull it over, I’m singing a different tune about Jackson but still don’t love the Baker signing.

I believed re-signing Baker was the smart move for the Falcons. Baker is coming off his best season, and his solid performance in the NFC Championship Game proved that he was worth investing into. I just wish the Falcons had invested a little less. While Baker signed a six-year deal worth slightly more than $41 million with $18.25 million guaranteed, the deal really translates to be a three-year, $22.75 million contract. That is because after the third year, the contract is structured to a level where the team could potentially cut Baker. It’s not something I root for, but it’s hard to justify paying an offensive linemen $8.05 million (Baker’s 2016 cap hit) unless he’s a Pro Bowl player. Baker probably won’t be that due to his physical limitations: lack of strength and short arms. What we saw from him in 2012 is probably the best we can hope for and that wasn’t a Pro Bowl-caliber performance.

Baker got market value for his deal, as his three-year payout is comparable to those of Jermon Bushrod ($22.5 million) and William Beatty ($24 million). I didn’t think the Falcons made the right call when they gave Justin Blalock a six-year, $38 million deal following the lockout. Similarly, that was a market value at the time. I just wish the Falcons had only made a more modest two-year commitment to Baker. Blalock’s contract is structured similarly, and come 2015 he is set to count roughly $7.9 million against the Falcons cap. It will be hard to justify bringing a competent guard like Blalock back at that level unless he plays better in 2013 and 2014. It would have been a bit more congruous in my mind if both Baker and Blalock could have potentially been pushed out the door in the same year. I’ve never really thought the left side of the Falcons offensive line was a strength of theirs, and thus committing that sort of money to it doesn’t make great sense.

While I’m not sure Jackson is really going to be an impact runner as a lead back, I do think he will help the Falcons out as a situational back. The Falcons were terrible last year in short-yardage and goalline situations, and Jackson should be an upgrade there. He hits the hole a lot quicker and harder than Michael Turner did. The downside of Jackson is that he’s probably not going to be that valuable outside those situations. He can better help keep the Falcons offense on schedule by giving them far less 2nd & 8 situations that seemed to be the staple with Turner as the lead back. But he doesn’t quite have the skillset to make defenses pay for focusing too much of their attention on the Falcons receivers. He won’t generate big runs on the second level, which I believe could be extremely valuable for the Falcons offense as they continue to try and become more explosive. But if Jackson can be more effective at wearing down defenses between the tackles, that could open up greater opportunities for Jacquizz Rodgers as a change of pace runner. Quizz doesn’t possess great speed to run away from defenders, but his exceptional quickness can be dangerous when he gets outside. Jackson certainly will bring needed toughness to the Falcons offense.

Neither re-signing Baker nor adding Jackson were bad moves by any means, they just weren’t perfect.
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