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@Sponge

Us and the mustard beer..... probably

Sad, but I ride every day and I'd much rather die out on my bike doing something I love than waste away in a hospital or nursing home. I bet he felt the same way. Much sympathy to his family though for sure.

10 years ago today, I stepped on the field at the Georgia Dome as an employee and no longer a season ticket holder. I’ll be starting my 11th season a month from today. What a great decade it’s been.

And Julio is the king of crossing routes

https://theathletic.com/1994663/2020/08/13/falcons-focused-on-their-responsibilities-on-and-off-the-field-during-pandemic/ A small chuckle escaped from behind Grady Jarrett’s mask during his first media availability last week. He was asked what his plans were to build a bubble around himself during training camp as the Falcons — and the rest of the NFL — get back to work on the field. There seems to be merit in what leagues like the NBA are doing amid the pandemic, enacting a bubble of sorts around the league and strictly monitoring who is allowed in and out of that bubble. The NFL doesn’t have that luxury. So, the responsibility falls to each player to put a bubble around himself as training camp gets underway. It was a noted responsibility that Dan Quinn spoke about when he opened training camp last week. He said he was on a video call earlier that day with the rookies, and he called on them to be “the best teammate they’ve ever been.” “Because we’re not only trying to take care of one another, but we’re looking after your families, too,” Quinn said. “We’ve got to make the best decisions off the field.” When Jarrett was about taking individual responsibility to not see anyone outside of practices, his answer was a little different than Quinn’s. Again, Jarrett chuckled. “I might be by myself most of the time anyways, so it’s not going to be big for me. I’m kind of enjoying it,” he said as another chuckle escaped. “It gives me another excuse to say I can’t go out or do anything if I’m invited somewhere, so I’m enjoying it, and I think it might even help me be a better player.” Finally, being an introvert is starting to pay off. And as the week moved on and a new one began, more Falcons players expressed similar sentiments, joking that they don’t see anyone anyway so nothing has really changed. By the time Julio Jones took to the Microsoft Teams airwaves Thursday, he was singing the same tune. “There was really nothing out of the ordinary for me because I work out by myself, and I kind of just do my job,” Jones said. “… For myself, I go home to the same people. I’m away from everybody. “I’m here to just do my job.” Asked about his thoughts regarding what is happening in college football, Jones said he gets it. He’s a professional. The players around him at training camp are, too. They’re taking on the responsibility that was assigned to them, but Jones said he sees how complying with the same rules is much more difficult for college student-athletes. They have classes to go to and dining halls to eat in. Many of them are in college towns surrounded by thousands of other students their age. When they go home, they likely are not going home to their families. Their “home” is a dorm room or an apartment complex. “Especially kids, when you are 18, 19 years old, it’s hard to be away from this person, be away from that person,” Jones said. “Here, we have our families that we can go home to and make sure everybody is staying with the same people, whereas when you are in college you don’t know where somebody is going. It’s too much of a risk, and the team is way, way bigger as far as on a college level than an NFL level.” On Wednesday, Quinn was asked about the ripple effects the cancellation of certain college conferences’ seasons would have on the NFL as it moves toward another draft year. First and foremost, Quinn said, his heart went out to those players and coaches who had been putting in the work since getting the go-ahead to practice again. “I really thought about the players,” Quinn said. “They’re going to need their coaches’ help more than they ever have.” But when asked about the effect on the NFL, Quinn said he just doesn’t know. There are too many hypotheticals. And, really, the here and now for the Falcons’ 2020 season has enough trouble on its own. That brings us to the second week of training camp. Strength-and-conditioning periods have now morphed into full practice time. Helmets are on, and there are many evaluations the coaching staff has to make during the next few weeks without any preseason games to go off of before Week 1. Quinn said it will be up to the staff to create competitive, unscripted moments in practices to replace the live reps players would have had in preseason games. But how significant are those preseason games in getting ready to play in September? Veterans are split on the question. Matt Ryan said, there are positives and negative drawbacks to this unique preseason, but because the Falcons have so much continuity from last year to this year, he said he doesn’t see it as a big issue. Plus, they’ve done this before. “We all did this in college,” Ryan said. “(We) got ourselves ready for the season and went out and played Week 1 without any preseason games, so we’ll be all right. We will get ourselves ready, and I think Dan has a really good plan, too, to try and mimic some of what we would normally do during the preseason.” He did add, however, that he likes having preseason games. They help knock the rust off, he said. When asked about the effect this could have on the new players coming in, Foye Oluokun looked back at his own journey as the 200th pick in the 2018 draft. If these unprecedented circumstances had happened during his rookie year, he said, it would have been “difficult” to come in and stand out right away. “I definitely felt for them, especially those undrafted free agents because I view myself as an undrafted free agent just coming out of a small school, and I don’t know how much film they really watched on me, so everything I did I had to prove to them,” Oluokun said. “But I had from April (to show what I could do). I was drafted on April 28th, something like that, and as soon as I got drafted it was maybe a week, and I was back in this facility doing rookie training camp. So, going through the circumstances they do now, they weren’t able to get as many eyes on them, so every little thing they do is important because one thing that I realized early was that everything you do is evaluated as a rookie or even as a vet. They’re always watching you.” That evaluation process, if possible, only intensifies as the preseason morphs into player-vs.-player dynamics, instead of Falcons-vs.-opponent games. Jones brings it full circle. When asked about creating a bubble around himself, he said it clearly: He has a job to do, and not seeing anyone outside of his own family is a part of that job. The same can be said for his feelings about preseason games. While he didn’t have any injuries to work through this offseason, he said he’s ready to play whenever. “I’m conditioned for this, helmet on or helmet off,” Jones said. “I can go out there and play that first game without practice or anything. I can do it. It doesn’t matter. You have to be a professional at the end of the day.” A professional with introverted tendencies, perhaps, but a professional nonetheless.

Aligator vs House Cat.

Only gonna explain this once:

1st half of season it was a combination of both....bad secondary play and pass rush (I would throw in bad LBer play as well).....which comes back to bad scheme with players playing confused and out of position .....which all comes back to bad coaching. Say what you want about Trufant, Allen, Debo, Kazee, Beasley, Grady, Takk et al....they aren’t bad players, yet overall looked like bad players during that 1-7 start. Same for 2018 as well. Coaching matters.

What about bringing in Clay Matthews... not as an every down player, but rather as a dedicated pass rusher?

The NFL's cross to bear: How NFL offenses are getting receivers open against the modern defense Dec 21, 2019; Santa Clara, California, USA; San Francisco 49ers tight end George Kittle (85) celebrates after catching a touchdown pass against the Los Angeles Rams in the fourth quarter at Levi's Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports By Seth Galina Aug 11, 2020 Following the success of the Legion of Boom in the early 2010s, football organizations have tripped over themselves trying to get a piece of the Seattle Seahawks‘ single-high safety pie. And even though PFF only has coverage data dating back to 2015, we can still see that the NFL is firmly entrenched as a one-high league — 60% of all passing snaps over the past six seasons have come against single-high defensive looks. With the prevalence of these single-safety looks, offenses have come to adjust their routes and concepts to defeat these coverages. And one route family that has seen its target rate slowly but steadily rise is the deep crossing, or over, route: This route starts on one side of the field and, in a perfect world, makes its way to the opposite sideline about 18-22 yards downfield. The ball is usually thrown before the receiver hits the sideline, however. Because the route crosses the field, it can be a winner against either man or zone coverage. Against zone coverage, it can get lost behind the heads of the linebackers and in front of the safeties who are in backpedal mode. And the linebacker or down-safety who ends up being the zone defender to where the route ends up will often not be cognizant of a receiver who was lined up on the opposite side of the formation. Against man coverage — and often against outside leverage by the coverage player — the receiver can get on his horse and have time to run away from the defender. Both one- and two-high coverages have their versions of zone and man coverages, but the reason why the deep crossing routes work best against single-high defenses, whether they be zone or man, is directly correlated to the play of the safeties — 76% of all deep crossing routes are thrown against one-high defenses. That’s a hefty amount. The safety dichotomy is the major player here, and we can see that defenses have a ready-made plan for taking away this route in two-high. With a safety on either side of the NFL hash marks, the opposite-side safety is in a perfect position to drive down on the crosser: The safety already has leverage against where the route is going. The half-field safety can therefore play a little more flat-footed and doesn’t have to force himself to get too deep because he’s insulated by both the other safety and the cornerback to his side. Of course, in this example, it would have helped if they took the blindfold off Andy Dalton before he took the snap. The single-high safety has no choice but to dive deep into the middle of the field as the lone centerfielder, allowing the crosser to run underneath him. Offenses have developed a few different concepts that they’ll use to protect this valuable route. Mostly found at the college level, there's the Y-Cross: This allows the quarterback to work the frontside combinations before resetting his feet to find the crossing route. It’s become a staple of many Air Raid teams, and it can usually be found wherever Chip Kelly resides. The NFL has gone a step further and protects the crossing route with a post route from the opposite side, and this is the way most teams are trying to get the crosser open. The vertical route has a specific reason for being tagged into the play based on how defenses are saving themselves from being completely engulfed by a crossing route. The response from single-high safety teams is to have someone, be it the safety or the cornerback, jump on the crossing route and pass the deep vertical route off to another player. If the cornerback sees the crossing route coming into his vision as he’s carrying the vertical route from the receiver lined up in front of him, he can pass his route to the safety who is already in an inside alignment to take away a post route. The safety could also take away the crossing route by jumping down on the route. This forces the backside cornerback to pick up the slack and hustle over the top of the deep vertical route from the opposite side. The New Orleans Saints made a nice play here on this concept against Carson Wentz in 2018: The offenses from the old Mike Shanahan tree try to free their crossing route with a corner route instead of a post, and they’ll use it off play action. Overall, 54% of all deep crossers were thrown after play action in 2019 — and 55% of them were thrown off play action over the last six seasons — but that number is 81% with the San Francisco 49ers, 71% with the Los Angeles Rams, 62% with the Tennessee Titans and 83% with the Minnesota Vikings. All those teams run a very similar offensive system. The corner route doesn’t allow the cornerback to come off that route to attack the crossing route, and the play action forces the linebackers to step up and honor the run, thereby giving more room for the crosser. They will also cut down the split of the receiver running the crossing route so he can get across the single-high safety’s face quicker and prevent him from jumping down on the route. A nifty concept that pro teams have dabbled in recently is sending two vertical routes opposite the crossing route. This doesn’t allow the cornerback or the safety — whether it’s a single-high safety or a half-field safety — to come off their own routes and attack the crossing route. The best receivers in the league make up the list of receivers with the most “open” and “wide open” deep-crossing catches. Julian Edelman, DeAndre Hopkins, Julio Jones, Keenan Allen and Travis Kelce make up the top five. The mechanics of the route change depending on the use of play action and whether it goes up against man or zone coverage. Here, Edelman lulls his defender to sleep because of his crafty route-running and the added time benefit of play action: And as Hopkins gets into his route below, he feels it’s man coverage but the defender is off by a few yards. With the separation already in hand, he breaks quickly and flatly to the sideline to speed away from cornerback Jalen Ramsey. Against tighter man coverage, setting the defender up by staying vertical as long as possible helps. Watch Edelman in the slot: Another move to get free versus man coverage is the stair step. Instead of a few vertical steps, it’s just a quick shake upwards before coming back at the angle needed to get across the field. Justin Jefferson shows us how it works, even though he probably didn’t need to use it on this particular play: Against zone, which is when most deep crossing routes are thrown — 55% of them have been thrown against zone over the last six seasons — you would ideally have your player continuing to gain ground as he comes across the field to get away from the backs of the linebackers. We can see Hopkins do this here: A closer look: With more teams going to the Shanahan-style wide-zone offense, we could see the popularity of these routes skyrocket in the coming years until the inevitable shift to a Quarters (two-high) landscape will cause another change in the offense vs. defense dynamic.

Yeah it’s hard to disagree with this actually. Socially engineered short attention spans, that’s us.

got this garbage today. just aboit choked on my lemon berry slush when i read it

Let's go extension cord! (YouTube please stop deleting all the good squibilles clips you cowards)

You may not like hearing it, but the secondary did it’s job and we had no problem sacking the QB during the 6-2 stretch. Its not rocket science as you say. All that said, you have to have at least an average rush or it won’t matter. Even the Rams have had terrible defenses despite having Donald.

Kaleb McGary was one of Mudd’s last protoge’s. Hope you have a big year in his honor, KM Howard Mudd tutored Washington OT Kaleb McGary

He’s **** near giving Donald a run statistically speaking, so he’s Hopkins to Donald’s Julio. Atkins wishes he was as good as Grady.

Well, with no pre-season games.....In some form or fashion, everybody’s “limited” this camp.

Tragic I wouldn't prefer a 78 year old to be riding a motorcycle, but at least he did what he loved to do.

And I wouldn't give 2 ****s...most of the Pat's wins already have those next to em. I just want one no matter how we get it.

is it weird that i can't wait to indoctrinate my kids with unadulterated marxism from the moment they can speak?

Makes sense. Mack-age, Gurley-arthritic knee, Neal- recovering from last year’s injury. I don’t think this involves anything we didn’t already know.

And now I can’t unsee this!!!!

Brees and Brady fall off the cliff together.

lol

If there’s a strategy like that it’s one thing. A perfectly acceptable thing. I’ve played with too many people who just sucked and didn’t know how to use any kind of strategy You can learn a lot about people from playing spades with them lol

I love stouts and I like experimental beer but I don't think I'll be buying an actual oyster stout, this one was just a brewery name I'm pretty sure. Tastes like Georgia Brown Not a clam chowder fan

Gotta stay healthy plus the aints and Brady for real too bro

I can’t stand playing with people who always bet low! Like ***** get your books right 😤

Pete Carroll fires back at Greg Williams...lol. This will be entertaining

Mayonnaise based bbq should be thrown into the sun. I once thought I was about to have some banging *** bbq and that **** was white and I was livid

The new uniforms are way better then what they had from 2003 -2019

I did see that. I am going to break my promise to myself and hold my nose to vote against Trump, but I have so many problems with this ticket I won’t even argue with anyone who refuses to vote or refuses to vote for them. The Dems made their own bed here, they have to sleep in it. Trying to shame people into voting for Biden/Harris (or Trump for that matter) honestly makes me despise the person. As far as legalization goes, thankfully the mentality of opposing it is quite literally dying off. It’s absurd how many lives have been ruined by the government over marijuana. It’s far less dangerous than alcohol and far more beneficial in many ways. That’s a big issue to me. It has quite literally changed my life. I no longer have the persistent crushing anxiety I dealt with for years. And I feel like I can actually go make something more of myself again.

This really is no surprise, it happens with vets in every camp. Julio will be limited at some point as well just like the past few seasons. Id rather they take it slow than push them too hard in TC.

How is this news? Mack was limited last TC and also during the season. He and Julio get vet days off - as they should. Everyone already knew Gurley and Neal would be limited in some fashion.

CINOs randomly heard an atheist talk about the book of Judas and I was intrigued and freaked out. You heard or read that book @JDaveG?

Weeks 1-8 had nothing to do with Vic's lack of showing up

The cute part of all that Nut is you seriously believing 3.5 YPC is something good.....

Wow. Brian Hill. What a Steel trap you have, V

He needs to lose his log in rights

@PeytonMannings Forehead as Offensive coordinator.

I’m assuming it was menstrual.

Is this a falcon training camp thread?

I watched The Reverent tonight. Holy crap... If you ever though you were having a bad day, you should check that **** out for some perspective. I don't really keep up with awards, but if Leo didn't win a few for that performance, it's just shameful. Props to the director & cinematographer, too.