robertap

Sorry to hear this news.

You know what I'd love to see... If we are able to get ourselves a lead, that we throw in some 3 TE sets... Load up the line to jam it down people's throats, then light people up with play action to Pitts or Hurst.

I went over to FalcFans for several of the post-Vick years. Kept Pudge, Emmit, and Cappy company over there.

Old timer checking in.

Because Dan Quinn was a softie. Remember, he was also the king of giving up 20 point leads. He had virtually no respect for rivalries. I don't have much good to say about Dan Quinn.

I think we'll end up with 4. That said, we might have a TE listed as FB on the roster, or vice-versa.

A little while back, I was asking a friend of mine why he hates Matt Ryan so much. He gave me the usual talking points, "can't throw deep," "can't win in the playoffs," "can't hit a runner in stride," "folds under pressure." So, I went through and, using stats, proved all of that wrong. When all was said and done, I asked again, "So all of that stuff that you said wasn't true, so what's the real reason." He said, "I don't know what it is, I just don't like the guy. No one could ever replace Vick." **** you not, those were his exact words. So, yeah... In some folks minds, Ryan could never do right because he wasn't Vick. They loved what Vick brought to the table, and Ryan is the polar opposite from that, despite Ryan having significantly more success. I'll take Ryan over Vick any day, and twice on Sunday.

I've never seen anyone with a negative comment karma on here before...

He also flipped off the fans, refused to play if he wasn't perfectly 100%, and his 2nd year was the best year of his career. (IE, he never developed.) If the dude had put in any effort, he could have been one of the best ever. Instead, he acted like a thug and fought dogs in his free time. Vick was an example of wasted talent, not someone who deserves any special recognition.

Agreed. It is a bit hypocritical. However, I do have an explanation. Circumstances were a bit different during the Roddy holdout. (social media wasn't as big when Roddy held out) When Julio held out, he distanced himself from the team, quitting the social media pages and such. He also skipped OTA's. In general, Jones has never really seemed to support the team. https://www.ajc.com/sports/football/julio-jones-skips-first-day-otas/uHvbUUvM1NoQEd0hWQzQAL/ https://brobible.com/sports/article/falcons-julio-jones-social-media/ Roddy also held out, but to my knowledge, he didn't really dis the team, he was just holding out for money. I certainly wasn't a fan of the move, but this was handled a bit differently from Jones' holdout. Roddy also had some additional issues, which should be considered: The "Free Mike Vick," shirt incident, (I was at that game) and his comments on the George Zimmerman trial. But frankly, I'm ok with both of those as I don't really have a problem with people expressing their opinions. ****, the t-shirt thing just shows how far he was willing to go to support the players. I didn't agree with his opinion regarding Vick, and I would have preferred that he expressed himself on a different platform, but it is what it is. But ultimately, the difference between Roddy and Jones is that Roddy has always supported the team and players. The thing is, he remains a big, outspoken personality that supports the team in a big, outspoken way.

For my, "Falcons Rushmore," I have a few stipulations. Memorable Career as a Falcon. Spent most of their meaningful years in Atlanta. Stand up teammate and human being . (As a player, didn't do or say anything that reflects poorly on the team or city) Tommy Nobis - Mr. Falcon. Jessie Tuggle - 14 seasons, all as a Falcon. Roddy White - Man seems to bleed Falcons red. Matt Ryan - He could still screw this up, but nothing in his character leads me to believe that he will. Honorable mention: Jeff Van Note, Mike Kenn, Steve Bartkowski, Claude Humphrey, William Andrews, and Gerald Riggs Some explanation is in order: Deion Sanders was the reason that I became a Falcons fan. But he didn't even spend half of his career in Atlanta. As much of a fan as I am of Sanders, I can't put him on Rushmore. Julio Jones is probably going to be the most controversial of my omissions... Julio, though he's lauded as being, "no drama," by the sports media world, has now had two major incidents where he and the team have publicly been at odds. Perhaps, 5-10 years from now, Julio will be talking about the Falcons in the same way that Deion does. Even then, however, who would I remove in favor of him?

Last year, the Falcons were 22 points away from being 10-6. We lost 6 games by a total of 16 points, and that was with Julio out for 7 games, and largely ineffective for another 3 games. Despite the coaching problems and injury problems, we were not too far off from being a respectable football team. That suggests that we have talent on the roster. Under Dan Quinn, we had a lot of player personnel issues. There was the obvious problem with Julio's holdout in 2018. We also had some players who had really bad attitudes along the way, who we eventually parted ways with. I don't know if this was a Quinn specific issue, or if it was part of a greater problem with the teams' ownership. It would seem that TF and AS take a no-nonsense approach to personnel decisions. We shall see how that approach works out for us. Smith seems to run a much better offensive scheme that Dirk Koetter ever has. If he is as good as his history suggests, he will improve upon our offense. Considering he is scheming with a top 5 QB, and an offensive line that had a lot of talent thrown at it in recent years, I could see the offense scoring 3-5 more points per game this season. If we manage to do that, we could easily be a 10 or 11 win team. I have no idea what to expect from our defense this year. Our defenses have sucked for the vast majority of the past 20 years, so I'm not counting on things to improve markedly. If they do, we could make a deep playoff run. If not, I still think that the offense is capable of getting us 10 to 11 wins.

Wasn't hindsight for me. When people take unprecedented actions that negatively impact the team, it's a very clear sign that they're not interested in, "helping," the team. Blank should have realized that Julio's actions were problematic, and should not have rewarded it. The teams' response should have been, "you're under contract, do your job," or they should have traded him. Paying him simply pushed the problems back by a few years. We could have gotten multiple #1's for Julio at the time, and would not have incurred the cap problems that we're having now. Again, it is my sincere hope that Blank has learned his lesson, and that we will not be right back in this boat the next time someone decides that they signed a bad contract.

I know that this is gonna sound crappy, but we should have traded him when he held out for a bigger contract. "Falcon for life," was a really dumb move that netted us absolutely nothing, and now Blank is a liar. Hopefully Blank has finally learned his lesson. Maybe the new regime won't have to worry about a privileged old white man, with no football acumen, making player personnel decisions.

I don't think so. I think that Ridley could have a solid, long career as a possession receiver, but I don't see him as someone who can do it all, the way that Julio, in his prime, could. I think that Pitts is one to keep an eye on though. If he can translate his physical gifts into production on the field, he could have a Julio-like career.

What about JohnnyBuc? hehe

Yessir. I've been around since about that time as well, though I'm not certain of my official start date. hehe.

Last time I bought anything player specific was Deion Sanders... Learned my lesson. I almost got myself a Vick jersey, but I fell out of love quite quickly with Vick during year 3. Dude had so much potential, but just kinda pissed it all away. My dad got me a Matt Ryan jersey for Christmas one year, as a surprise. I never would have done it myself. I suppose if there's a jersey that I'd be happy to own, Matt would be the one. Matt's never said a cross word about the organization or any of the players. He's never shown a lack of effort. He's played through some injuries that would have sidelined a lot of guys. IMHO, Matt and Tommy Nobis are the greatest Falcons.

It's possible that all of this is true. But I don't blame Julio for any of it. I blame Arthur, "Falcon for Life," Blank. "We treat star athletes better because they're better people." - Mr. Garrison. You would have thought that Blank would have learned his lesson after he got screwed by Michael Vick. Blank wheeled his hobbled butt onto the field in a wheelchair. Vick responded by refusing to get back on the field once he was healthy. He later gave the middle finger to the home crowd, and got arrested for dog fighting. Did Blank learn his lesson? Nope. Blank clearly does not understand how to handle young, highly paid talent. Agents must absolutely love dealing with the Falcons because Blank is among the biggest pushovers in the NFL. It is any wonder that we're always in salary cap ****? If Blank would stay the fudge off of the dang field, not comment on contracts, and let his FOOTBALL PEOPLE run the football team, then we wouldn't be dealing with crap like this. Mr. Blank, if you want to bring a championship to Atlanta, make sure that you have people on staff who know what they are doing, and get the **** out of their way.

I disagree. He held out for more money in the 2nd year of a new contract. No one does that. He frequently takes off optional team activities. He's not a huge prima donna or anything, but he's also not this perfect specimen of professionalism either.

It all depends on the trade... IMHO, the primary purpose for trading Julio would be to free up cap. I don't think that many teams are going to give up too much to acquire Julio, but whoever would be willing to trade would likely be in a win now mentality, so compensation would likely come either in future draft picks, or from a position that the other team has in abundance. (perhaps RB or DE) I don't have the time or inclination to go digging for the perfect trade partner for that scenario, but I doubt that the brain trust would get rid of Julio if they weren't going to profit from it.

With the players that we have on roster and with a scheme that doesn't blow, on paper, we have a top 5 offense. The only significant, "hole," on offense is at RB. If the coaching is there, we will be a formidable offense. On the defensive side of the ball, there are many question marks, in terms of talent. Of course, that was ALWAYS going to be the case after the annual failure that Quinn brought to the party. We honestly don't know if the problems with the defense were lack of talent, bad scheme, bad development, etc. Now, we will have proven coaching in place. (Pees, most recently, took the Titans from being in the bottom half of the league for most of the recent past to a top 5 and top 12 unit in subsequent years... Then, when he left, it was back into the bottom half of the league...) With proven defensive coaching, we will get a better idea of what we have in terms of talent on defense. It seems to me that Pees is more concerned about the secondary than the front 7. Maybe he knows something that we don't. (Perhaps he knows there's not much talent out there to fix the front 7 right now.) If Smith is able to get the offense to play up to its potential, the offense could carry us into the playoffs. If Pees is able to work some of his magic and get our defense to put up a middle of the road performance, we could make a deep run into the playoffs. With Smith and Pees calling the shots, it would surprise me significantly if we went 4-12 again.

I think that if I'm entertaining the idea of trading Julio, I'm looking for more than just lottery tickets. (draft picks) If I'm giving up a known commodity, I want a known commodity in return. The Falcons are rich at the receiver position at this point. There are other teams that may be rich at a position that we covet. For the right player, I pull the trigger. The value of the trade can be balanced out with draft picks.

I traded down with Philly, grabbing their #23, #34, #107, and 2022 1st rounder... Kyle Pitts dropped to #23... I drafted him. I'm a draft genius! LOL

Same here. Matt Ryan won me over after his first NFL pass. He had me thinking Superbowl after the Chicago game. It blows my mind how underappreciated he is. All that he's ever done is put up numbers while the rest of our team has been craptastic. Run game is non-existent. Defense can't get off of the field on 3rd down. Coaching staff can't draw up a game plan or make halftime adjustments. Matt Ryan is obviously the problem... <sigh>