Dimitroff has really dropped the ball this off-season

[Jedi-Falcon 40]

He bombed on Middleton (which cost us Laurent Robinson - which could have been very costly if White couldnt get signed coupled with the loss of Harry Douglas).

When you're picking up CBs from other teams 1 week away from GAME 1, you screwed up. No Ands Ifs Or Buts. You do not want to be 1 week away from the home opener bringing in CBs who will be potential Starters on your defense. Major brain-fart occured in this situation. Relying on Chris Houston - who has done nothing but regress since his rookie season - and all 5 feet 6 inches of Brent Grimes was a dumb decision.

Brian Van Gorder has been trying to dial-up the Blitz, but it wont work. Because these CBs cannot man-cover anyone by themselves. They need lots of Safety help - which they're not getting partly because they moved our best FS (Eric Coleman) to SS, and out of his natural position. Coleman is not a good SS, and the duds we have playing FS right now suck.

This defense is going to rely entirely on the front 7, and their ability to penetrate the backfield. If they dont, or cant, we are in for a long season of scores like 37-30.

The focal point of this off-season was to improve the defense. I dont know if they have. I also dont know if it may actually be worse now. Maybe 2010 is the Year, not 2009.

[ATLFalcon36 2,756]

0-16 is staring us in the face...

[UnrealfalcoN 3,956]

lets watch a real game of football first

[R&Rexpress 2]

I totally agree, Parcells is running a tight ship in Miami, The dolphins will win week 1.

[maxxtor 0]

Jedi,

you are a ****1ng idiot. you have over 11k posts, including calling Tandy fat. nice spam for the forums. I dont see anything other than your hampster remotely interesting about them.

I am a season ticket holder and have been that way for 8 years. i have been following the falcons since Tommy Nobis was on the team.

Get real dip sh1t

later,

maxx

[ltstorm2 4,829]

Your pharmaceutical representitive must be on vacation.

[taylor228193 162]

I totally agree, Parcells is running a tight ship in Miami, The dolphins will win week 1.

now don' get carried 'way now. y'all were 2-4 agains' winnin' teams last season. we were 4-3.

that was with a rookie quarterback.

[Scorpion 296]

This guy is a troll... i wish the moderators would realize this...

[paulitik 15,177]

Our D will be on the Dolphins like a tuna net. I'm not worried.

[miKevicK777 151]

He bombed on Middleton (which cost us Laurent Robinson - which could have been very costly if White couldnt get signed coupled with the loss of Harry Douglas).

When you're picking up CBs from other teams 1 week away from GAME 1, you screwed up. No Ands Ifs Or Buts. You do not want to be 1 week away from the home opener bringing in CBs who will be potential Starters on your defense. Major brain-fart occured in this situation. Relying on Chris Houston - who has done nothing but regress since his rookie season - and all 5 feet 6 inches of Brent Grimes was a dumb decision.

Brian Van Gorder has been trying to dial-up the Blitz, but it wont work. Because these CBs cannot man-cover anyone by themselves. They need lots of Safety help - which they're not getting partly because they moved our best FS (Eric Coleman) to SS, and out of his natural position. Coleman is not a good SS, and the duds we have playing FS right now suck.

This defense is going to rely entirely on the front 7, and their ability to penetrate the backfield. If they dont, or cant, we are in for a long season of scores like 37-30.

The focal point of this off-season was to improve the defense. I dont know if they have. I also dont know if it may actually be worse now. Maybe 2010 is the Year, not 2009.

Chirs Houston regress since his rookie season? He was god awful then, hes certainly not worse right now

Last season he was plenty better

TD helped turn an awful offense to a really good offense in 1 season

u cant change the whole team in one season...

If you expect to get 7 starters out of the 7 draft picks ur nuts. If you end up getting 2-3 thats a big win. Jerry and Moore have a chance at being real good starters for us for years to come. Dont act like TD didnt address the safety position, we used our 2nd round draft pick for one.

And TD drafted a CB with the 3rd and 5th. Its not like he relied on houston and grimes to be our only CBs. Drafts are gambles, sometimes u win sometimes u lose. We won big time last year, cant expect that to happen every year. TD hardly dropped the ball. He got Tony G here, he got Roddy signed to an extension, got Mike Peterson and we'll see what happens with our draft picks.

Our draft pciks might end up being phenomenal, i mean who thoguht Matt Ryan would be ROY after watching preseason??

BTW foxwroth was good for us last year and we got him aroudn the same time tye hill got here.

[Jedi-Falcon 40]

Jedi,

you are a ****1ng idiot. you have over 11k posts, including calling Tandy fat. nice spam for the forums. I dont see anything other than your hampster remotely interesting about them.

I am a season ticket holder and have been that way for 8 years. i have been following the falcons since Tommy Nobis was on the team.

Get real dip sh1t

later,

maxx

1. My calling Tandy fat was a mistake that I publically apologized for. I made a mistake and felt bad about that and I let her know that.

2. What does the fact that you are a season-ticket holder have anything to do with this topic?

3. If you dont find anything interesting about me, or my posts, then DONT POST A REPLY unless you have something REMOTELY INTERESTING TO SAY YOURSELF.

[Daytona1 33]

In the words of immortal me

"Dimi may of dropped the ball, but atleast his balls have dropped."

In all seriousness, one week your a fan, next week your the anti-christ. Personally, its ok to be a constructive fan, but your a straight out tool man. Really......Although you did bring up good points about stuff, but how come its always after the fact. Why cant you make a post with a projection of something going to happen. All you do is point out the obvious that has ALREADY happened and try to spin them into idiotic ideas. You were complaining about Houston and Grimes last week, so Dimi gets help at the cb's, and now you complain more. haha.

[dudouble 114]

I personnaly don't think the defense is that bad. sure we will struggle aliitle early but, once they gell they should be fine. the defense isn't really that different from last year. but to say td dropped the ball before we've even played a single game is ridiculous. foxworth wanted more than his value= buisness decision. Chris houston isn't that bad. ( in real games). lawyer milloy is old= smart football decision. William moore is a rookie who will be worked into the defense throughout the year similar to chevis. And i believe chris owens will be the same. he can hit and is quick. so before you lay the blame on td. at least wait till week 2 or 3 if thats too much..

[Dharma Initiative 6,386]

You are so wishy-washy on things it's annoying as ****.

(expects 'stay out of my thread' reply)

[Osiruz 10,079]

WTF are you smoking,

Now I don't agree with some decisions lately. There were definate head scratchers like trading Laurent robinson who could've been a legit #2 on this team and pushed jenkins to 3-4, and I though cutting middleton was outrageously ******* stupid considering his potential and the fact that he could sit and learn the NFL game. Those decisions mostly aren't TD's fault (middleton being cut), and the performance of our CBs (BVG's fault, and partially smith).

TD has been rushed into some decisions because of the pressure to win this season, but he's been doing a fine job actually. Brian williams is a Mike Smith guy, so is Peterson so I'm really excited about both, and I'm hoping WIlliam Moore will grab a starting spot as soon as he is injury free. Nothing to scream Armageddon about.

I'm glad we have a GM who isnt afraid to make mistakes BTW.

[Knight of God 52,744]

1. My calling Tandy fat was a mistake that I publically apologized for. I made a mistake and felt bad about that and I let her know that.

2. What does the fact that you are a season-ticket holder have anything to do with this topic?

3. If you dont find anything interesting about me, or my posts, then DONT POST A REPLY unless you have something REMOTELY INTERESTING TO SAY YOURSELF.

Don't respond to these guys. They seethe with fear and disdain and when someone else like yourself speaks their mind its an attack fest. I understand the worry man, but this will be a great year. You'll see.

[Osiruz 10,079]

i mean who thoguht Matt Ryan would be ROY after watching preseason??

Honestly I did,

When I read his draft bio in some magazines he was being compared to younger peyton manning and I geeked out...he's been awesome

[miKevicK777 151]

I personnaly don't think the defense is that bad. sure we will struggle aliitle early but, once they gell they should be fine. the defense isn't really that different from last year. but to say td dropped the ball before we've even played a single game is ridiculous. foxworth wanted more than his value= buisness decision. Chris houston isn't that bad. ( in real games). lawyer milloy is old= smart football decision. William moore is a rookie who will be worked into the defense throughout the year similar to chevis. And i believe chris owens will be the same. he can hit and is quick. so before you lay the blame on td. at least wait till week 2 or 3 if thats too much..

id say its plenty different from last year

look at the starters that started last season to right now

more than a third of the starters are gone

boley, milloy, brooking, grady

all expierenced players

their replacements except mike have no starts in the nfl

nicolas, decoud, jerry

and fxowroth who ended as a starter is gone

im not syaing worse or better, time will tell, but its pretty different when u look at personnell

[Osiruz 10,079]

we're definately better v. the run, if our DBs step up we'll be okay.

[Jedi-Falcon 40]

You are so wishy-washy on things it's annoying as ****.

(expects 'stay out of my thread' reply)

There is an Exit Sign to the Left. Follow it if you want to.

[Jedi-Falcon 40]

Don't respond to these guys. They seethe with fear and disdain and when someone else like yourself speaks their mind its an attack fest. I understand the worry man, but this will be a great year. You'll see.

Im an easy target. I know that. It doesnt bother me, im used to it.

[ltstorm2 4,829]

WTF are you smoking,

Now I don't agree with some decisions lately. There were definate head scratchers like trading Laurent robinson who could've been a legit #2 on this team and pushed jenkins to 3-4, and I though cutting middleton was outrageously ******* stupid considering his potential and the fact that he could sit and learn the NFL game. Those decisions mostly aren't TD's fault (middleton being cut), and the performance of our CBs (BVG's fault, and partially smith).

TD has been rushed into some decisions because of the pressure to win this season, but he's been doing a fine job actually. Brian williams is a Mike Smith guy, so is Peterson so I'm really excited about both, and I'm hoping WIlliam Moore will grab a starting spot as soon as he is injury free. Nothing to scream Armageddon about.

I'm glad we have a GM who isnt afraid to make mistakes BTW.

Since Robinson would not block, he couldn't have been a #2 on this team. Completely agree with someone like the Rams, Cardinals Etc....

[DriveHomeSafelyAtlantaWins 2,001]

I knew this topic would come up somewhere, sometime. Here we are the week before postseason, and many people (myself included) feel we needed to do some major things fast to help our secondary which has been playing terrible. Some great steps have been taken, but still, it is a fair question to ask: Hasn't the GM screwed up for us to even be in this situation?

It is a fair question. But I don't think the answer is yes, for 2 reasons. First, the GM cares more about the long-term building of a dynasty that we, as fans, can bring ourselves to. We fans want to win now. We fans try to balance that out with the best long-term plan, but we are not able to make ourselves keep that perspective as well as TD is. Clearly, to win now, we could've gotten Haynesworth, or any number of proven good players. We coulda kept Foxworth. But building a team for excellence is like a game of Risk ... you gotta strategize for the long term and not paint yourself into a corner by paying too much for players.

Second, you have to realize that a player's level of play can change at any time. No name players can suddenly become great, and great players can suddenly become awful. Even a player with incredible speed and great measurables, from whom you have every reason to expect great things, can suddenly become a bad player. How do you know? When you *see it on the field*. Not just a bad game, but a series of bad games, or maybe just one game if you see a breakdown in fundamental abilities.

So there can easily be a case where you thought you were fine, but suddenly you realize one of your players just can't hack it anymore. It doesn't actually (necessarily) mean you did anything wrong. It is just the nature of the game that players' abilities can change that quickly.

So, put those 2 reasons together. TD is trying to be as good as we can now, but without breaking the bank which would tie our hands in future years. That means "build through the draft", and it partly means, "try to get by with what you have instead of breaking the bank on free agents." Or maybe I should say, "Try to economize". The ability to economize is one of the fundamental skills needed for building a team for long-term relevance. Then, throw in the fact that one of our players (Houston) has had his play drop off a cliff. It simply did not show up until the Chargers game. It was not apparent before then ... mainly because it often takes a real game against a tough opponent to make that show up.

But even in that situation, what did TD do? In a WEEK, he has gotten 2 new corners, both of whom are legitimate starters in the league.

I think TD is kicking butt.

[Jedi-Falcon 40]

Since Robinson would not block, he couldn't have been a #2 on this team. Completely agree with someone like the Rams, Cardinals Etc....

Robinson was a beast against us when we played the Rams. I wish the best for him, but we basically traded a future WR Star away for a guy that we just let go and got picked up by the Bucs on waivers. We didnt even get a bag of chips out of that whole deal.

[FalconFanForLife 2,097]

Well I am worried about our D, but we do have to wait and see how they hold out. Fortunately our offense looks capable of matching any team in a scoring contest this year.