Buccaneers receiver Mike Evans believes Falcons will have a ‘top-five offense’ with Dirk Koetter

[Geneaut]

https://www.atlantafalcons.com/news/buccaneers-receiver-mike-evans-believes-falcons-will-have-a-top-five-offense-wit

ORLANDO, Fla. – The Atlanta Falcons have no lack of offensive firepower and are just two years removed from averaging 36 points per game.

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Fans are hoping the Falcons’ offense can move closer to that mark under new offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter, and Buccaneers Pro Bowl receiver Mike Evans believes he is the right man for the job.

“He made us one of the top offenses in the league, so I think he’ll do the same in Atlanta,” Evans said during the first day of practice at the 2019 Pro Bowl. “He has the weapons. It will be a top-five offense, for sure.”

That type of production is certainly something the Falcons are capable of. In 2018, Atlanta was sixth in yards per game, averaging 389.1 yards, and it was 10th in points per game with an average of 25.9. The year prior, the Falcons averaged 364.8 yards and 22.1 points per game, which was eighth- and 15th-most in the league, respectively.

But while the Falcons were brilliant at times under former offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian, they have the talent on hand to reach even greater heights.

The Falcons’ offense produced three Pro Bowlers in 2018: Julio Jones, Alex Mack and Austin Hooper. Jones was the NFL’s leading receiver, catching 113 passes for 1,677 yards and eight touchdowns. Mack has long been one of the top centers in the league and an anchor in the middle of Atlanta’s offensive line. And in his third season, Hooper put up career-high numbers across the board, catching 71 passes for 660 yards and four touchdowns.

PHOTOS: Mack, Hooper at first Pro Bowl practice

TE Austin Hooper and C Alex Mack attend the first practice of the 2019 Pro Bowl. Mack is returning to the Pro Bowl for the sixth time, and it is Hooper's first Pro Bowl of his NFL career.

TE Austin Hooper, C Alex Mack

Atlanta Falcons / Kara Durrette

 

TE Austin Hooper

Atlanta Falcons / Kara Durrette

In addition to those three, the Falcons also have an MVP-caliber quarterback in Matt Ryan and two very talented receivers opposite of Jones in Mohamed Sanu and Calvin Ridley.

Koetter’s job will be maximizing that talent and getting consistent high-level production from the offense. Consistency was an issue for Atlanta last season, as evidenced by its five-game losing streak in which the offense failed to score more than 20 points.

“We had a disappointing year,” Mack said. “We won some games towards the end and patched things together, which is ending on the note we wanted to. But we weren’t playing good enough in the middle of the year early on.”

There are some questions the Falcons will have to answer on the offensive side of the ball this offseason as well.

Coach Dan Quinn and general manager Thomas Dimitroff will likely take a long look at the offensive line, which had a disappointing season and was hindered by injuries. Quinn recently said on his radio show that the only two offensive line spots he’s “comfortable” with are left tackle Jake Matthews and Mack at center.

It also remains to be seen whether the Falcons move to retain running back Tevin Coleman, who is set to become a free agent, and how fellow running back Devonta Freeman recovers from an injury that cost him much of the 2018 season.

But there is still much for Koetter, who previously served as the Falcons’ offensive coordinator from 2012-14, to work with in Atlanta. Evans knows first-hand what type of offense Falcons fans should expect with Koetter in charge.

“An explosive offense,” Evans said. “He was explosive before he left [Atlanta], and then he came to us and made us way more explosive than we were … He’s going to have that receiving corps nice, and the run game.”

Koetter’s offenses have been plenty explosive. The Buccaneers were second in the league with 71 pass plays of 20 yards or more in 2018, and their 14 passes that went for 40 yards or more were fourth-most. During his three seasons in Atlanta, the Falcons averaged 5.7 yards per play and 363.5 yards per game.

Now back with the Falcons, Koetter is charged with getting a talented unit to play up to its capabilities on a consistent basis.

“I’m looking forward to working with him,” Mack said. “We’ve got a lot of real talented people in the building. I think we should have an explosive offense, and I’m looking forward to figuring out how we’re going to do it.”

 

[JDaveG]

6 minutes ago, Geneaut said:

 

Hoop is funny to me.  He always looks like he's just chillin.  Dude is California to his bones.

[falconfanEST1989]

Will be a top 5 defense if we can swoop in a steal Kwon Alexander from them too

[FalconsIn2012]

Just now, falconfanEST1989 said:

Will be a top 5 defense if we can swoop in a steal Kwon Alexander from them too

Rather steal one of their OG’s

[falcons007]

Matt Ryan lead in NFL deep ball accuracy in 2014. Falcons had ton of explosive plays with Toilolo playing tackle. If the OL stays healthy, it will be fun offense to watch. I am not a big fan of 7 step drops under DK,

[falconfanEST1989]

3 minutes ago, Falconsin2012 said:

Rather steal one of their OG’s

Let's steal Kwon and an OG

[BoomGoesTheDynamite]

Yeah. Not too worried about the O, because Kotter was actually a pretty decent coordinator. Our oline just REALLY sucked while he was here.

Line is still suspect, but I think it's better than the one Matt was behind in '13. He also has better weapons then back then, not just JJ and Free but Hooper, Sanu, Ridley, Ito, Saubert, and possibly Gage. Not to mention Ryan is a former MVP and is a well seasoned vet.

Not many may like Kotter coming back, but he knows Matt, has a pretty good scheme, and we could have gotten someone a lot worse.

[JDaveG]

1 minute ago, falcons007 said:

Matt Ryan lead in NFL deep ball accuracy in 2014. Falcons had ton of explosive plays with Toilolo playing tackle. If the OL stays healthy, it will be fun offense to watch. I am not a big fan of 7 step drops under DK,

Fix the o-line and you'll be a huge fan of them.

But by my observation, he's mixed in a lot of horizontal stretches into his offense.  If you look at the Falcons in 2012 versus the Bucs the last few years, he has a lot more out-breaking routes.  With us, he'd send both main receivers deep and maybe hit a TE or RB underneath, especially on early downs (as a lot of folks complained by 2014, he also ran a lot of sticks and curls on 3rd down).  Very classic Coryell stuff.  With the Bucs I saw them mix up the routes a lot more.  It was still a vertical offense to be sure, but you just didn't see that vertical stretch predominate any longer.  

It's not that he never did that with us.  He did it a lot.  But the vertical offense sort of predominated here.  In Tampa Bay, I recall seeing a lot more routes targeting the outside flats and the middle underneath.

[AtlantaFanatic]

23 minutes ago, Falconsin2012 said:

Rather steal one of their OG’s

Kwon is an original gangsta

[mqg96]

I want to see the Falcons team on the field first throughout the preseason and regular season with our coaching staff in big games especially when it's clutch time. Until the 2019 Falcons surprise me out of no where with all the changes being made, my final prediction is 6-10 after being so wrong with 12-4 in 2018. Fans don't want to admit it, but our dominance over the Panthers since week 16 of 2015 is deceiving the fact that the Falcons have been no better than the Panthers since 2017 while the Panthers have been no worse than us if you look at all of our common opponent and how we won & lost those games. Panthers could easily make a surprise turnaround in 2019 just like us. That's how the NFC South has always been over the years. The Saints despite being division favorites, could go downhill in 2019 and get a hangover from that devastating NFC Championship loss. 

[Falcons Fan MVP]

2019 could be a very special year for the Falcons.

[Osiruz]

Fix the OL and get a FB, and resign Coleman. Dk will have this offensive dropping 30 on people.

[Sidecar Falcon]

I doubt that we’ll be top 5. More likely, anywhere from 8th to 11th in Yards. Scoring may be a different story, probably 11th-15th. We have a lot of dole games next season which could help us out. 

[The Vent King]

Top 5?

 

Not unless that line gets fixed.

[Ezekiel 25:17]

1 hour ago, Geneaut said:

The Atlanta Falcons have no lack of offensive firepower and are just two years removed from averaging 36 points per game.

 

I would like to see us average 40 and see what happens. 

1 hour ago, JDaveG said:

Fix the o-line and you'll be a huge fan of them.

But by my observation, he's mixed in a lot of horizontal stretches into his offense.  If you look at the Falcons in 2012 versus the Bucs the last few years, he has a lot more out-breaking routes.  With us, he'd send both main receivers deep and maybe hit a TE or RB underneath, especially on early downs (as a lot of folks complained by 2014, he also ran a lot of sticks and curls on 3rd down).  Very classic Coryell stuff.  With the Bucs I saw them mix up the routes a lot more.  It was still a vertical offense to be sure, but you just didn't see that vertical stretch predominate any longer.  

It's not that he never did that with us.  He did it a lot.  But the vertical offense sort of predominated here.  In Tampa Bay, I recall seeing a lot more routes targeting the outside flats and the middle underneath.

Who taught you all of that knowledge and stuff??? 

[octoslash]

2 hours ago, JDaveG said:

Hoop is funny to me.  He always looks like he's just chillin.  Dude is California to his bones.

I was going to post pretty much the same thing.  He strikes me as Spicoli on roids. 

[mqg96]

1 hour ago, Falcons Fan MVP said:

2019 could be a very special year for the Falcons.

2020 is more likely. Falcons special seasons come when nobody (including the fans) believed in the team coming into the year and we were coming off at least 2 mediocre seasons. 

[JDaveG]

19 minutes ago, Ezekiel 25:17 said:

I would like to see us average 40 and see what happens. 

Who taught you all of that knowledge and stuff??? 

I didn't know beans about the Coryell offense until Koetter came along.  I was a WCO guy (from the Vick days -- I didn't appreciate it either when Montana was torching the Falcons on the regular).  I just read up on it.  

It's funny -- if you watch clips of Koetter versus, say, Shanahan, you can actually see the difference.  The WCO operations functionally like a spread in the passing game.  You're stretching the field from sideline-to-sideline with routes.  They can go deep, but the idea is you're making them cover the whole field, which opens up the run game (how many times have we asked them to run spread formations on run plays in the red zone?) and gives high percentage throws in the pass game.  It looks like the offense spans the entire field.  

The Coryell system sends the outside receivers deeper -- 15-20 yards on most plays, which stretches the defense vertically and forces the linebackers to drop instead of spread out.  It opens up the underneath routes in the pass game and keeps the linebackers off the LOS in the run game. It looks like the offense (and defense) is being pulled down the field like taffy.  

As I said, you can actually see the difference:

West Coast:

Coryell:

As I said in another thread, it's really just 2 different ways of doing the same thing.  At some point, football is football.

[falcons007]

2 hours ago, JDaveG said:

Fix the o-line and you'll be a huge fan of them.

But by my observation, he's mixed in a lot of horizontal stretches into his offense.  If you look at the Falcons in 2012 versus the Bucs the last few years, he has a lot more out-breaking routes.  With us, he'd send both main receivers deep and maybe hit a TE or RB underneath, especially on early downs (as a lot of folks complained by 2014, he also ran a lot of sticks and curls on 3rd down).  Very classic Coryell stuff.  With the Bucs I saw them mix up the routes a lot more.  It was still a vertical offense to be sure, but you just didn't see that vertical stretch predominate any longer.  

It's not that he never did that with us.  He did it a lot.  But the vertical offense sort of predominated here.  In Tampa Bay, I recall seeing a lot more routes targeting the outside flats and the middle underneath.

Tampa had big TE and WR. I am interested to see how DK will use Ridley. He would have bigger slot guy in Sanu compared to Humpries in slot. Howard played lot of slot not sure if Hoops will do the same.

[falcons007]

17 minutes ago, JDaveG said:

I didn't know beans about the Coryell offense until Koetter came along.  I was a WCO guy (from the Vick days -- I didn't appreciate it either when Montana was torching the Falcons on the regular).  I just read up on it.  

It's funny -- if you watch clips of Koetter versus, say, Shanahan, you can actually see the difference.  The WCO operations functionally like a spread in the passing game.  You're stretching the field from sideline-to-sideline with routes.  They can go deep, but the idea is you're making them cover the whole field, which opens up the run game (how many times have we asked them to run spread formations on run plays in the red zone?) and gives high percentage throws in the pass game.  It looks like the offense spans the entire field.  

The Coryell system sends the outside receivers deeper -- 15-20 yards on most plays, which stretches the defense vertically and forces the linebackers to drop instead of spread out.  It opens up the underneath routes in the pass game and keeps the linebackers off the LOS in the run game. It looks like the offense (and defense) is being pulled down the field like taffy.  

As I said, you can actually see the difference:

West Coast:

Coryell:

As I said in another thread, it's really just 2 different ways of doing the same thing.  At some point, football is football.

But there are lot of similarities between two. I think falcons will be right in the middle. Also DK can shorten those routes to 10-12 yards. I can see combinations of spreading horizontal and vertical.

[Lornoth]

Poor Evans. Imagine being arguably a top 5 receiver in the league and not only be stuck on the bottom-feeder Bucs, but be stuck with the Crab Thief as your QB. Soul crushing. 

[Ezekiel 25:17]

33 minutes ago, JDaveG said:

I didn't know beans about the Coryell offense until Koetter came along.  I was a WCO guy (from the Vick days -- I didn't appreciate it either when Montana was torching the Falcons on the regular).  I just read up on it.  

It's funny -- if you watch clips of Koetter versus, say, Shanahan, you can actually see the difference.  The WCO operations functionally like a spread in the passing game.  You're stretching the field from sideline-to-sideline with routes.  They can go deep, but the idea is you're making them cover the whole field, which opens up the run game (how many times have we asked them to run spread formations on run plays in the red zone?) and gives high percentage throws in the pass game.  It looks like the offense spans the entire field.  

The Coryell system sends the outside receivers deeper -- 15-20 yards on most plays, which stretches the defense vertically and forces the linebackers to drop instead of spread out.  It opens up the underneath routes in the pass game and keeps the linebackers off the LOS in the run game. It looks like the offense (and defense) is being pulled down the field like taffy.  

As I said, you can actually see the difference:

West Coast:

Coryell:

As I said in another thread, it's really just 2 different ways of doing the same thing.  At some point, football is football.

Ok yeah, we need to hang out and have a beer. Lol

[papachaz]

2 hours ago, falconfanEST1989 said:

Let's steal Kwon and an OG

[BLACK WATCH]

The real name of the Coryell offense is the ''AIR CORYELL OFFENSE". It was instituted when Coach Coryell was the HC of the San Diego Chargers and his QB was Dan Fouts.

Damm! It sure was explosive!!!

[BoomGoesTheDynamite]

34 minutes ago, Lornoth said:

Poor Evans. Imagine being arguably a top 5 receiver in the league and not only be stuck on the bottom-feeder Bucs, but be stuck with the Crab Thief as your QB. Soul crushing. 

I wonder if they'll pick another QB in the draft