Underappreciated Falcons: Remember Kroy 4 years later

[Monoxide]

Watching and seeing the Cominsky hype has brought back memories of one of my favorites players from the Mike Smith era, but a guy who always seemed to be polarizing. Kroy was a late flyer that turned his opportunity into 8 seasons with the same team and a lot of solid players on some really good teams. He got bashed a lot due to the reality TV gig as well as the fact that we probably hung on to him a year too long, but he was the epitome of what you look for in a football player. Never took a play off and always seemed to have a solid attitude aside from the adversity. 

Now that Kroy's been out of the league for 4 years, can he be appreciated as someone who gave us almost a decade of football as a late 5th round pick, or is there still animosity? 

Even 9 years later, this is still one of my favorite Falcon plays of all time. 

 

[FormerFan-RobertAP]

You know, I'll never know for sure, but I will always suspect that the reality shows served as a distraction from football.  When that took off, Kroy seemed to taper off on the field.  That said, he was one of my favorites, and I always pulled for him.

[Sun Tzu 7]

Kroy was a really good pick.  Great depth and rotational player.

His problem, though no fault of his own, was he was the poster boy of Mike Smith’s inability to develop or find pass rushers.

Every year it seemed ‘why do we need to upgrade the pass rush, we have Biermann?’

Granted this wasn’t the case but other than Edwards it was the lack of effort to have someone elite on the other side of Abraham.  If they would have had another good pass rusher to pair with Abe and Biermann they would have had more than one playoff win...

But no.  After the Edwards fiasco it seemed like they weren’t very serious about adding another stud pass rusher and unfortunately Kroy became the face of that.

But when you get down to the details Kroy was a darn good football player.

The Falcons just needed a darn good pass rusher at the time.

[Osiruz]

[Bunchy Carter]

The king of "almost sacks."

[NeonDeion]

31 minutes ago, Bunchy Carter said:

The king of "almost sacks."

That was babs 

[NeonDeion]

Kroy was great and then he sucked. Really sucked. I don’t remember anyone hating on him until he started sucking 

[Falcons_Frenzy]

Solid career for where he was drafted. Much respect Kroy. 

On a side note does it get any better than a name like his? Biermann.

[falcons007]

3 hours ago, Sun Tzu 7 said:

Kroy was a really good pick.  Great depth and rotational player.

His problem, though no fault of his own, was he was the poster boy of Mike Smith’s inability to develop or find pass rushers.

Every year it seemed ‘why do we need to upgrade the pass rush, we have Biermann?’

Granted this wasn’t the case but other than Edwards it was the lack of effort to have someone elite on the other side of Abraham.  If they would have had another good pass rusher to pair with Abe and Biermann they would have had more than one playoff win...

But no.  After the Edwards fiasco it seemed like they weren’t very serious about adding another stud pass rusher and unfortunately Kroy became the face of that.

But when you get down to the details Kroy was a darn good football player.

The Falcons just needed a darn good pass rusher at the time.

Poster boy of Falcons inability to find or develop pass rushers after JA 55 under multiple Defensive minded HC. Falcons are still in the hunt for legit pass rusher after 2006 trade for JA.

[BlazerSlayer]

Sun Tzu 7 is exactly right. Kroy was performing brilliantly for a 5th round pick, but in the later Smith years we needed a double digit sack man and he was never that level. Not his fault. 

Atlanta has struggled finding pass rushers, Beasley has the physical ability, just no moves. I have high hopes for Takk, he started fast last year and then tailed off, probably because teams realised he was our only threat with Grady injured.

[Flying Falcon]

4 hours ago, Bunchy Carter said:

The king of "almost sacks."

This is what I remember of him. That great big whiff on Aaron Rodgers.

[Duff_Man]

6 hours ago, robertap said:

You know, I'll never know for sure, but I will always suspect that the reality shows served as a distraction from football.  When that took off, Kroy seemed to taper off on the field.  That said, he was one of my favorites, and I always pulled for him.

Football is a reality show.

[1989Fan]

Remember the red contacts? Scary! 

[FalconFanSince1970]

6 hours ago, Sun Tzu 7 said:

Kroy was a really good pick.  Great depth and rotational player.

His problem, though no fault of his own, was he was the poster boy of Mike Smith’s inability to develop or find pass rushers.

Every year it seemed ‘why do we need to upgrade the pass rush, we have Biermann?’

Granted this wasn’t the case but other than Edwards it was the lack of effort to have someone elite on the other side of Abraham.  If they would have had another good pass rusher to pair with Abe and Biermann they would have had more than one playoff win...

But no.  After the Edwards fiasco it seemed like they weren’t very serious about adding another stud pass rusher and unfortunately Kroy became the face of that.

But when you get down to the details Kroy was a darn good football player.

The Falcons just needed a darn good pass rusher at the time.

Went explosive in 2011 and left a slew of pass rushers like Justin Houston, Cam Jordan, Mo Wilkerson and Jabaal Sheard on the board. 

[Vandy]

7 hours ago, Sun Tzu 7 said:

Kroy was a really good pick.  Great depth and rotational player.

His problem, though no fault of his own, was he was the poster boy of Mike Smith’s inability to develop or find pass rushers.

Every year it seemed ‘why do we need to upgrade the pass rush, we have Biermann?’

Granted this wasn’t the case but other than Edwards it was the lack of effort to have someone elite on the other side of Abraham.  If they would have had another good pass rusher to pair with Abe and Biermann they would have had more than one playoff win...

But no.  After the Edwards fiasco it seemed like they weren’t very serious about adding another stud pass rusher and unfortunately Kroy became the face of that.

But when you get down to the details Kroy was a darn good football player.

The Falcons just needed a darn good pass rusher at the time.

So, how’s it going “developing elite pass rushers” under Dan Quinn? 

[PriMeTiiMe]

Appreciation for Kroy? Really. In 8 seasons he had 23.5 sacks. We really out here giving appreciation to guys that barely could produce 3 sacks a season?

Guess in 4 years we will be firing up the Adrian Clayborn appreciation threads. 

[RING OF HONOR]

Lol

[Flying Falcon]

27 minutes ago, PriMeTiiMe said:

Appreciation for Kroy? Really. In 8 seasons he had 23.5 sacks. We really out here giving appreciation to guys that barely could produce 3 sacks a season?

Guess in 4 years we will be firing up the Adrian Clayborn appreciation threads. 

You think this bad? Check out the Worrislow thread.

[Sun Tzu 7]

33 minutes ago, Vandy said:

So, how’s it going “developing elite pass rushers” under Dan Quinn? 

They’ve at least tried more than Smitty.

2 1st round Pass Rushers

Clayborne

Poe

etc

Smitty: Edwards, Biermann, bunch of lower round guys

[NeonDeion]

Comisky is so much more athletically gifted than Kroy. That’s the difference with DQ - he drafts on infinite ceiling. So, when he misses it’s fine he just needs to cut bait faster....Duke...cough cough. He’s either gonna be wayyy better than a Kroy or way worse. I don’t see him becoming Kroy. 

Edited August 19, 2019 by NeonDeion

[Vandy]

6 hours ago, Sun Tzu 7 said:

They’ve at least tried more than Smitty.

2 1st round Pass Rushers

Clayborne

Poe

etc

Smitty: Edwards, Biermann, bunch of lower round guys

Yes, a lot of valuable draft and FA capital has been expended there under Quinn.

On an offense-1st built team, smith got the scraps of drafting for pass rushers. 

Yet when it’s all said and done, it was as good or better at getting to QB under smith than it has been under Quinn. Look it up.

[falcons007]

10 minutes ago, Sun Tzu 7 said:

They’ve at least tried more than Smitty.

2 1st round Pass Rushers

Clayborne

Poe

etc

Smitty: Edwards, Biermann, bunch of lower round guys

We happy with brownie points for trying with worse results?  Smitty at least knew how to use JA 55. 

[Vandy]

9 minutes ago, falcons007 said:

We happy with brownie points for trying with worse results?  Smitty at least knew how to use JA 55. 

I’ll never understand how this board craps on smith for “failing” on lower round picks such as Biermann and Massaqoui yet praises ‘DL Guru’ ’ Dan Quinn for how he’s misused and not developed Vic Beasley up to now. SMH. 

[falcons007]

5 minutes ago, Vandy said:

I’ll never understand how this board craps on smith for “failing” on lower round picks such as Biermann yet praises Quinn for how he’s misused and not developed Vic Beasley up to now. SMH. 

Recency Bias. They remember the last two years of Smitty and 2016 for Quinn.

I thought MS had elite pass rushers and failed to develop. But but the goals post moved that he never had elite talent and DQ spent more picks and FA talent with nothing different to show.

[Vandy]

8 minutes ago, falcons007 said:

Recency Bias. They remember the last two years of Smitty and 2016 for Quinn.

I thought MS had elite pass rushers and failed to develop. But but he never had elite talent and DQ spent more picks and FA talent with nothing different to show.

Hopefully everything comes together and changes this upcoming season. But I’ve grown tired of the excuses for Quinn. 

We had some catastrophic injuries on D last year in secondary and of course LB Debo, but DL was relatively healthy. Yet continual blah production in pressuring the QB, even with the significant draft capital invested there.