Kendall Sheffield

[kiwifalcon 19,716]

17 minutes ago, 32wood84white said:

But I’m curious as to what we do with Neal back. While he’s healthy, and hopefully that’s the entire season, I would hope to see Kazee, Rico and Neal on the field together. It would allow us to look very multiple while being very simplistic.

Certain looks we could see a single high with Kazee or Rico alternating whose up top and whose in the slot depending on matchup with Neal down in the box. We could see cover two with any variation of the three. Over time certain variations will be combatted a certain way and we can get a beat on it.

All that to say, I’m not so sure we are going to go CB early. And if Neal goes down again we can go back to what we did the second half of last year with either a mid round CB or Blidi coming in on Nickel manning the outside.

Neal still mans strong safety for me and I’d be playing some single high and bringing him down into the box.I don’t want Neal tippy toeing around I want him to come down and hit people.I want him full speed and if he breaks down he breaks down but I want Neal at full speed.Ride him hard to see if the wheels can stay on.

Im still and have been for a long time to add a combination of Chaisson Winfield Jnr and or Blacklock any combination of these 3 on the defense help it immeasurably.

[Smiler11 6,256]

57 minutes ago, gHost83 said:

Wouldn't Kazee be our nickle corner?

 

48 minutes ago, 32wood84white said:

But I’m curious as to what we do with Neal back. While he’s healthy, and hopefully that’s the entire season, I would hope to see Kazee, Rico and Neal on the field together. It would allow us to look very multiple while being very simplistic.

Certain looks we could see a single high with Kazee or Rico alternating whose up top and whose in the slot depending on matchup with Neal down in the box. We could see cover two with any variation of the three. Over time certain variations will be combatted a certain way and we can get a beat on it.

All that to say, I’m not so sure we are going to go CB early. And if Neal goes down again we can go back to what we did the second half of last year with either a mid round CB or Blidi coming in on Nickel manning the outside.

I don't really know what happens with Kazee, but he struggled at nickel to start the year and looked much more comfortable at FS. 

[abcranford2 2,091]

1 hour ago, 32wood84white said:

Def better as a safety. But with three safeties on the field, two of them being able to play man if needed, your at an advantage of matching skill sets to the slot WR and then playing the game of whose gonna come down to cover, are we really in man or zone and is Neal dropping deep or coming up and is the Nickel(Kazee or Rico) whose playing 10 yard off really playing man or dropping into a two high look at the snap.

Many options IF Neal is healthy.

I might like to see them move neal to linebacker.   Might help him stay healthy and improve or weakest position at the same time. 

If a safety gets hurt we can always move him back.

[Run 'n' Shoot 765]

1 hour ago, kiwifalcon said:

Neal still mans strong safety for me and I’d be playing some single high and bringing him down into the box.I don’t want Neal tippy toeing around I want him to come down and hit people.I want him full speed and if he breaks down he breaks down but I want Neal at full speed.Ride him hard to see if the wheels can stay on.

Im still and have been for a long time to add a combination of Chaisson Winfield Jnr and or Blacklock any combination of these 3 on the defense help it immeasurably.

I missed Neal lowering the boom the last couple of seasons.

Whenever I see Taysom Hill in a game, I'm always thinking he needs to meet Mr. Neal.

[LightningDawg58 2,244]

Rico is the chess piece that gets moved.

I think Kazee is your single high no matter what. Rico played lights out in the box as well as at corner 2 years ago before he went down.

Neal can also play all over at safety and sub linebacker. If Morris is smart, he finds a way to use all 3 to disguise our coverages 

[Clark Kent™ 4,538]

I was dead wrong about Sheffield. I thought he was gonna be wack. He did get beat a pretty good bit in college, but the dude impressed me last season. Even when he did give up a reception he was right there in pretty good coverage. 

[gazoo 21,299]

This is a really good read on Sheffield.  He tore his pectoral while benching at the combine and that appears to have lowered his draft stock , to our advantage. 

Here are a few paragraphs out of the linked artical;)

"I believe I was a first-round draft pick," Sheffield said to ESPN, "and I'm ready to prove to everyone else that I'm a first-round draft pick."

In polling a handful of talent evaluators about Sheffield, none came out and actually backed his first-round claim. (Only one cornerback, Georgia's Deandre Baker, was selected in the first round.) But all the evaluators agreed Sheffield has tremendous upside and could develop over time into an impact player in the Falcons' secondary.

One NFC scout referred to Sheffield as a "second-round talent who can really run" but noted he needs to prove he can be just as sharp mentally as he is physically. An AFC executive added, "Man, he's talented. He just needs time; more playing time and experience. Obviously, he can really run and is athletic, but he needs more time to develop just pure cover skills."

https://www.espn.com/blog/atlanta-falcons/post/_/id/34248/falcons-fourth-round-cb-kendall-sheffield-im-a-first-round-pick

[FalconOdense 1,402]

12 hours ago, gHost83 said:

I just don't understand why people can't see him starting on the outside. Hips are super fluid and has 4.2 speed... ******* 4.2! He's less than half an inch from 6 foot with a 39 inch vert, 6.6 3 cone... That would have blown all the combine participants away and he was doing all that coming off an injury. 

More importantly, he has a one up on the entire draft class, NFL experience...Peeps want us to draft a rookie and throw him out to the wolves but don't realize the talent we have in house...

I'm not saying don't draft a corner, but to say CJ Henderson is basically our pick because we don't have starter caliber corner talent on the roster obviously didn't watch the last 6 games of the season. Dude was flipping his hips and making plays man. Also not afraid to lay the wood on backs. I love Sheffield's potential! 

What if people dont have any concern with Sheffield? But they fear that Oliver will be an issue?

[Vandy 39,756]

4 hours ago, FalconOdense said:

What if people dont have any concern with Sheffield? But they fear that Oliver will be an issue?

Oliver was best DB on team 2nd half of last year. 

[Ergo Proxy 26,059]

Totally agree with OP. What we do in the early rounds of this draft will reflect heavily on how much the staff believes in our young CBs moving forward.

Sheffield took valuable reps playing LCB and slot. Arguably our best game on defense came without Trufant.

At minimum, he is insurance at every spot a CB can line up; while Blidi provides boundary CB depth.

TBD where Jordan Miller fills out. I believe he was intended to be a means to move on from Blidi this offseason as a pure boundary CB but his own suspension made it necessary to bring back the vet.

If we decide to ignore CB, we best have insurance for Neal; as Kazee and Rico can play slot, but Allen is not an ideal fit at SS over the course of a season.

This also makes replacing Vondre’s snaps/role and vastly improving front 7; in lieu of adding CB high, essential to next year.

At the same time, it’s hard to not take a corner from this class given depth concerns even if they believe in the starters, but there are no perfect rosters and we have bodies across the DL as it is by comparison. Hard to gauge what Falcons will do but it seems that they are gearing up their roster to be able to pick whatever prospect they value the most.