Mock Draft Bonus

    Guess what Falconers its mock draft time, what what. Mock Drafts are pointless and they are useless. None the less they are two tons of fun to do and to think about. I mean that's part of being a dies hard fan right. So today I am going to hopefully give you is a realistic take on the draft. I am going to give you two drafts, one with a trade down option  and one with a stay put out come.
        The Falcons currently own the 17th pick in the 2016 draft and only 4 other picks after that. Our current team needs as I see it, goes as follow ILB,OLB,SS, and guard, With out further ado here we go.

I am using Daniel Jeremiah's big board
Stay put at 17
Round 1(pick 17): Darron Lee- He is fast, agile, twitchy, ultra athletic line backer who will fill the fast of Dan Quinn's fast and physical defense. He come with speed good instincts but lack coverage polish that as fan we might want. I believe that DQ will be able to fix that quickly. Lee should come in and take over for Paul Warrlio and give us a coverage LB we have been needing.

Round 2 (pick 50): Keanu Neal- Dan Quinn had a hand in bringing this guy to the gators when he was there as the DC and I have to think if he is there he will be wear the red and black. Neal is a hard hitting head hunting strong safety. He could not only be our Kam Chancellor but he could also provide the hard hits that we will miss form released SS Willy Mo. Neal doesn't have many downsides other than looking for the big hit and sometimes getting burned for it.

Round 3 (pick 81) Carl Nassib-  Nassib is a large DE stand 6'7'' 277lbs. He is a power rusher that has the possibility to develop into a true Micheal Bennett type player. A true chess piece that can be paired with our other DE guys. Can you image a NASCAR package that featured Clayborn, Nassib, Shelby, and Beasley that would be cool to see.

Round 4 (pick 115) Jack Allen- Allen is an athletic center form MST that could kick over to guard and possible take over for Mack when he retires. I am not going to lie don't know much about offense line men but i think this guy could play guard and we need competition in that spot.


Trade down get picks 
trade with Jets , we swap 1st get there 3rd, 4th, 6th. They want to get above Buffalo and draft Paxton Lynch.

Round 1 (pick 20) Noah Spence- the best pure pass rusher in the game some off the filed issues early in his college career. Hopefully that is behind him and we get a running mate for Vic Beasley.

Round 2 (pick 50) Keanu Neal- see above.

Round 3 (pick 81) Deion Jones- Fast twitchy LB who could help with speed over the middle .
              ( pick 83) Joushua Perry- another fast cover line backer who will handle RB and TE coming across the middle.

Round 4 (pick 115) Jack Allen- see above.
              ( pick 118) Jerrel Adams- Pass catching tight end to learn from Jacob Tame and hopefully give Matt Ryan a safety value and seem buster.

There you have it fans my thoughts on the draft. You will notice that i stopped at the fourth round. That is because after the fourth it is truly a toss up. You might get some decent depth or a core special team players, but more than likely you just get a practice squad guy who will be replaced by another late round draft pick in years to come. Hope ya'll enjoyed this bonus post as much as I enjoyed doing it we will check back after the draft and see how bad I did,

Falcons Eye View vol 3. Free Agent Frenzy

       Hello again friends, it is I you friendly internet blogger. Its time for Vol. 3. of the Falcons Eye View. A blog in where i try to give you a different perspective on all things Falcons. Today we are going to tackle ( see what did there) free agency and the players we signed.
     Here is a run down of who we signed.
        1. Alex Mack Center (Cleveland)
        2. Mohammad Sanu WR. (Bengals)
        3. Derick Shelby DE (Miami)
        4, Adrian Clayborn DE (Atlanta)
        5. Courtney Upshaw OLB (Ravens)
Ok so theses are the main players. The Falcons did sign a few more depth players like, Weatherspoon, Wheeler, and Tom Compton ( he sounds like a lawyer). But the 5 players i listed are the ones were going to focus on today. Let me start off by saying I DO NOT CARE ABOUT THERE CONTRACTS, now that that is out of the way lets jump in.

Alex Mack: 3 time pro center, One of the best in the game, multi year 16 game starter. This dude is exactly what our team has been needing since 2012 when the Mudd Duck retired. You may remember in my first post I talk about Matt Ryan down fall, a lot had to do with poor o-line play. That can almost be hung directly on poor center play. I liked Joe Hawley but her was injured and not well suited of the zone blocking shift we went to so he had to go. Back to Mack by making this one signing you were truly able to fix 3 potions. Mack will make the LG and RG instantly better. His veteran leadership will help Andy Levitra along with who ever ends up at right guard. Mack is comfortable with Kyle Shanna's system because he played in it in Cleveland. Since he chose to come I Have to assume he like the scheme.

Mohammed Sanu: 26 yrs old highly athletic wide out. This is the signing that has every one in an uproar. In Cincinnati Sanu was at best the third option behind Green and Jones. So we are going to punish a guy for not being the main guy on his team when were asking him to be the 2nd or 3rd option on our team? Yeah sounds crazy to me too, people are going to scream about over paying him but like I said up top I don't care. Given how the deal is setup its more like a 2 yr deal than 4 or 5 yr deal. So lets give him a chance because when he was the main focus of the offense in 2014 he put good numbers.

Derick Shelby: Another guy who played a bit part on his former team. The falcons are hoping that the sample size we saw when Wake went down is closer to what we will get over the course of 16 games, Shelby is a run first edge defender with some pass rush upside. In 8 games Shelby had 3.5 sacks, so if you double that to account for 16 games that 7 sacks that would be more than any one else on the team. So here is to upside and bit players.

Adrian Clayborn: Ok so is this really a free agent, yes yes it is. Adrian was not under contract and was getting interest from other teams like the Cowboys. He choose to come back here remember that. By the end of the season the coaching figured out that Clay could bounce inside but was better suited for the edge. We all thought he would play the Bennett role, not so much. This is a role I think Shelby will play (forgot to say that in his section). With Beasley possible play some more OLB I think Clayborn we be a true DE and mainly rush the passer, witch is good.

Courtney Upshaw: This is kinda interesting and simple all at the same time. Upshaw never really lived up to the hype coming out of college. Weight was kinda of in issue for him, I mean 273 for an OLB that's kinda big. I think the hope here is a younger, stronger, more productive version of Kory Beriman. I truly think this is all he is and that's fine with me.

      That just about wraps it up folks. All in all I feel like the Team got better with free agency. We are seeing more of the plan of Dan Quinn and what he wants on Defense. We saw our front office address to big needs on Offense with the signing of Mack and Mohammed. You add these to the pieces to what we already have on roster the Falcons should take a step forward. Now we will look forward to the draft, where we hope to get the fast to go along with the physical that free agency added.

Falcons Eye View Vol. 2

Welcome back Falcon fans it is I, your friendly internet blogger. Today I will be talking about, you guessed it coaches and front offices and how I think it  works. Also why people should calm down and stop tripping over Dimitroff. It's not that I think our front office has done a stellar job so just hear me out before you roll your eyes.
        Let's start by out with how I think a front office runs. First and foremost you have the G.M. his job is to handle the cap, sign free agents, and draft new players. At Least that's what most people think. His job really is to manage all of that. He is the face we put to those decision and he tends to be the final stamp of approval on those decision but he is not the one that comes up with all that info. There are a multitude of groups that compile that info and pass it along to him. such as scouts, cap guys, and then the coaches themselves. What I am trying to say is that it is easy and to be honest lazy to place all the blame at his feet, even if the buck stops with him.
       Here are some of the hits and misses as I see it from Dimitroff tenure. Now mind after laying it out like I did above I will say that it's not all him but here we go anyway.
      Hits
     1. Matt Ryan
     2. Micheal Turner
     3. Trufant/Alford
     4. Julio Jones
     5. Tony G.

      Misses
     1. Ray Edwards
     2. Peter Konz
     3. Leonard Hankerson
     4. Steven Jackson
     5. Prince Shembo

Ok so these are just a few examples of each, I could have done more but I am just using these to make a point. With Matt Ryan and Michael Turner he had to the nail on the head. After the horrendous 07 season Dimitroff was tasked to rebuild the team with a new first time ever head coach and a high draft pick. So he choses a solid QB with a high floor and a higher ceiling. Then he supported that pick with a solid running to help his rookie QB. Now we move on to Julio Jones, it's 2011 the team is doing good but we need a spark after getting smoked by the Packers in our own building. Some would say we should have seen it as a defense meltdown to come and built that way to compensate, but instead we did the trendy thing and tried to build a high powered offense like most of the teams were shifting to. I will not argue these points here today all I will say is I am glad we got Jones.
       Trufant and Alford were and are cornerstone cornerbacks and came at a time that they were needed. Tony G. well let's just say Tony G. speaks for himself. On to the misses, most of these speak for themselves as well. Edwards was rewarded for the play others much like Vernon and Malik Jackson was this year, happens every off season. Konz and Hankerson were plagued by injuries and ineffective play. Steven Jackson was done when he got here but I will get into that more when I get into the coach front office blance. Prince Shembo...I have thoughts on drafting players with that type of character issues and he showed the reason why.
     Those illustrate some of the hits and misses that have happened since Dimitroff has been in charge. The only thing that we as fans can say for sure is Thoms approved all of these transactions, thats its thats all. We don't know how he felt about them if he laid awake at night thinking did he make a mistake by saying yes. All we know for sure is he said yes. He gets all the blame and not much of the praise. This brings me to how I believe and NFL front office works. Season ends your team did great ( hipp hipp hooray) ok now time to try to figure out how to keeps our guys and shore up some weakness. Season ends your team did horrible (boo fire everyone burn it to the ground) ok now time to figure who we need to keep and how can we get rides of the guys that sucked in such away without killing our cap while shoring up weaknesses. Scouts of all types start pouring over tape of potential F.A. from all of the league, oh yeah and let's not forget the college kids who are entering the draft.
Info has been gathered now its time to sit down with the coaches, but wait the coaches have there own list of free agents guys and draft guys the like. Thats cool now we sit down meeting after meeting pouring over this mountain of info and whittle it down to guys the coaches want to draft and free agents we can reasonable afford.
     What most fans fail to see at this point is that this list of free agents and draft guys may not have a single name that the G.M. and his staff collected left on it. This example is purposely over blown but bear with me I am doing it to make a point. The coaching staff should have the most input, there the ones who have to use the players on a daily basis. They know their scheme and have a better idea of how that player should fit idealy. When your coaching staff doesn't know what it wants to be it, gets aimless or complicant then you start to get in trouble. This is what I believe happened to the Falcons in 2013 the coaching got lost didn't know what it wanted to be anymore. At the end of 2012 we got muscled by a physical 49ers team and that cost a trip to the super bowl. So the coaching staff wanted to get more physical but didn't know how they wanted to do it. They tried a hybrid defense, well they couldn't stop anything, run or the pass. So 2014 we sign run stoppers switch to a 3-4 and still can't stop a thing. During all of the Thomas does his job by getting the players that the coaching staff wants to use, this also applies to the o-line as well. Dimitroff did what he was tasked to do. He brought in the player that the coaching staff wanted at a price the team could stomach. I personally never care about a player's contract cause as the Saints have shown time again the cap really means nothing, if you want a guy you can figure it out so that doesn't even bother me. Fast Forward to 2015 new head coach same G.M.. If Dan Quinn didn't think he could work with Thomas do you think he would have taken the job. I say no because the is a big part of it, working together getting in lock step and if there is one thing TD has shown he can manage the cap and bring in player the coaching staff wants. I think this year you're going to see a even bigger step forward because now that have had a year to work together and get to know what the other one wants. If TD wasn't willing to work With Coach Quinn or vise verse he would have been gone end of story. Since he is not I have to assume there doing just fine and so far the offseason as shown that to me.
    This just something to think about the next time you want to blast a front office or even a coach staff about the players they bring and how siad players perform. There are just too many variables on why it didn't work out. Maybe your coach likes veteran players and is not a fan of developing young players (reason why Steven Jackson didn't work) maybe you hire a new coordinator and have to switch schemes, that takes time and players. Maybe just Maybe it's a collective problem that can't be sholved by removing just one person. It's easy to lay the blame at the feet of one man cause that's the face we see but rarely is it just his fault. Mr. Blank didn't build Home Depot by himself and Thomas Dimitroff nor Dan Quinn are solely responsible for this team. Because it is a team that's what makes it awesome so as Falcons fans lets do our part and #Riseup.