Five First Impressions of the Falcons

The extra week off gives a little extra time to jump into some more in-depth film review of the opponent, so I’ve enjoyed the chance to take a look at the Falcons. Admittedly, I get so focused on the Patriots during the season it’s hard to keep track of what every other team is doing, especially in the NFC.

First, the obvious thing to get out of the way is that the Falcons’ offense is explosive. Julio Jones and Devontae Freeman are two players that jump off the screen. Defensively, they’re fast and do a fair amount of rotation up front to keep players fresh. Vic Beasley and his 15.5 sacks are the biggest overall threat.

Here’s what Belichick had to say about the Falcons overall:

“I’d say the stamp on the team, the thing that I would notice the most is just the speed, the team speed that the Falcons have,” Belichick said. “They have a lot of fast guys. Defensively they close up space very quickly. Their linebackers run well. Their defensive line, although they have a couple of big, strong, physical guys in there, overall they have usually nine or 10 players on the field that I would say are fast. They’re either as fast or faster than probably what the average speed of their position is in the league. I’d say that’s a big stamp that (Dimitroff) has put on the team.

We saw plenty of matchups against both a fast defense (Colts 2000s) and the Seahawks scheme so I expect the Patriots will have a good idea how to attack them. The Pats certainly have the heavy personnel option to test their physicality, but there are plenty of favorable coverage matchups to exploit as well.

Here are my five other initial impressions of Atlanta:

1. As Belichick pointed out, they run a similar defensive scheme to the Seahawks with Keanu Neal in the Chancellor role and Ricardo Allen in the Thomas role at the safety spots. However, the outside corners Robert Alford and Jalen Collins can be attacked deep down the sideline. Neither is Richard Sherman. The keys in Super Bowl 49 against the Seahawks was to make the defend horizontally and to identify the difference between man and zone. They should be similar keys this time and let’s face it, despite how well-respected Seattle’s defensive scheme is, Brady has torn it apart every time he’s faced it, despite going 1-2 overall against them.
2. They have two rookie linebackers who play a ton in De’Vondre Campbell and Deion Jones. They’re especially important in the zone coverages the Falcons play, as well as the occasional instances of man, so they’ll be two players to focus on and attack. Keanu Neal is another rookie who plays a ton, especially in zone coverage in the flat. The Falcons have three rookies right in the middle, that area should have a huge bullseye on it.
3. Julio Jones and Devontae Freeman are the two pieces that must be taken away. Freeman is like a miniature version of Marshawn Lynch with his hard running style and the Falcons will get 15 handoffs and five targets per game. He’s deadly on screen passes. As soon as he gets any space he’ll put the throttle down and take off. I really love watching him play and think he’ll give the Pats plenty of problems with his versatile skill set and hard charging style.
4. We know all about Julio Jones by now. Interestingly enough some of his best games this season actually came in losses (139 yards in Seattle loss, 174 yards in loss to San Diego, 135 in a loss to Philly). I think there’s something to that, something I need to explore a bit more in the next week. One thing it definitely shows is that Jones is going to get his, even if the Patriots do a good overall job on him. But just like Belichick found the key to the Rams’ prolific passing attack in 2001 was actually their running back, I wonder if they’ll pay a little less attention to Jones at times instead of doubling him the entire game. Catch-and-runs off quick slants scare me most with him. Physicality at the line is key with him.
5. Five of Atlanta’s 11 giveaways this season came in four of their losses. In their current six-game unbeaten streak they have just one giveaway and 13 takeaways. That pretty much sums up the kind of good football they’re playing right now. If they continue to play those kind of games they will be tough to beat. We saw an incredibly clean game from the Patriots against the Steelers and they must put forth the same kind of game in the Super Bowl.