Falcons: My Thinking On The New OC

[Knight of God]

So, I hated the pick out of the gate. Lowest in the NFL, Jaguars which I am tired of, and lastly I can't stand the Bubble Screen even on the Pop Warner level.

Then, I started looking at some of the things he wanted to bring to Atlanta. The screen, not just the bubble and a few other wrinkles and I said...wait a dang on minute. That's exactly what I asked for!

Let's look at a few things based on skill position.

QB - Koetter believes that the QB runs the offense, not the OC. You can't run a successful offense without communication at all. Koetter also has a similar belief as Billick (reason I wanted Billick to begin with) and that is knowing and understanding defense on a vast level. He expects QB's to know as much about defense as a MLB or FS. He also has NEVER had a QB with as much work ethic, determination, and smarts as Ryan.

One thing though, you don't have to have a laser for an arm to run a Koetter offense. Its as simple as checking your hot reads...YES I said HOT READS. You have two of them as well as a mobile check down. The problem has been shotty OL's and receivers and QB's not being very smart, and this year a rookie QB who was not as good as the hype. Although it has been no fault of Koetter or the FO that there wasn't much to work with as far as QB or WR's, he made the best of what he had in the TE and RB department.

RB - Koetter believes in the power run game and throwing wrinkles into it a lot. He likes power runners, speed backs, and utility guys. He tried as much as he could to use more than MJD, but he had no one else as the brass has been more involved on drafting busts in the form of linemen and most recently a QB. I found that he has in fact tried to get power backs more involved. Montell Owens was all he had in that way and Deji Karim (a 4.4 running back at 5'9" 200lbs was a back up speedster). All he had was MJD...again.

Its a knee jerk reaction to say that Turner will be gone, he's had his run...etc. Maybe, but Rodgers will be solid in many uses and we will see big plays from him, but don't discount what Turner could be in this spread. Guys like Turner have down well in this type of offense and could make a positive go at his final year. I would not be surprised if we picked up a faster and more powerful FA as Koetter will have some say as to what he wants to do.

WR - We are nothing like the Jags here. Their top two couldn't fit into Meier or Weems' jock strap. I'm serious when I say that. Would you trade Weems for Mike Thomas? I would probably gripe about it.

He likes to send these guys on option routes. Intermediate to long. rarely short. One may be give a option medium, where the receiver may stay at medium, but that's about it. You will rarely see anything short like we have from Mularkey...like those routes that catch Roddy on the LOS and expects him to pick up a yard...I guess. That will be the RB's job, but even he will be out somewhere from 3-4yds already. Slots see a lot of slant routes...a lot of them. A LOT...you'd never know in J-Ville since those passes were often thrown to MJD

TE - Deep threat? Oh yeah, this guy ran a 4.8 coming out of UCLA and I doubt he runs that now. Do you think Tony G still has that speed? Someone posted last year that he clocked an awesome 4.74 during TC...that's pretty good and I wouldn't doubt it considering his shape and health conscious lifestyle.

Koetter likes deep passes to TE's as they create serious mismatches. I would love to see what he has in mind.

Red zone - We have seen for ourselves that he calls decent red zone plays. I'm sure there won't be as many empty backfields for those short ones.