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Beef · 04-28-2012, 08:27 PM

I thought this was very interesting, but every single draft pick this year was a team captain on their team.

Konz, Ewing, Holmes, Massaquoi, Mitchell, and Robertson... ALL one of maybe 3 or 4 team captains on their respective teams.

They are all also academic all-americans. Every single one of them had great grades in school.

It's amazing how serious TD takes these things. He is dead set on only drafting guys who are smart leaders with good work ethic. I think it's a smart move too. It has to increase your chances of getting a guy who has a better chance of being good. It's logical I mean.

markdzul · 04-28-2012, 08:57 PM

I believe TD has always been really big on drafting team captains and the like. Great for our franchise....

Jayhawk-Falcon2012 · 04-28-2012, 09:15 PM

http://memegenerator.net/instance/19221045

ggp · 04-28-2012, 10:07 PM

(04-28-2012 08:27 PM)Beef Wrote: I thought this was very interesting, but every single draft pick this year was a team captain on their team.

Konz, Ewing, Holmes, Massaquoi, Mitchell, and Robertson... ALL one of maybe 3 or 4 team captains on their respective teams.

They are all also academic all-americans. Every single one of them had great grades in school.

It's amazing how serious TD takes these things. He is dead set on only drafting guys who are smart leaders with good work ethic. I think it's a smart move too. It has to increase your chances of getting a guy who has a better chance of being good. It's logical I mean.

The further away you get from the "explosive" players, the smarter they get. Good work by Dimitroff. He should take some time off....recharge the batteries. The same goes for all the scouts. Mr Blank should gift them a vacation. They all did a great job.

DemBirds · 04-28-2012, 11:58 PM

Getting players like this really narrows down the potential for busts. If these guys have the talent, they will get it out of themselves. You could draft the most physically gifted guy ever and if he doesn't work, he'll never be better than average, if he gets that far. I love that about our draft picks. I'm fine with taking chances on occasion too though.

**papachaz** · 04-29-2012, 01:45 AM

well so far, none of the previous choices have been smart enough to win a damn playoff game. hell last year, there were several times they weren't even smart enough, or captain enough, or high character enough, to pick up fourth and inches. or consistantly get off the field on third down (defense) much less get us a super bowl win.....so you think the ones he picked this year will make the difference??

Jimusmc · 04-29-2012, 01:47 AM

(04-29-2012 01:45 AM)papachaz Wrote: well so far, none of the previous choices have been smart enough to win a damn playoff game. hell last year, there were several times they weren't even smart enough, or captain enough, or high character enough, to pick up fourth and inches. or consistantly get off the field on third down (defense) much less get us a super bowl win.....so you think the ones he picked this year will make the difference??

what he said.

it's fine to have a few guys that arent "good" guys or very smart.

but they have the talent to get things done in this league.. the talent to win.

takeitdown · 04-29-2012, 03:57 AM

It's good to establish your team this way, but then you have to start taking some risks on pure talent. Now's that time.

Overall, though, I do like the theme of focusing on smart leaders.

Beef · 04-29-2012, 06:38 AM

(04-29-2012 01:45 AM)papachaz Wrote: well so far, none of the previous choices have been smart enough to win a damn playoff game. hell last year, there were several times they weren't even smart enough, or captain enough, or high character enough, to pick up fourth and inches. or consistantly get off the field on third down (defense) much less get us a super bowl win.....so you think the ones he picked this year will make the difference??

It's not like any one guy ever takes a team over the top. It's usually the build up of experience and chemistry and a team finally just reaching its full potential together.

Look at the last few SB winners. Each of them essentially had the same team as the previous 3 or 4 years with only a couple minor additions to depth that contributed. Mostly it was what they already had in place just stepping up their quality of play. And this happens because of those gradual upticks in experience year to year and because everyone is gelling due to good chemistry.

It's pretty clear this is TDs philosophy as well. We DID add high impact players too. Jones and Weatherspoon are easily those types of impact players. They just also happen to meet the same team captain very smart criteria too. So it's not like we're avoiding elite talent. We have elite talent all over this team.

RockHoward · 04-29-2012, 09:21 AM

With above average football IQ guys it should be possible to deploy sophisticated schemes that exploit the weaknesses of other teams. However over the last few years the tendency for the Falcons has been towards keeping things simple. This is definitely a place where the GM and the coordinators have not been on the same page.

There is some reason for hope that the new coordinators are ready to step up to the modern game of football. The most obvious is that TD seems to have already embraced the preferred personnel packages of Mike Nolan which seem more in tune with the challenge of defensing the Saints.