Falcons: Thomas Dimitroff

[Anomaly]

(03-15-2012 08:41 PM)phocis850 Wrote:  That's the thing. How do we know it will be better with Nolan and Koetter?

The same way we "know" every guy we draft in the 1st round will be good. We don't know and all we can do is hope for the best until the player/coach shows us they suck.

[swanlee]

Just look at the 49ers for an example as to how a coaching change can make a team better. Nolan is one of the best Dc's in the game and at the very least Dirk will change things up and team will have no film on our new offense. Our oeffensive skill players are in the top 5 in the nfl. We are not that far from being a serious SB contender. Simply look at the years past and how won the Free Agency Super Bowl. Those teams don't even make the playoffs.

It is simply the fact some fans are short sighted and want to see all these NEW players signed for huge contracts cause it makes the off season exciting. That pretty much NEVER translates into regular season success. I'm willing to accept a boring off season knowing that when the season rolls around we have a solid team and won't be in serious cap trouble in the future. We are built for long term success and sometimes that mean a boring Free Agency period.

[swanlee]

(03-15-2012 08:41 PM)phocis850 Wrote:  That's the thing. How do we know it will be better with Nolan and Koetter?

I'm much more confident our defense will be better with Nolan than it would be no matter who we signed as a free agent. He has a damn good track record and is pretty much universally considered one of the best DC's in the game.

Our offense has a top 5 roster of skill players all DK has to do is change things up and play to their strengths. His job is pretty easy especially with Ryan on the field

Having our new coordinators to me is more valuable than ANY free agent we could have signed.

[Polar Bear Jones]

I am still eager to see how this freeagency works out maybe this could be TD's masterpiece it seems like he is going for a little "over the hill gang" type theme here. That type of experience and hunger could come in handy around playoff time.

I agree with phocis that we are banking a lot on the "hope" that new coordinators/coaches(Pat Hill) can increase the production and quality play of our players.

[cnasty]

(03-15-2012 09:04 PM)swanlee Wrote:  Just look at the 49ers for an example as to how a coaching change can make a team better. Nolan is one of the best Dc's in the game and at the very least Dirk will change things up and team will have no film on our new offense.

Also, Wade Phillips. Took a Texans D, worst in the league. Brought in Jonathan Joseph and a few draft picks here & there. Then all of the sudden, they have the number 1 defense the first year in their transition to the 3-4, even AFTER losing Mario WIlliams.

[Radical]

To be fair, Wade Phillips and Mike Nolan have had some atrocious defenses in their career as well. Having the right players always matters.

[ATLBound]

Whose to say he doesn't have the right players with us

[Falconidae]

(03-15-2012 05:31 PM)Beef Wrote:  I don't think it's quite the "downgrade" to lose Abe and Lofton like you make it out to be.

Just like Turner made the offense predictable, Abe makes the defense predictable. BVG's defensive schemes were remedial at best. His attempts to be "unpredictable" included dropping Abraham into coverage and making Lofton chase receivers 40 yards down field into the back of the endzone. BVG's idea of a stunt was to move the 3rd string cornerback who's playing nickle up to the line outside the DE and telegraph his QB rush.

When was the last time you saw our DT's block open a hole for our LB's to run up the middle free and clear to the QB? Is that play even in BVG's book?

Abraham was good for 2 plays out of every 4, so when he was in there, the opposing offensive coordinator had an easy time "predicting" what was coming. Especially with the soft-zone shit that our secondary was always in. Offenses didn't have to worry about spreading us out, we were already spread out on our own.

Lofton is a GREAT tackler. But he is not a good pass rusher who finds his way through the line quickly and often gets to the QB. And he is very average at pass coverage, maybe even just bad at it at times when he has to do it outside the box or turn his hips and run with a receiver anywhere.

Mike Nolan is going to come in here with a real NFL caliber defensive scheme and not this BVG college level coservative prevent bullshit. We're going to have younger, faster, more agile players running REAL stunt and blitz packages that aren't predictable. We're going to put defensive backs closer to receivers and force QB's to hold on to that football that extra second that they didn't have to do before because they're receivers always appeared wide open.

And on top of all this, even if we end up still being an average at best defense, who cares. The Pats, Packers, and Saints are considered the 3 most elite teams in the NFL and each of them had a BOTTOM 5 defense last year. Hell even the Giants had a bottom 10 defense and won the SB after a 9-7 season.

We have elite talent all over this team. Roddy, Julio, Gonzo, Turner, Ryan, Spoon, Grimes, Moore.... And with new coordinators who have polar-opposite reputations from MM & BVG, who are known for being the opposite of predictable, conservative, and pedestrian, might just bring out the hidden gems in guys like Quizz, HD, Robinson, Sidbury, Dent, Nicholas, and Franks.

We made our big splash this year. It was Grimes, Keotter, and Nolan.

Agree with most of this- would point out that the Giant's Dline only got healthy at the end of the year. If they'd had their entire Dline for the whole year, they're a much higher ranked D.

Also like to point out how much better the Oline looked when running the no huddle- part of that is the D can't put sub packages in, but also, not being able to predict the play based on personnel and formation gave the Oline an advantage.

Ideally, the O will have that advantage much more this year.

Same with the D people are going to love the 3-3-5 when it's used properly. BVG ran a prevent with it and only rushed 3, Nolan will rush 4-5, but the D won't know which 4-5, it'll make a huge difference.

[illmusic]

(03-15-2012 09:52 PM)Radical Wrote:  To be fair, Wade Phillips and Mike Nolan have had some atrocious defenses in their career as well. Having the right players always matters.

other than a geared pass rusher, we have the right players...i think we'll either be replacing abe or resigning him to fill that void though

[RFlagg]

It seems the quiet we are going through right now has been planned by TD for a while.

Quote:I was interested to see how the market would pan out at a couple of positions, and it’s kind of played out how I expected this year.

Every year since we’ve been here, we’ve taken a free agent. That’s helped us go into the draft. The first year, as you know, it was Michael Turner. The second year, we considered the Tony Gonzalez trade to be a free agent move. The year after that it was Dunta Robinson and the year after that, last year, it was Ray Edwards," he said. "Again, (the free agency period) really allows a team to be aggressive enough to get someone in place so that they don’t have to just use the draft to build, and for us, as you know, we do not have a first-round pick this year or a fourth-round (pick), so free agency is going to be important. Does it mean, Bucky, that we need to be very aggressive at the beginning of free agency? It means we have to have a really good feel of what free agency may offer us throughout weeks to come.

http://blog.atlantafalcons.com/jayadams/...n-podcast/