The Falcons Defense is smoke-n-mirrors all year - got exposed

[g-dawg]

I think the Falcons defense has improved each year from 2008 until now and the personnel has gotten better. However, its still nowhere near a great defense. As a matter of fact, I'm not sure we are much better than an average defense.

Falcons offense dominating the time of possession always masked our flaws. We are said to have the "bend but don't break" defense but when you consider everytime the Falcons defense faced good offenses - they gave up a ton of yards and even a lot of late scores in regular season (i.e. both Saints games, Ravens 2nd half, Packers regular season, Cincinnati, etc.).

I see a defense that plays to prevent big plays and let the opposing offense make mistakes and eventually beat themselves. Well that works when you are playing clearly inferior teams than the Falcons and that is about 18 teams in the NFL. However, the Falcons brand of defense is never going to win you the 2 or 3 games it will take in the playoffs to win a SuperBowl. I believe Falcons probably would have lost to Saints again in ATL as well had we faced Drew Brees again.

Granted, lots of defenses have bad days versus the likes of Drew Brees and Aaron Rogers but Falcons give up 350yds plus through the air when they face guys like those and Manning, Brady and probably Rivers as well.

Let's look at the remaining four teams in hunt for the SuperBowl - Steelers/Jets/Packers/Bears - all four of those teams have very stout defenses and have superstars on the defensive side of the ball.

Steelers: James Harrison, Troy Polamalu, LaMarr Woodley
Jets: Darrelle Revis, Bart Scott, Calvin Pace
Packers: Clay Matthews(who Falcons should have drafted), Woodson, BJ Raji
Bears: Urlacher, Peppers, Lance Briggs, Charles Tillman

You may argue that some of those guys are not quite superstars but you get my drift. Falcons don't have any thumpers up front in the front 7 especially. I like our linebackers but none are huge playmakers in blitz packages. The front 4 do not seem to be able to generate consistent pressure and no good team fears our defense.....Dunta has been god-awful and Grimes makes lots of plays but gives up as many.

On top of all that, I think our soft-scheme in the Cover-2 is to blame as well. We need a much more aggressive defense, play more bump-n-run with the corners and much, much, much more pressure.

Now, I have vented - feel much better.