AJC Examines Pass Defense Woes

A piece from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution outlining why our young secondary's in trouble. It appears that they're in trouble because they're young.

Problem....solved?

about 1 year ago Dave the Falconer 15 comments 0 recs |

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The Falcons (and the AJC) won't come out and say it

but didn’t the whole world know the secondary would be a weak area this season? The talent we need to compete at a high level simply isn’t there! IMO the coaches have schemed pretty well for our DBs this year, but zones have gaps by definition, and we don’t have the individuals with skills to shut down the top WRs in man coverage. The Falcons have no choice but to make do with what we have this year; the personnel situation is what it is. If they’ve got brains, they’ll address the situation through the draft and/or free agency.

"There's no such word as 'quit' in swamp buggy racing, Marigold"

by tom slick on Oct 9, 2008 2:01 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Free agency or trade

When you look at the number of rookies, second year players and undrafted free agents kicking around in the secondary, it’s clear we either need to draft a corner with our first round pick—which would be better spent along the lines or on a wide receiver, in my opinion—or get a very good veteran. I favor the latter.

by Dave the Falconer on Oct 9, 2008 2:20 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

The last corner

we took with a first rounder didn’t turn out to be a good long term investment. I’d rather see a lineman taken with our #1 next year. You very seldom see elite linemen in free agency, even less than WRs.

"There's no such word as 'quit' in swamp buggy racing, Marigold"

by tom slick on Oct 9, 2008 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I have to ask...

…but how can people applaud the D-Hall trade claiming he was over-rated then turn around and suggest we should go trading for a top-level veteran? You can’t complain at all about our secondary being young, inexperienced, or bad when you get rid of one of the better corners in the league. Sure, he got burnt a few times, mostly by Steve Smith and recently by Eddie Royal, but he is still better than what we have currently. The current secondary is the bed the Falcons made, now they have to sleep in it and so do all the fans complaining about it.

The same could be said about Peele, our newest version of the pass-catching TE. If we wanted a pass-catching TE, why did we let Crumpler go? He was one of the top five TE’s in the game and we didn’t even get anything in return for him. I said up front that we needed to have a pass-catching TE around just so Ryan would have someone to check down to because our WR’s have been overall horrible. White finally got everything together last season, but the rest still have problems with their hands.

These two things alone still keep me planted firmly in the non-believer soil when it comes to this management.

by Jesse28 on Oct 9, 2008 2:45 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

My thoughts

I don’t really have a counter-argument for you on D-Hall, except to say that he A) didn’t want to be here and B) did not fit the character focus the Falcons were clearly going for. Is he better than Grimes, Houston and Foxworth? Sure he is. Is he the kind of leader at the position the Falcons could conceivably get? I don’t think so.

Personally, I like Grimes and Houston, but I think it’d be lunacy to suggest that we go into next season with our current corps. The Falcons need another quality veteran player back there whether our current guys improve or not, and that’s really the thrust of my argument.

As for Crumpler…look, nobody loves Alge more than I do. I was sad for days after we let him go, but look at what he’s doing in Tennessee. Nothing. I’d hate to call his career over, but at this point I don’t know that he’s any more useful than the Hartsock/Peelle tandem. The Falcons need help at tight end, too, but it would have been significantly more expensive and only marginally better to keep Crumpler around.

I still support the direction this team is going in.

by Dave the Falconer on Oct 9, 2008 4:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Value for the payroll dollar

is always important, but especially when you’re rebuilding. Hall was a pretty good CB, but hardly elite and certainly not nearly worth the $9M per year the Raiders paid him. Crumpler’s career was clearly in decline last year, as was Dunn’s. I hated seeing those two go, but it made sense from a value-oriented, business standpoint. Being on the hook for Vick’s bonus money didn’t help either (thanks a lot Rich, why aren’t you mopping floors?).

The 49ers had a great run with Joe Montana, but traded him when he was no longer a good value for their team. Loyalty can be a good thing, but must be kept in context. In football, as in any business, it’s poor practice for the boss to fall in love with the employees.

"There's no such word as 'quit' in swamp buggy racing, Marigold"

by tom slick on Oct 9, 2008 5:54 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Our DBs

I think Eric Coleman needs replacing. As a FS, he bites on every PA out there. Let the SS do that.

With the return of Von Hutchins, and hopefully a retooled DL (that doesn’t include Jamaal Anderson…) those DBs should be physical enough to stick with guys for a few seconds, ideally enough time for us to pressure a QB…

Fixing a secondary is a lot easier to do up front than it is to do from the backend. Champ Bailey and Asante Samuel, and whoever else you want to name as an elite CB won’t make a world of difference if there’s no pressure up front. However, if you can get some heavy pressure you can make Houston and Grimes work just fine!

Dear Matt Ryan: Don't eff this up. Love, iRonin.

by iRonin on Oct 10, 2008 12:58 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Good point

Back in the ’70s when we had the awesome Humphrey and Zook at DE, we had less-than-stellar DBs but the pass rush largely covered for their shortcomings.

Going forward, though, we need to upgrade several DBs as well as DE if Anderson can’t get it going this year. No team is going to be able to get a good pass rush on every pass play. Good teams will pick apart your weaknesses wherever they may be.

"There's no such word as 'quit' in swamp buggy racing, Marigold"

by tom slick on Oct 10, 2008 1:28 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Eff That!

Dave may not have a counter-argument to it, but I sure as hell do.

It’s really simple: Deangelo Hall was a bad corner. Not mediocre, not subpar, BAD. Not good. Not even close. Brent Grimes will out-cover Deangelo Hall any day of the week (unless Hall decides to cover someone, he might be good then, but I’ve never seen that)

Here’s my support:
1.) His tackling was horrible. He would, more often than not, attempt a strip rather than wrap up the ball-carrier. He does this ALL the time. Never laid the wood, just went for the strip. In the process of doing this, the ball carrier would inevitably gain an additional 3-5 yards while Hall wrestled with the stat sheet.
2.) His coverage was horrible. Deangelo Hall was playing football for Deangelo Hall. Soft coverage, eyes in the backfield, these were all hallmarks of his to try and force the pick. Yes, he forced a few interceptions. Yes, he’s faster ‘n hell. Yes, he scored a touchdown or two off of them. The problem was that these were the exceptions not the rule. The rule was basically that if Hall was covering the guy, he’d usually play them soft so that the QB would be enticed to throw it to them. Sure this worked on the John Kitna’s and Joey Harrington’s of the world. Tom Brady and Peyton Manning weren’t going to fall for that. They were going to salivate watching a 60+ yard touchdown bomb. (Hell, even Garcia punked him last season in the Dome…)
3.) His attitude was horrible. Deangelo Hall was playing football for Deangelo Hall. This is really where it all starts. The piss-poor tackling, the soft/weak coverage, eyes in the backfield, it was all done not because it helped the team but because it helped Deangelo Hall. He ended up on Sportscenter, and went to Honolulu, and managed to wrangle $10 million/year (7 years, $70 million) from the Raiders. It certainly worked for him. But the trash talking, the penalties, the attitude. He was the only player on that defense that strolled back to the line after a play. Other people hustled. He’s a bad seed.

In 2004 (Hall’s rookie year) Atlanta was ranked 22nd in Pass Defense.
In 2005, 14th.
In 2006 29th.
In 2007 23rd.

The Raiders currently rank 18th. Whoopee. Deangelo Hall isn’t enough to make the impact by himself. We could be 29th or 23rd in the league without paying that loudmouth $70 million.

Let’s not forget the Eddie Royal fiasco (9 catches 146 yards and 1 TD, plus two unnecessary roughness penalties…) http://www.denverpost.com/broncos/ci_10422936

Hall claims he was “out-schemed” and Cutler laughed at him, claiming they played one-on-one ball and Hall just got smoked.

Deanglo Hall sucked, and I’m glad he’s gone. You should be too. Now, let’s get some DL help for the secondary, and you’re speaking my language.

Dear Matt Ryan: Don't eff this up. Love, iRonin.

by iRonin on Oct 10, 2008 12:54 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

It's bad for your health

to keep your feelings bottled up! :)

I know there’s a Wunderlich test for intelligence, but has anyone tried to develop a formalized screening test for players with selfishness or maturity issues like Hall? That would be almost a Holy Grail of scouting, it would be worth a fortune.

"There's no such word as 'quit' in swamp buggy racing, Marigold"

by tom slick on Oct 10, 2008 1:48 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

For the record...

Eddie Royal,

San Diego 5 catches 37 yards 1 TD
New Orleans 4 catches 11 yards 0 TD
@ Kansas City 9 catches 104 yards 0 TD
Tampa Bay 3 catches for 23 yards 0 TD

Eddie Royal is a decent player but he’s not the second-coming of Jerry Rice like he looked against Deangelo Hall. Hall is just flat bad and bad news. And I’ve been saying this for years now, I’m just glad he’s finally gone.

Dear Matt Ryan: Don't eff this up. Love, iRonin.

by iRonin on Oct 10, 2008 1:05 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Compelling argument

And full of rage, which I enjoy tremendously.

One little disagreement: I think Eddie Royal is going to be a pretty special player. That’s not to say he should be burning one of the supposedly “elite” corners in the league this early in his career, but he’s a guy I wouldn’t mind the Falcons having.

by Dave the Falconer on Oct 10, 2008 1:43 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ok, I give up

I have spent entirely way too much time trying to research this little debate over D. Hall than one really should. I wanted to try and put out some numbers, but when it comes to defensive players, showing their impact with numbers doesn’t really give you the full picture, especially so with DBs. Basically, we can obviously get numbers for what he DID do, but we can’t get numbers for what he didn’t do. Another thing that makes this difficult is that even if you go back and look at every game’s play-by-play, you are only going to see the plays where he did something, but you can’t always tell which plays he failed on. About the only way I know how anyone could do that is by going back and watching every defensive play. Sure, I know he blew some coverage, missed some tackles and more times than not I agree with everything you stated about how he played the game iRonin, but even with that being said, the fact still remains that D. Hall was, and probably still is, a better cover corner than anything we have on this team right now. Will that be the case next year, or the next? Probably not because I believe that our young guys are just that, young, same as he was in his rookie year.

So, what I have tried to do is to simply provide some numbers of the four years D. Hall played for the Falcons. He was a two time pro-bowler for a reason and until our guys put up numbers like those below including shutting down top level WR’s to help win games, I’m not going to say that they are already better than what D. Hall was for us during his time here.

D. Hall
Year Tm Pos G GS Sk Int Yds TD Lng PD FF Fmb FR Yds TD Tkl Ast Sfty
2004 ATL LCB 10 9 0.5 2 50 1 48 6 1 0 0 0 0 29 6 0
2005* ATL LCB 15 15 0 6 177 0 65 10 1 2 3 86 1 59 7 0
2006* ATL LCB 16 16 0 4 131 1 60 16 0 1 1 25 0 51 7 0
2007 ATL LCB 16 15 0 5 80 0 33 16 1 0 1 56 1 63 7 0
*ProBowl Years

2005:
Week 1 Philly – TO held to only 112 yards, no TD’s, and D. Hall gets an INT on a TO pass.

I threw out his rookie year during my research mainly because it was his rookie year and I don’t think any players stats during their rookie year should be held against them too much. The game I listed above is where I got tired of trying to figure out which plays he got burned on and which ones he didn’t because of the reasons I listed above. This game was the one that stuck out to me the most because we won that game and it was the one where everyone got into it before the game even started. Another reason researching this crap is difficult is that there is no way of knowing which plays TO was matched up against D. Hall so you can’t argue in either direction if TO got all 112 yards against D. Hall.

I guess my point here isn’t that the guy was a bad seed in the locker room or on the field. It’s not even that he was or wasn’t playing for himself through all those years. My argument simply lies in the fact that a lot of people, i.e. fans, make statements about his game and/or talent level, then get all bitchy when we have worse guys playing at corner and want to complain about how we need to go after some top-level guy, when we had one all along. If you want to argue attitude, then I concedd that fully and I agree. But if you are going to argue talent, then you have to be able to separate the two and unfortunately that is not always the case on most of these fanboards, not saying that any of you here are or aren’t, just stating it. If you honestly believe that our current corners are better than what D. Hall did the four years he was here, then I have to disagree. Either way, it’s only been five games so maybe it’s best if we wait a full season before we say they are or aren’t better than what we had.

As for Crumpler, how much of that do you want to put on him? TN has absolutely no WR’s of any significant talent and in my personal opinion, the QB situation is pretty bad as well. I don’t think Young is that great of a passer and Collins is what 40? It’s easy enough to shut Crumpler down when you know no one else in the receiving corps is going to do any real damage. I just think it was a waste to let him go for nothing and we could have used his last years performance to negotiate a lower deal if we resigned him.

Really, though, I still am amazed I spent almost three hours looking this crap up.

by Jesse28 on Oct 10, 2008 9:12 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Crumpler

I think the big thing with Crump is that he’s sunk down the depth chart behind Bo Scaife and hardly gets on the field these days. That could be just a choice by Jeff Fisher, or it could be that Scaife is excelling.

Then again, it could also be that Scaife is simply better than Alge at this stage in his career, which would have been unthinkable just a short time ago. I’d love the Falcons to bring him back down the line so he could retire with the team, but he’s not the same guy he was two years ago.

by Dave the Falconer on Oct 10, 2008 10:47 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs