Sunday Stock Report: Pre-Season Game #1

Put on your pretentions and fire up your ticker tape, it's time for the stock report! Today we'll see whose stock is up and whose is down after the very first game of the pre-season.

Check it out after the jump.

TRENDING UP:

QB Matt Ryan: Those who envision Matt Ryan starting in Week 1 got a huge boost from his performance. 9/15 with a TD isn't spectacular, but he looked very poised against a very capable Jaguars D. I'm excited (finally) for the Ryan era to begin, but I still don't think the team should start him that early. If he continues to impress, though, I reserve the right to change my mind.

WR Roddy White: It's hard for him to trend much higher, as he was already the clear #1 receiver in Atlanta. Still, it's hard not to marvel at how Roddy turned around his career so quickly. The dude went from dropping seemingly every third pass thrown to him to becoming a legit threat, and I have a feeling Matt Ryan under center won't hurt him a bit.

WR Brian Finneran: Who doesn't love Finn? I don't know where he fits given that we have at least three of four legit options at wide receiver, but the simple fact that he's able to take the field and perform at a high level is a testament to how much he loves the game. I'll be rooting for him to at least make the team, as he's one of the last connections to our past, however ugly that was.

LB Curtis Lofton: Lofton is going to start earning superlatives pretty soon. With six bone-jarring tackles and a forced fumble in his first game, Lofton looks likely to be starting somewhere by the end of the year. Tony Taylor's going to have to work pretty hard to hold him off, that's for sure.

CB Brent Grimes: Grimes showed off his impressive speed and a better knack for coverage than I would've expected, and he can also tackle a little. With a severely depleted cornerbacking corps, Grimes does seem like one of the best options (if not the best) that we have.

TRENDING DOWN:

QB D.J. Shockley: I like Shock, but that was a pretty putrid performance. Coming in near the end of the game when the backups were either already in or were filtering in, he managed a miserable 4 completions on 15 attempts and threw an interception. Redman and Harrington weren't great, either, but Shockley's going to have to do much better than that to keep his roster spot.

DE John Abraham: The last thing we needed to hear was that Abraham was hurt again, even though it was minor. We really need a healthy Abraham with a line that doesn't promise to have a lot of pass rushing ability, and even the littlest injuries are enough to make me jump a little.

ANALYSIS:

The fact that there's only two guys under trending down should tell you something about how this team played. They weren't great, but nobody aside from Shockley had a truly blah performance and everybody chipped in a little. The few standouts ought to carry some momentum into next game, but it's hard to separate the wheat from the chaff after one game.