hey dave. i had to leave at halftime and you pop in right after. sorry i missed ya but read all the threads i missed after i left. Game song for first half shoulda been for the defense …….holding out for a hero…….i think thats the name of the 1980’s song anyways.

“Falcons running back Jerious Norwood hurt his left knee in the first half and did not return. … Rookie cornerback Chris Owens left with a knee injury late in the first half. … Another Atlanta rookie, safety William Moore, hurt his hamstring after missing the first two preseason games with a knee injury”

i just don’t think our secondary has what it takes. everyone defends them here because we read their stories and follow them closely, but against a division of elite recievers i just sense we are in big trouble. i don’t think we have one cornerback that should be a starter, and decoud is suspect.

maybe they’ll end up panning out and our rookies will develop, and without question the chargers looked like a great team last night, but god have mercy on our d.

has anyone heard why one of them has not been given a chance to start, and what makes this staff so set on houston and grimes, neither are the answer.

Take deep breaths. Repeat these three little words over and over: pre sea son.
Fear not. This team will do very well indeed.

our secondary is very bad. If it wasn’t for Boller playing last week instead of Bulger we probably would have lost that game. If our secondary AND pass rush doesn’t improve dramatically over the next 2 weeks before we play Miami, we will get our butts kicked everytime we play a good passing team with a good QB. I mean it was just so bad that I literally started laughing when the chargers were converting 3rd and forever’s because I knew they were going to make a first down no matter what the yardage needed was! lol
Without some dramatic improvement with the secondary AND pass rush we won’t win more than 7 or 8 games.
 On a good note though, our rush defense was still very good, and seems to be the best weapon our defense has to offer to stop opponents.
And of course, our offense was once again a very very good unit and looked pretty good against a good defense in San Diego.

So, we are just fine on offense but we will definitely need to sign a couple of defensive players to help out our secondary, whether thats a DB or a DE, or both , who knows but with the guys we have right now, I am extremely worried that we will be in a shootout EVERY week, and that can’t be good in the long run for the health of our guys and their mental state on defense thinking that you can’t stop any teams passing attack. I honestly think that what we really need is a better pass rush, cuz with a better pass rush the QB’s won’t have 4-7 seconds to PICK out a receiver, change his mind twice, bake some cookies, and then throw a 24 yard completion!!! LMAO
GOD, PLEASE GIVE US A BETTER PASS RUSH. THANK YOU!
 LETS GO FALCONS!!!
L-DAWG

Mark Bradley has a quote from TD on his ajc.com blog that essentially confirms what we all already suspected. And that is that they are about to bring in some veteran help for the secondary, whether it be via the free agent pool or a trade.

And seeing how Foxworth panned out so well last year as a late pick up, I have to admit that I feel better already. Let’s go Falcs!

Ok, so someone had to say it. I understand we have a young secondary, so I don’t except us to blow the other teams out of the water with our remarkable coverage. We were very surprised to see what our Rookie QB did for us last year. So I except to have the same exceptions as last year and just hope this young defense can learn something. At least we can see clear as day what the team needs to do. Now they just need time to fix it and learn from it. I have a lot of faith in MS and TD and I think they will make the right personnel choices and right coaching choices. But yeah, I can agree with everyone, this is going to be a long season.

And to be honest, I was hoping we would have lost. Remember what happens to us if we have a good record in the preseason, the regular season doesn’t look as well.

LET’S GO FALCONS!!!

Jason Jefferson cut…. somewhat surprised since we still have 20+ players to cut.

seems we both are in agreement that our defense needs some “veteran blood” added to it before the start of the season. I firmly beleive that it’s our pass rush that is the problem on defense. Like you said, not even pro bowl corners can defend receivers for 6-8 seconds if we keep giving opposing QB’s that much time to throw the ball!! As I said before, and you concurred, our rush defense is solid and by far our best asset on defense because of our DT’s and MS’s defensive philosophy. BUT, it won’t matter how good our rush defense is if we can’t sack the QB or at least limit the time they have to read their progressions, cuz then teams will just air it out on us. ( I was glad to see MS give the defense hell on the sideline after that one touchdown scored on a 3rd and 24!!) This could also be a very big problem during the season trying to hold onto leads, cuz usually when a team is behind they start throwing the ball A LOT, which of course would be bad news for our defense!!! I could see us losing 2-3 games on the last possession of the game if our defense doesn’t improve it’s pass rush. We don’t need a huge improvement, just a little more pressure and a 1-2 more sacks a game should do it. But I trust our management team to make the right move/s to improve our defense enough to at least keep the better teams to 4 TD’s or less(NE, NO, Philly, Dallas, etc..) and the lesser teams to 2 TD’s or less(Tampa, Buffalo, SF, etc..). As long as our defense can at least maintain that then we can still make a good run at the SB. Let’s just hope we lead the league in turnover ratio!!! 35 turnovers we gain and 10 turnovers we lose – that would be AWESOME!!!
We’ll see how the coaches adjust before the last preseason game. I think the 1st string offense should play one series, but the 1st string defense should play the whole damn game!!

LETS GO FALCONS
L-DAWG

Have you guys been looking at Snelling and V. Haynes running the ball this preseason? Don’t get me wrong I too like Norwood’s speed and his potential to go all the on any given play. But, it also
appears to me that his own speed kills some of the plays because he doesn’t allow the play to
develop before he plunges in head first.
Snelling and Haynes also seems to have that body type to run inside when you need that yard
or two.
I guess my point is, is that we’d be okay with or without him except for the speed part.

And some one please tell Norwood to tighten up that chin strap, that might save him from having his head taken off.

I am consistently dissappointed by him almost everytime he runs the ball. If you pay attention and watch him, HE HARDLY EVER CAN BREAK A TACKLE, the first guy to him usually brings him down. His upper body strength must not be that good because he can’t absorb any blows, if a guy hits him HE goes backwards. it’s pathetic given his amazing speed cuz if he could break more tackles he would be a major weapon on screen and checkdown passes. But generally he goes down at first contact- sad!!
 Back on the defense- everyone needs to realize that our corner backs were out of position a lot because they had been chasing their receiver for 7-10 seconds!! NOBODY and I mean NOBODY in the NFL can cover an NFL receiver for more than 5 seconds tops!!! After that , theres going to be a breakdown in technique one way or another, and the receiver is going to get enough spacing to be practically wide open!! That is why IT IS OUR PASS RUSH AND BLITZ PACKAGES THAT ARE THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WITH OUR DEFENSE THAT NEEDS FIXED ASAP!! Now I am not saying that our CB’s are really good afterall, they need to improve as well- stop looking into the backfield, get into their backpeddle faster, defend the receivers hands more at the jump for the ball, etc…
 Anyways thats my rant guys, tell me your thoughts on what I have said.
Thanx,

LETS GO FALCONS
L-DAWG