A Case for Donnie Avery

Now I know stright off the bat that the chances for Donnie Avery to come to the Falcons are slim to none but as he is one of my favorite WR's I have to hope. So Avery was recently cut by the Rams after overloading themselves in the offseason (a foolish move in my opinion) due to this they had to let some players go, the biggest of these names was Donnie Avery. Now he has not been taken by a team as of yet however I doubt this will be the case. Avery is a solid WR with speed, decent hands and given a solid QB (something he has never had) he has the potential to be very good.

Now what does Avery bring to the Falcons that we could use? A couple things:

Additional Speed - we talked about becoming more explosive and if we add in another player who can make big plays then the more the merrier.

Another proven reciever - now as much as I believe Julio Jones will be an immediate impact and Harry Douglas will live up to his potential, neither of them have done this. And after we got rid of Jenkins for cap space we left ourselves with 2 of our 4 WR's from last year. Sure Roddy is amazing but if worse comes to worse I doubt he could carry the offense alone.

Untapped Potential - But wait Falcons have alot of this, true but Avery was a 50 reception, 600 yards a year player in his first 2 years and that was with an average passing game, where Steven Jackson was one of the only other tallented players. Before his injury he apparently had great chemistry with Bradford and high expectations, but he missed last season. HOWEVER before the injury concerns appear, note he was the Rams best reciever in the preseason and there are a couple reports about him returning to full speed.

Bang for our buck? - Being cut from the Rams roster was more of a numbers game rather then a tallent issue. However I assume due to being cut he could possibly sign on for a bit less then if he resigned to the Rams... maybe. Regardless he is a player who isnt going to cost a tonne and has alot of upside. We have a bit of cap room with our latest cuts and we could use that to grab him (obviously it would mean another player had to be cut).

So I am aware its a tough sell but I like Avery enough to make this difficult claim. Also I wasn't very impressed with Meier this preseason, maybe because I didn't hear anything about him but he is my 1 big question mark in our recievers. Also note that I believe JJ will be rookie of the year good and HD will improve alot but I made the point because its a possibility