It May Be Time For The Falcons To Roll Out A Flexible Offensive Line

Great Idea

Sam Baker and Garrett Reynolds had success run-blocking in one game against a team rank last in stopping the run? OK….ummm I say slow ya roll on that idea. Don’t get to the playoffs and all of a sudden start trying something new that has not even been proven to work against a real opponent. The Bucs had their bags packed 3 or 4 games ago so any perceived success by our backup linemen should be taken with a granule of salt. Stick with what got you here, execute it at a high level and win the ball game with your starters on the field. Not to even mention the fact that your opponent will eventually figure out what these constant substitutions mean as far as the type of play you will run. You NEVER want your opponent to have that type of advantage in a game of this magnitude. So to answer the question…absolutely not.

Will you even be able to make the correct substitutions in time? Wouldn’t it be blatantly obvious when it happens what play selection the Falcons are about choose? I agree to a certain extent but if Sam Baker comes rolling out onto the field for a a run play and Matt Ryan sees something in the defense and calls an audible from run to pass then Baker would get completely decimated by the Jason Pierre Paul. I don’t even want to think what would happen to Ryan.

likely difficult in execution. In addition to the point you raised about possibly ‘telling’ what’s coming, there’s the idea of unity which a persistent plug and play might interfere with. I’d definitely like to see it on 3rd and Short packages where they need to run to get it, though.

but it’s just the sort of thing that will lead to missed assingments in the long term of the game. We don’t need to be giving away free runners due to poor assingments, the Giants pass rush is my major area of concern this week. Starters are starters for a reason (hopefully they show that this week).

although I’d say even if it could work out, it just sounds too bold for MM and Smitty.

here’s another problem I have with this idea – it takes away what we do the best – the no-huddle. in fact, if it comes to experimenting I’d try to go no huddle all the way. change tempo from slow to fast but keep it no huddle – from what I can tell their stadium is not among the loudest.

if Baker is an upgrade in run-blocking, I’d try some formations when we keep Baker on the field as a TE. it might help both in running the ball and protecting Ryan as in max protect.

Hmmmmm, I like the sound of that. :-)

all an opposing team has to do to stymie this idea is to run no-huddle offense when they want to counter it. Frankly, it wouldn’t work against us, and if it wouldn’t work against us, anyone else can learn to stop it. Might be good for a one-game surprise, but beyond that, it’s a trick play.