Falcons focus on "point-of-attack" tapes

Transitioning to a new team as a head coach isn't an easy undertaking. Dan Quinn and his assistants have eased the transition by creating "point-of-attack" videos for each player on the roster, whether they were already on the Falcons' roster when Quinn arrived or came in as a free agent this offseason.

"In these point-of-attack tapes, here are some of the things that you're doing well, and here are the things that we want to focus on improving this offseason, and if you can get better at these two things, and if you can get better at these two, and if this player can get better at these two things, collectively, we'll really be at our best," Quinn said.

These tapes didn't just serve the purpose of helping the coaching staff identify players' strengths and weaknesses. It also helped the coaching staff achieve Quinn's goal of connecting with the players in Atlanta. "It was a good way, also, for our assistant coaches to get to know these players as well as we can," Quinn said. "One of my biggest challenges in the first part of the job was getting to know our own team as well as we could. So those point-of-attack tapes were a really important part of it, and that's what this week has been about -- not only just the scheme that we're doing, but a way for us to connect with these guys and talk about some specific, detailed things that each of them can have some focus to improve on."

Quinn has made it clear that he wants each player and each coach to focus on having the best offseason they can possibly have, and these point-of-attack tapes are part of that effort. "The real message for the guys was, can you have the best offseason you've ever had, whether that's a second-year player, an eighth-year player, or a ten-year player," Quinn said, "and that was the challenge for them and for the coaches."

Desmond Trufant said he likes the point-of-attack approach because it simplifies the process of learning the new scheme and it corrects issues players didn't even know they had. "They made the point-of-attack tapes for us, and pretty much that was just showing what we did last year without even knowing it," Trufant said. "That's what they're teaching this year, and the things that they would like to correct, and they've shown plays from where they came on previous teams, like, okay, this is like the base way of how we want to do it."

Of course, for Dan Quinn's Falcons, it all comes down to playing fast and physical, and Trufant said that's part of what these point-of-attack tapes help prepare the defense to do. "And what I love about it so far is it's not too complicated, and it's just going to allow us to play fast," Trufant said. "Of course, you're going to have to know exactly what to do. We're going to have to communicate and things like that, but just how free we're going to be and the simplicity of it that allows [us] to go make plays out there."

Your thoughts on this "point-of-attack" approach to get the defense up to speed?