Falcons training camp starts in one day. Here’s the number one story line to watch

Tomorrow, we’re going to have Falcons training camp in our lives for the first time, which makes us all tingly inside and possibly outside.

With one day left, we’re going to wrap up our countdown by naming our number one story line to watch. It’s not overly sexy, but it’s critically important to this team’s 2016 fortunes.

1. Is linebacker going to be better? There are so many questions swirling around this Falcons team that you might be tempted to throw out wide receiver, offensive line (particularly guard), or even the secondary, and you wouldn’t be wrong to do so.

Even so, linebacker stands out. The Falcons were hopeless at linebacker a year ago with the exception of flashes from Paul Worrilow and Philip Wheeler, with Brooks Reed hurt, Justin Durant’s play diving off a cliff thanks to injury and the curse of the Falcons linebacker, and only Nate Stupar making a real positive impact otherwise. It’s hard to overstate how critical it is to have quality linebacker play, especially when your pass rush isn’t phenomenal and you have a few holes in the secondary to deal with.

As you tune in for your Falcons training camp updates this week and beyond, we’ll be updating you on how the linebackers are looking, and you should definitely be interested. If the Falcons really can get drastic improvement out of that group, we should all be more bullish on their prospects than we are right now, even if you’re an inveterate optimist. It all starts tomorrow.