I realized this afternoon that with the time limit on YouTube videos and the multitude of questions fans have already asked via Voices Heard, that it may be impossible to answer every query before the start of Russell Falcons Training Camp.
Please keep the questions coming, however, since I’ll jump on and record at least two more rounds of answers before training camp begins. I’ll also dive down into the list for some of the more recent — less popular — questions to get a good cross section of what you can expect from the team in the 2009 preseason.
Speaking of training camp… I’ve seen some questions in regards to practices, autographs and admission. Answers?
Open.
Yes.
Free.
Once training camp gets going you can call the training camp hot line (770-965-2752) to get updates on weather, possible practice cancellations and changes. Give it a call and hear my voice telling you of the day’s events.
(At some point I became a pseudo-spokesman).
The player report date for camp is July 31.
36 Comments
i think the falcons should make a splash other than Tony G, before the start of training camp
i think the falcons need a true safety and corner ASAP….. its to many people on the free agent list or people who is willin to be traded, who would make a good fit for the falcons…
amy pf em’ but i feel A .toomer would fit just nice with Atlanta,. what do you think??
What good CB’s and S remaining in FA? PacMan Jones? Washed up guys like Mike McKenzie, Ty Law or Chris McAlister? We should stick with the guys we have.
@jon
no need for a WR
I think we are good to go. I wish we could have gotten another solid DE or DT so we can get pressure on the QB to take pressure off our young corners. TY Law would be a good fit to teach our young corners, but he wants to much money. I think Sidbury will be a diamond in the ruff he will get a lot of playing time this year. Also the 3-4 Defense can not wait to see Adkins come off that edge with that 4.3 speed.
since you brandon marshall is unhappy in denver, we should try and trade for him….. marshall, white, gonzalez, turner, norwood, harry douglass, jenkins, and the ultimate qb matt ryan…. that would be a good all star falcons offense right there…
Kevin Williams are we watching the same Falcons team?! we need another Safety?!?! i think we just drafted some guy named William Moore and have a couple guys (DeCoud and Coleman) back there already. I understand the need of a shutdown corner but people fail to realize that Houston came out as a Junior and last year was his 2nd year (Basically he could be classified as a rookie last year stat wise and those would be good stats for a rookie) and we still have Chevis Jackson and Owens.
And then the comment about trading for Brandon Marshall!? First, if we traded for him they would definitely want Roddy White in return making your argument obsolete and that is a no go. Second if we did manage to get him for merely draft picks (the odds of drafting another ALL-PRO WR are low) we would basically give up our whole draft and thus we would not be able to add to our Defense/depth! can we all as Falcons fans come to a consensus that we shall remain intelligent during the offseason and not resort to Madden type of thinking? Thank You
King a head hunting saftey or ball hawking saftey would be a great addition to our very young DB’s. Some one who makes receivers think twice about crossing the middle.
Kevin we are almost set on offense a little offense line depth would be great.
How do everyone fill about DJ being the #2 or we can use him in a wild cat formation so he can throw or run more for defenses to think about.
that is a goodi dea i think.
Why not make a play for the texans cb Dunta Robinson.He’s not happy,and all we would have to do is give up a 1st round draft pick,and a player or two.This guy is great tackler,and a shut down corner.”HOW ABOUT IT THOMAS D!”
Dirtybird can we give William Moore a chance before we go asking for another safety (which we would have to get in the first round to have those qualities)that’s all I ask. And if you guys ever think about the “ball hawking” safeties in the league, look at there front 4.
Gunboat the reason why giving up a 1st rounder and a player/two is dumb is because although Dunta Robinson is seasoned and really good we already have a lot of depth at CB and if it is necessary we can pick one up mid season or draft another one (both highly doubtful). TD didnt draft 2 corners just so we can say we did. He plans to use them and effectively. our most seasoned corner is Houston who has only played 2 full season! can we give our defense a shot before we go saying we need new toys to play with. once again this is not madden we dont go to the trade screen to see if the bar will fill up to make the trade scenario acceptable. This is REAL F U KING LIFE! grow the f^ck up and stop saying childish things. look at our team: the only real thing we need is a OLB for when Peterson leaves (barring how well Nicholas does) and a DE for after Abe leaves and we have enough of those. our team as a whole is set. next years draft will be to add very TALENTED depth to our team. idk about you guys but im not willing to trade a soul on this team (not even JA98) and i bet TD has the same mindset. look at the Steelers/Patriots the reason why they are consistently good when players leave/injured is because they are a DEEP team. they let time pass so they can grow in the background so when its there time to shine (ie James Harrison) they are ready. the thing with us is that when 1 player goes down the whole ship sinks and TD it beginning to stockpile our team so that no longer happens.
Guys: This is the pre-camp situation: Special teams: set,+/- KRs TBD by O & D backs/receivers. Offense: Minimal needs: depth at line with choice of WR5 and TE 2,3. Defense: DE: bookend to take pressure off Jon A, quality depth(QD). Depth is certain, but will Jamaal, Chauncey, Sidbury, etc step up for #2? DT: QD and mate for Jon B. QD is certain, but will P. Jerry, Jason J, Trey Lewis, Vance W, etc step up at #2? LB: C Lofton has the middle, pretty sure Mike P has the weakside, and QD is almost certain, but will the strong side be S Nicholas, C Wire, Spencer A or one of the many FA invitees. CB: Chris H, Chevis J, Von H, 2 new draft picks and multiple previous roster members and new FA invitees assure youth, speed, and depth, talent and experience TBD. S: T. DeCoud, A. Harris, J. Fudge, and, especially, Eric C, have experience, and, hopefully, W. Moore and other invitees bring some talent. I look forward to seeing these battles play out in camp. If we don’t have a consistent defense, a young and opportunistic one should be good enough with our offense and Special Teams.
we should use D.JShokley as a wildcat QB what do yinz think??
king, i dont know what games you be watching, you must be rooting for the teams thats playing against the falcons… our defense is horrible, i dont give a **** who starting…. we cant stop the run, we cant stop the pass…. the falcons defense has been dead for yrs, the last time our defense was powerful, was back in 97-98 when we had ray buchanan, chuck smith,lester archambeau, jessie tuggle, keith brooking, shane dronett, eugene robinson and others….
you can argue all you want, but you know im tellin the truth…. until the falcons can truly shut down completely and rank in the top 10, then we just pissin on the wind…
Lets think about all this talk about trying to bring in more talent. Out of the 5 losses last year the biggest margin of victory an opponent got on us was 15 points. Our stats might of not looked all that great but we allowed less points then Carolina which had a pretty solid D. If we don’t allow the other team to get in the endzone who cares how many yards they get on us the W is what counts. Im pretty certain we got 11 W’s last year. We have every offensive starter from last year returning with the addition of Tony Gonzalez a soon to be Hall of Famer TE. The addition of him alone will increase our scoring by 14 points a game regardless if he catching the TD’s or not. I’m with you King let’s develop who we have and watch them march there way to the Super Bowl. Executive of the Year, Coach of the Year,and Rookie of the Year all on our team last year you don’t recieve those awards for nothing.
KING,and SWINNY21 Mark my word,If we don’t address our secondary situation it will be a long f—ing season.The New Orleans Saints had the number 1 offense last year,Where did they go!F— grooming new players we’ve got to aquire a shut down corner,and a safety that can cover,play center field.Always remember “DEFENSE” win championships,ask the Pittsburg Steelers!
thank you GUNBOAT
THANKS GUNBOAT, finally somebody on here have some damn sense… you cant win championships without defense…. look at the steelers, cowboys, giants, bears and 49ers… even in basketball, look at the pistons defense, spurs, and celtics…. even in baseball, if you have dont have a good defense starting with the pitcher, you cant win….SIMPLE AS THAT… same thing in hockey or soccer… thats why the crowd always cheer out the word DEFENSE!!!! DEFENSE!!!!!! DEFENSE!!!!, i never heard the crowd, scream out the word OFFENSE…. new orleans and arizona have alot of offensive power but they cant win the superbowl b.c they have no DEFENSE…. well arizona have a good defense but its not like a shut down dee….
gunboat the steelers steel championships not there def. jusy ask the cards or the seahawks
Gunboat an Kevin good idea lets go get a superbowl.King an Swinny21 I like your thinking lets go get 2 or more superbowls.
as far as defense, we need some interior def. lineman.. a good hard nose safety who can growd the line with the linebackers and a ball hard hawk safety….
whos to say we dont got that now? give em’ a chance , you might be shocked!! kevin.
I’m just a little confused. Its seems a lot of people think that are Defense was garbage and is going to be garbage. Yet last year we were 10th in points allowed. Not sure about anybody else but that’s seems pretty decent for a team with no defense. Throughout the offseason we’ve only improved our D by getting younger and faster. I think some people are going to be surprised by the effectiveness of our D. Have some faith in Coach he did pretty damn good as the defensive co-ordinator in Jacksonville.
Kevin you are right.We need a DT with experiance,and size to plug up the run gaps.I know there is only one Albert Hangsworth,But we need to find something like him.The safety we needed the Broncos picked him up.Brian Dawkins would have been a good adition for two years.
SWINNY21 Maybe the falcons were 10th in points allowed.But they were 27th overall in total defense.This is the only stat that matters!I’ll give you a stat.The falcons”D” gave up over 120 yards rushing,and over 300 yards in passing “D” a game last year.UNACCEPTABLE!
gunboat the only stat that matters is how many points are on the board at the end of the day!!? i dont care how many yards a team can rack up if you cant score on me than you wont win!!! how stupid can you be?!
plus a big DT doesnt fit our scheme (ie grady jackson) we need 3 tech tackles who shoot gaps and disrupt things (read: Babineaux/Jerry)you talk about experience but the only way to get the experience is to let them play. what is the point in having draft picks if you never give them a chance to play by signin nothing but free agents. there is a reason why the Redskins cant make it in this league even tho they seem to make the big free agency splashes year in and year out. I’d see if you said this before the draft but looking at the positions we drafted and the positions you are complaining about (synonymous) it seems as if you dont know what is going on. we have young fast DT/S that were drafted to fill those voids for longer than TWO YEARS! Haynesworth hasnt played a full season neither.
swinny21 seems like he has been around the block a few times thats why he knows what he is talkin about. also breadman made a good comment if you didnt read it: Gunboat an Kevin good idea lets go get a superbowl.King an Swinny21 I like your thinking lets go get 2 or more superbowl. (Reads: you are trying to win now and me and swinny21 are tryin to win for a long time. you act like our team isnt young. they are full of 2-3 year vets!)
@King
your all retarded. none of you can form a basic sentence.
but know this, Mike Smith and the rest of the staff did a hell of a job in their 1st year. lets leave it to them, i have a lot of confidence in them.
none of you have the secret to getting the birds to the bowl, i guarentee you that.
GREG—-Who asked you to be a english teacher,you stupid f—–k!This is forum for football,not writing.Yourself,and this guy King don’t have a f——-king clue!KING if you knew anything about football you would know DT is the hardest position to adjust to coming out of college.Coach Smith had the biggest D-LINE in the league when the jags.were successful.A great pass rush,and a great run stopping D starts with interior D-Line play you no knowledge f———-ker!
seems like you don’t have that good of grammar neither greg…
GREG, this is this site for falcon fans, not NERD.COM….. please dont come to the falcons site again……. we dont care about grammar, we talking football, we not talking nerdball…. when guys get their haircuts in the barber shop, we talk football and people dont correct grammar when it comes to men… we are men….. whatever you are, whatever planet you from, please go back… ET already left, now its your turn…
now guys, lets talk football… **** grammar, speak footballnese
i dont know bout ya’ll but on draft day i was hoping the falcons would have drafted lrry english ,out of northern illinois. insted what do yinz think?
JON:I wanted him too but,He was already gone before our pick.He’s RELENTLOUS!
i personally didnt want him he clearly fit the 3-4 scheme. he was too small to play DE and not good enough to leave as a OLB so he fit as a rushing LB in a 3-4. yea he is good but you guys cant think just b/c he is good means he will be good on any team. i wanted either Jerry/Brace/Delmas/Chung but now that i look at it Jerry is a lot better for us than Brace because Jerry is able to disrupt while Brace only takes up space. yea both are beneficial but look at the 1st play of the second half vs Cardinals where Dockett shot the gap to disrupt the play and caused a fumble that Rolle took for a TD. i was also skeptical about Jerry/Moore being that they are older rookies. but i WAS happy when i saw Moore was at #55 i almost thru my phone (talkin to my sibling) when we picked him. i have liked Moore since 2007 when NCAA came out because i play with Mizzou and i saw how dominant he was not only on the game but in real life. Mizzou also took note but they used him wrong last year. he played more man/in the box where anybody will struggle dealing with the injuries he had. but trust that TD and Smitty will def use him like he was used in 07.
when we picked Owens i was disappointed because i had now clue who he was and i wanted Sidbury but when i googled Owens and saw only 1 td was thrown on him in ~40 games and Sidbury fell to us in the 4th, i might have busted a load in my pants!!! we are destined for greatness in years to come. all we have to do is begin to add depth for the next couple of years and we will be mentioned in the top 10 for years to come!!
A happy medium is what we need ! Competition breeds greatness … All of the new , young players could be phenoms …. or they could all be busts ! It would be nice to know we have some quality , “Experienced” players on defense , but how did they get that experience ? Somebody gave them an opportunity to play . If we are able to pick up a couple of good free agents that will be great . It will give give the young guys a higher bar to compete against . In life we learn from our experiences ….. Question is what kind of experiences are these guys going to get before gameday ? At least they have a great teacher in coach Smith and his staff . GO FALCONS !!!!!!!!!!