Atlanta Falcons Offense Will Keep on Rolling, Defense Will Make Some Changes

Whenever a NFL teams make personnel and coaching changes before a season, it obvious that the playbook is going to change also.

In 2008, the Atlanta Falcons brought in head coach Mike Smith along with new offensive coordinator Mike Mularkey and defensive coordinator Brian Van Gorder.

Then they signed running back Michael Turner and drafted quarterback Matt Ryan and the rest is history.

The reason the Falcons were successful was Matt Ryan learned the playbook quickly and as a result, the game slowed down for him. Also the defense bought what Van Gorder was selling and came up with some big plays in big games.

This year, the coaching staff is the same as last year, but there will be some changes with the personnel. On offense, the Falcons added Tony Gonzalez to improve their passing game. On defense, there will be some new faces because guys such as Keith Brooking and Michael Boley were let go.

For the changes in the playbook offensively in 2009, I don’t see Mularkey making too many tweaks to the playbook. If anything he will try to get the ball to Tony Gonzalez as much as he can. The only problem is Roddy White has a Pro Bowl year, Michael Jenkins is a good No. 2 receiver and Harry Douglass had a strong rookie season working in the slot.

One of the things that the offense liked to do is work out of the no-huddle and it was effective, so expect Mularkey have more plays for Ryan out of the no-huddle.

Also, I expect to see more Jerious Norwood in the backfield because as good as Michael Turner was last year, he did have over 370 carries last year and I don’t expect him to carry that much of a load in 2009.

On defense Brian Van Gorder likes to keep it simple—don’t give up a lot of points. As mentioned earlier, there will be some new faces for the starting 11 such as Mike Peterson, Peria Jerry and William Moore, but they will be expected do the same things as the 2008 Falcons.

You won’t see the team blitz a ton because they should be able to get after the quarterback with the four down lineman.

The Falcons racked up 34 sacks last year which ranked 11th in the NFL and the majority of those sacks were from defensive end John Abraham.

So Van Gorder won’t change the scheme, but you could see Jamaal Anderson, who has struggled at the other end position, work as a defensive tackle because he did experiment with that position last preseason.

Another thing to watch for on defense is more aggressiveness with the safeties. The Falcons struggled against the run towards the end of the season and they will try to fill that void with the draft pick Moore.

Plus with Peterson and Stephen Nicholas taking over the outside linebacker spots, so there should be more speed and more athleticism to contain an opposing teams running game.