Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the Atlanta Falcons (Courtesy: Dawson Devitt)

I had the good fortune recently to get in contact with The Bird Cage's head blogger, Dawson Devitt, and ask him some questions about this year's edition of the Atlanta Falcons. His answers were so comprehensive and detailed that we're splitting this week's "Behind Enemy Lines" (working title) into two parts. This part is about the drafting of Julio Jones, the Falcons' offensive scheme and the general state of the team. Part II, due up soon, will be several more specific questions about Sunday night's game. Enjoy!

Andy Tisdel: The Falcons gave up a king’s ransom to get Julio Jones. It generally takes a few years to get the measure of a wide receiver, but based on early returns, has he been worth it?

Dawson Devitt: At the time, it was a major shock for all our fans. We started hearing rumors the day before that (general manager) Thomas Dimitroff was going to try to vault all the way up the charts to get either AJ Green or Julio Jones. The vast majority of us outright dismissed it as a ridiculous rumor. We were all completely surprised when they called our name to grab Jones. You will be hard-pressed to find any Atlanta fans who aren’t ecstatic to have Jones as a Falcon. The player himself was never questioned, because most of us also follow college football, specifically the SEC, and anyone who had seen him play knew he was the real deal and would flourish anywhere he went.

That being said, there still are some among us who wonder if the price wasn’t too steep. We gave up a 2nd and 4th this year, and a 1st and 4th next year. Most weren’t worried at all about the 4th rounders because we feel that this is one of the more talented rosters the Falcons have had in their short franchise history. Some were able to be OK with the 2nd rounder, but the big one that hurts the most is giving up the 1st rounder next year. Even though most feel this roster is pretty deep, we’re starting to see major issues on the offensive line and our secondary has leaked like a sieve seemingly forever.

A common theme you will see in these answers is regarding our coaching staff because dissatisfaction is at an all-time high with them and this one is no different. Many of us believe that our coaching staff is holding us back and are either incapable or unable of making needed adjustments to move us into a legit Super Bowl contender. After the “Debacle in the Dome,” as many of us in The Bird Cage call it (one of the worst blowouts at home in playoff history by none other than your Packers), we expected to see some changes in philosophy on both sides of the ball, specifically the offense where we just couldn’t keep up with high-octane and aggressive teams with our hyper-conservative, run-first, ball-control offense. They said all the right things about becoming explosive in the off-season and the Julio Jones trade seemed to indicate that. Than we are treated to the same-old, same-old this year and now we sit at a very shaky 2-2, which could easily be 0-4.

Some think that our GM, Thomas Dimitroff, is trying to take us the way of the Patriots, Packers, and Saints in their pass-heavy, aggressive offense philosophy, while Coach Mike Smith seems to be stuck in the old-school, run-heavy, conservative play-calling. The best way to summarize it is to ask why we would trade 4 draft picks to get a receiver to be a #2 option in a run-heavy, hyper-conservative offense? Drafting Torrey Smith or Leonard Hankerson, or even keeping Michael Jenkins, could have accomplished that without giving up so much.


AT: This three-game stretch before the Falcons’ bye week must’ve looked much better in the offseason. Now that Detroit and Carolina have morphed from cushy to dangerous opponents, how do you see the Falcons performing in this three-game stretch?

DD: To be honest, most of our fans seem to be having a serious crisis in confidence in our coaching staff and their ability to truly maximize the talent on this team. While he may have missed on some picks, by and large Thomas Dimitroff has done an amazing job reshaping this team in such a short time after the Michael Vick nightmare destroyed our team, roster, and franchise in so many ways. We felt that our team was legitimate contenders to make a serious run at the Super Bowl both last year as we entered the playoffs and this off-season. But the magnitude of the blowout given by your Packers shook most of us to our core and many of us just have the feeling that a mask has been ripped off on this coaching staff and it appears that we’ve just never been the same since, including preseason and the start of this season.

Using that as an introduction and the way our team has played and looked this year, it’s hard for us to look at any opponent remaining on our schedule and truly pencil that in as a sure win. That is honestly not a joke. The way we played so poorly against Chicago and losing to Tampa Bay with one of the youngest rosters chock full of rookies and 2nd year players starting has decimated confidence in our coaching staff, not necessarily the players. Add that on to barely escaping a loss against one of the lesser teams in the NFL in Seattle, who are in a pure rebuild mode, and it’s easy to see why so few fans are optimistic about the rest of the season. If our defense made Tavaris Jackson look like a Hall of Famer, throwing for 300+ yards, we shudder to think what Aaron Rodgers, Matthew Stafford and Cam Newton will do to us. There is a true feeling, even if not on the surface, that we can drop any game this year, and that absolutely includes Carolina and Detroit. We’ll know everything we need to know about this year’s team after the next three weeks.

AT: I noticed on your blog that you go into a lot of detail about passing routes and the Falcons’ offensive scheme. What sorts of routes do the Falcons favor, and what are they likely to employ against Green Bay’s surprisingly porous pass defense?

DD: Although there are some who still think we should continue our run-heavy, hyper-conservative, ball-control offense, most fans want to see the offense open up and become much more aggressive in terms of letting Matt Ryan run the show. Most of the fan base seems to still on board with Head Coach Mike Smith getting plenty of time to correct his mistakes for what he’s done in such a short period of time. He has been the only coach to lead the Falcons to back-to-back winning seasons in franchise history (that should tell you something about our history in and of itself). However, the same can’t be said of either coordinators, Mike Mularkey on offense and Brian Van Gorder on defense.

Smith and Mularkey are obsessed with running the football and establishing the run, even when it’s obviously not working (as has been the case a lot recently). When Michael Turner is running well and the team as a whole can establish the run, the team operates pretty well on offense with the play-action passing game. That was fine, well, and good  in the beginning before teams started figuring us out. Now the secret is out that all you have to do is stop the run and our offensive cannot or will not adjust. The big joke among many of our family members (our term for our blog posters) is that Mularkey can’t run a screen pass to save his life and that he has a total of about 4 wide receiver routes that he runs: curl, out, go route, and a wide receiver screen (that rarely works).

Many are envious of the creative passing games that have become extremely popular in places like New Orleans, New England, and your own Green Bay. There have been many opposing players that have come on record after beating us and saying that “their offense didn’t do anything that we weren’t expecting,” and therein lies the major issue. We feel that we have one of the best offensive arsenals in the NFL with Roddy White, Julio Jones, Tony Gonzalez, Harry Douglas, Jacquizz Rodgers, Kerry Meier, and Eric Weems, only to see Mularkey run Michael Turner on two straight 1 yard gains directly into the middle of the line. A great description of our last game is that we finally see Julio Jones catch a nice drag route where he goes for like 29 yards, only to never see it the rest of the game. Barring an unforeseen and major turnaround, most fans feel that this will be the last year of the Mike Mularkey Era in Atlanta.

Look for Part II tomorrow! In the meantime, if you want to see more of Dawson's writing, I encourage you to check out The Bird Cage.