Practice during the bye week is similar to training camp. In a regular week, you're preparing for a specific opponent, so you have your starters and key backups working against the "scout team" - which is made up of the remaining backups and practice squad guys, who do their best to mimic the upcoming opponent. But this week, they're putting the first unit offense against the first unit defense, and the backups against the backups, just like they did in training camp. The goal is to get back to basics. Never mind what any of our upcoming opponents are doing. The coaching staff simply wants to address our OWN problems, hopefully fixing those pesky little problems like "blocking" and "tackling". If all goes well, later in the week they'll move up to more advanced topics such as "catching" and "covering". This approach has worked well for the Falcons throughout Mike Smith's tenure as head coach. Offhand, I'm glad they're sticking to the formula. One aspect of it that makes me wonder: we've heard from press briefings that this week the coaching staff is focusing on self-scouting. That makes me wonder what it would take to have us do more of this kind of self review throughout the season. This isn't a wise-guy crack or any kind of a shot at Mike Smith or the rest of the coaching staff. In all seriousness, in a regular week our coaching staff would review film of our upcoming opponent, with emphasis on recent games, in an effort to learn the other team's tendencies. The other team's coaching staff is doing the same with us. I'm wondering how much effort we put into reviewing our own recent games on a regular basis that same way, so that we see what the other team sees when they scout us. The trade deadline has now passed, and the only move that the Falcons made was a free agent signing - they picked up recently released Carolina safety Charles Godfrey. Godfrey had been selected by the Panthers at the top of the third round in 2008. The Falcons selected a safety of their own with a compensatory pick at the bottom of that same round - Thomas Decoud. This offseason, the Falcons cut Decoud and Carolina signed him. Now we've scooped up Godfrey. One man gathers what another man spills... One very important note on our new safety: the recent poor play that prompted his release wasn't at safety - the Panthers had been using him at nickel corner. He had played free safety earlier this season, with much better results. So while it's not an earth-shaking acquisition, it's at the very least an upgrade for our depth in the safety group. To make room, the Falcons waived Sean Baker, who was called up from the practice squad earlier this season when William Moore went on reserve status. Baker had made the practice squad ahead of Kimario McFadden, who was signed to the squad to fill in the opening when Baker was called up. Both are interesting prospects, and I'll be watching to see if Baker replaces McFadden on the practice squad soon or if the team sticks with McFadden. The quick comparison between the two boils down to this: Baker would be more likely to contribute this year, while McFadden has more eventual upside for pass defense. Offhand, I'd like to see both resigned for camp next season, as we have no idea what type of scheme our coaching staff will want to play. Otherwise, it makes a lot of sense for the team to do essentially nothing at the trade deadline. Let's go ahead and assume that we'll have a new coaching staff next season. If we had traded future draft picks for players now, those players might not fit the next coaching staff's schemes. We'd also be giving up draft picks that we'd really want come spring. And yes, it would have been nice to have picked up an extra draft pick or two for some of our aging players that are pending free agents. But of course, the hard part is finding a buyer. It's not the least bit surprising that nothing happened. Odds are that the rest of the league wasn't exactly keeping the phones busy in Flowery Branch. Reminder: we do already have one extra seventh rounder in the upcoming draft. This is week nine of the NFL season. We are now in the third week of the five week window in which players on PUP lists can begin practicing. Once each player returns to practice, the team then has a 21-day roster exemption period to get that player up to speed before making a roster decision. We still haven't heard a peep about Zeke Motta all season. The team had hoped he'd be able to come back in midseason, but I still contend that the most likely scenario is that he goes straight to IR without ever returning to practice. That likelihood makes the Godfrey pickup a bit more significant for this season. Personally, I'm still hoping that Motta can come back in 2015 and that we haven't seen the last of him. Dwight Lowery is here on a one year deal, and I suspect that Godfrey is also signed only through the end of the season. Our track record has pretty much been one-and-done on these free agent safeties (eg James Sanders, Chris Hope). For 2015, we might be looking at a safety group consisting of William Moore, Dez Southward, Kemal Ishmael, plus Motta - perhaps with one of Baker or McFadden as a fifth man for special teams and depth.
Update... Sean Baker cleared waivers, and the Falcons immediately signed him back to the practice squad, dropping McFadden.
I don't know if any of you guys heard this, but Friday on the Jamie dukes show, they were reporting that, their are rumors coming out of falcons camp that coach smith will not be back next season. I don't know if their is any truth to those rumors.
