Okay, so you've all heard all the lame catch phrases like defenses win championships, you can't win without a franchise quarterback, the game is about running the ball and stopping the run, etc, etc, etc. The TV talking heads will spout all of them endlessly and make them even more meaningless. Once the same nitwit has declared three or four different areas to be critical, it basically adds up to "if you have a great roster, you'll win games". Here's my theory: the most important parts of your roster are the weakest parts, whatever they might be. It's not rocket science. A good opposing offense will attack the weak points of your defense, and a good opposing defense will work to take away the strengths of your offense. The same is true for specific positions within a group. You could have Deion Sanders at his Prime Time prime as one starting cornerback. If your other starting corner is Clarabelle The Clown, you will have the worst pass defense in the league. And if you have human turnstiles in the interior of your offensive line, your offense is doomed even if you sign a Pro Bowl stud to play left tackle. And here's why that theory will soon be put to the test. Cody Benjamin at CBS did an article ranking the current rosters and declared the Falcons as the worst roster in the NFL. But the coaching staff and front office have been working to improve the weak points rather than add big, expensive stars. You won't find any All Galaxy studs among the new additions, but every position group now has the personnel to bring them to the middle of the pack in overall performance. That's the strategy. The weak points won't be so easy to find and exploit. If they succeed in getting the personnel together and implementing the schemes and if the theory is correct, the Falcons will not have the worst record in the league even if Benjamin is right about them having the worst roster.
First off, I dig the post and the thinking involved with it. The rub - Benjamin can't be right about them having the worst roster if the overall depth/competency of the roster is stronger than comparisons to teams with a stud opposite a flop throughout. I understand where you're going here but it can't be a truism for Benjamin's article if it is wrong on face value, regardless of record. So, the primary questions that I would have for anyone that wants to jump in with conversing your theory (theoretical jibber jabber for football might be my favorite subject matter): Would you rate a team with a top 16 quarterback and a bottom 16 roster as being better overall than a team with a top 16 roster and a bottom 16 passer? Can you win with specific positions being top 10 and the rest being bottom 10, and if you could only field 4, what would they be? If you could only load up two positions on the field with complete depth where all available at that position would be top 16 players, what two positions would you choose? Which team going into the 2022 season do you see with the worst, and best, overall roster?
First off, im not even sure Benjamin can know for sure as, in my opinion, its seems to be speculative to begin with, unless there is some kinda machine that crunches numbers/stats to provide an answer. W's are the bottom line regardles of what one thinks of a roster (ant given Sunday, comes to mind). Secondly, thank goodness the Falcons are aware of positions that need addressed and have done some patch-work... and at the same time there is a core on that team that aint too shabby to begin with. Execution at all positions is of course key to success...99.9% of the time.
Personally, Id take the bottom 16 passer with a top 16 roster all day ve the opposite. I think you can plug-n-play an average Joe QB on a decent team and get results and on the other hand top-notch QB on a sub-par roster is going to struggle... kinda like Joe Burrows rookie season with the Bengals. Yes, I think you can win under this scenario. Id pick; QB, CB's, WR's and OG's. WR and Linebackers. Tough question, but you gotta score and you gotta stop the opponents from scoring (figured that out all by meself, lol). Worst = Bears Best = Buccaneers __________________________ ___________________________________________ Good stuff, Tim and Torgo!
I dig the mamas and the papas, no really you write so good you should be a beat writer for the falcons. I graduated from Norcross Highschool so I got to see some pretty good falcons teams back in the day with Barkowski. I still remember the squad that set the points given up record in I believe was 77 and carried that sorry ass offense to a 7-7 record. But anyway I think the Steelers are going to test that good defense and running game theory this season and surprise the world by making the playoffs. Maybe even Tomlin will get the coach of the year on the coattail of Watts incredible 30 sack season. Restaurants in the Burgh will be giving away a free sack lunch in Watts honor for carrying the Steelers deep in the post season and celebrating his league MVP season. By the post season our offense will have figured it out and we will be unstoppable.
If you have either/or in the bottom half of the top 16 then you are going to lose more than you win. However, I think a top 10 QB with a roster ranked around 17-20 can win. Conversely, I think a top 10 roster can also win with a QB ranked in the 17-10 range, but they would have to play closer to perfection each week to do it. The top 10 QB can will a team to a last minute FG or TD more times than average, the lower ranked QB most likely will not very often, he will need a lot of help to get those wins. My 4 would be, QB, O-Line, D-line and CBs. If you have a top ten QB, your receiver group, which will include WR, TE and RB, will not need a top 10 receiver. The top ten QB will utilize every body on the field universally. If you have a top ten O-Line, you can have a RB by committee and still be successful. Even if you don't have a guy that's going to bust off 150 yard games. D-Line and CBs will set the tone for the defensive set. A D-line that controls the line of scrimmage controls the ground game, as well as pressure on the QB when forced to throw. A good CB group with that D-line will take away first line of offense by shutting down their best receivers, forcing them into 2nd and 3rd reads, which takes time and allows the top defenders to get sacks or throw aways. This is the tougher question.. If they are all ranked 13-16, then you aren't gaining much, even with depth. For example, (2) CBs ranked 13 and 14 respectively, most likely have holes and having their backups ranked 15 and 16, while there is no falloff, there really isn't much gain as far as competitive advantage is concerned. Now, give me a top 5, top 12, to go with the 15th and 16th rated player.. I will take CB all day long. They can effect the passing game almost single handed. THEN give me a similar scenario on the defensive line and your offense can score 4 FGs a game to get wins. Regardless, once again, if there are only (2) position groups loaded up with players, you aren't going to win consistently.
Nice! Thanks for turning this into a great football discussion, everyone! Yeah, the original version of the post made it much more clear that I disagreed with Benjamin for that exact reason, including details on Atlanta's position groups. Unfortunately, when I clicked to post it I got one of those "security error" messages telling me I needed to refresh. When the error message cleared, the subject line was still there but the entire body of the text was completely gone. So I half-assed it on the rewrite. But that's exactly the idea... the theory is you get the most bang for the buck fixing the weaknesses, and the Falcons are doing exactly that. So if my theory is correct, they aren't the worst team at all - even though they currently have only three "star" players on the entire roster. This season will put me vs CBS to the test. An outstanding defense can win with a subpar passer. The Bears and Ravens won titles with Jim McMahon and Trent Dilfer. (McMahon did technically finish the season in the upper half of QBs - but Walter Payton led the team in receptions by a HUGE margin.) But if the rest of the offense is as bad as the passer - or worse - the team will not succeed. Exhibit A = the Grits Blitz Falcons, as Gidion already noted. Bartkowski was still in development at that point, and the offense was so dismal that the team ended up .500 despite having arguably the best defense in NFL history. Flip side is last year's Falcons. Anyone who watched the games saw that Matt Ryan was much better than the numbers would indicate. But when three of your five starting linemen rank among the 10 worst pass blockers in the league, you're at or near the bottom in every rushing metric (including dead last in rushing first downs), and your WR group down the stretch is the unholy trinity of Tajae Sharpe, Russell Gage and Olamide Zaccheaus, forget it. No quarterback could succeed with that lineup. So I will go with a good roster and subpar passer, but as Irish noted it kinda depends on how far above and below average the various pieces are. The #32 passer will probably tank the team no matter how good the rest of the roster is, and the 2021 Falcons already proved that a good passer won't overcome a bottom five roster. Four positions in the top ten and the other 18 to 23 positions in the bottom ten? My theory says that a team with that kind of lineup is already on the clock for the #1 pick in next year's draft. Four position GROUPS in the top ten? OL, LB, QB and WR. I'd attempt to use the defensive scheme to simplify the roles of the DL, CB and safety groups (see below), make use of defensive players not wanted by other teams, and score enough to win games in a shootout. If you mean position groups rather than specific positions, I'd go with OL and LB, depending on the defensive system being played. A good OL makes a subpar RB perform like an adequate RB and helps keep an inexperienced QB from getting too rattled. If I get to design the defense system knowing that one group would all be above-average players, I'd build my entire system around a strong, deep LB group. I'll skip the details of the scheme for now, but it would be a blitz-happy single-gap 3-4 with a modified cover two shell. I'd bring in both Tony Dungy and Jerry Glanville as consultants during the early offseason to help the coaching staff iron out the wrinkles - or to tell me the entire thing is insane and help me design a different system before the start of free agency.
I was going to say that you guys should just roll with Ridder at QB, but it’s a mute point because Mariota will have some kind of injury before preseason is through anyway.
The OL having serious competition for three starting jobs is a wonderful thing, but it seriously adds to the fear factor on that injury question. Week one will be the first time that the new line plays a competitive game as a full unit. I'd rather not throw Ridder into the fire in that situation. And if they do mix-and-match the linemen trying to figure out the best combinations, then all three QBs will be on the field with at least a few backups during the preseason. There's a real chance that both Mariota and Ridder get hurt during preseason. The media also seems to be down on Mariota as a QB overall, rather than just for the injury potential. I don't get that, especially considering he's reuniting with Arthur Smith. But I do know it really will come down to how well and how quickly the OL comes together. (That was the case when Mariota was benched in Tennessee as well - he was sacked 25 times in his six starts that year. That translates to right around 75 sacks in a full season.) I won't claim he's a Pro Bowl quarterback or anything like that, but I do think Mariota is a legit NFL starter as far as talent goes (QB ratings above 90 in four of his five seasons as a starter) and also a good system fit for Atlanta. The serious question is whether we will have a legit starting offensive line. If we do, we'll be fine with Mariota - giving Ridder the benefit of a redshirt year. If we don't, throwing Ridder out there early could easily do his development more harm than good.
Perfect! I had also wanted the Falcons to wait about a month before throwing Matt Ryan into action in his 2008 rookie year for the same reason. That year the new OL coach (Paul Boudreau) tried out different OL combinations constantly throughout camp and preseason. The team opened the regular season with a rookie left tackle, a left guard entering his second season, a right guard starting for the first time ever, and a right tackle becoming a true starter for the first time. Do you REALLY want to throw your new franchise QB out there for THAT line's first full game together? We'll also have to see Ridder's timing and form in the preseason games. At this point the coaches have had praise for the mental side of his preparations and his leadership skills. But... not a peep about fundamentals / mechanics. To me that suggests his footwork and positioning are still works in progress.
I'm looking at the Saints asking myself that very question. Winston at best is a gloriously average QB. But the rest of the team (both sides of the ball) are looking pretty stout. Time will tell. I've seen some of those idiot talking heads on the internet that are saying that the Saints can win the NFCS. I ask myself, do these guys even know who Tom Brady is and what he can do?
