REAL FOOTBALL Thread

[striker42]

If London has good top speed (I would hope the falcons scouts adn coaches did their jobs to determine that) you can train burst adn acceleration. As I understand London is a 2 sport athlete and Basketball so being essentially forced to train under one should refine him.

There's only so much you can do with burst if a guy isn't really a quick twitch guy. London definitely isn't. Watch his highlights, there's just zero quickness there. Any speed he has is more from long strides than quickness.

He honestly looks like a TE that has lined up out wide. He's big, will fight for the ball, and will rumble after the catch but he gets zero separation. And I mean zero separation. His highlight reel, the best plays he made, he was covered in almost every one. I'm not sure he'll beat NFL DBs in contested catches like he did in college. In fact, if coverage is that tight an NFL QB will just continue through his progressions.

[zitothebrave]

There's only so much you can do with burst if a guy isn't really a quick twitch guy. London definitely isn't. Watch his highlights, there's just zero quickness there. Any speed he has is more from long strides than quickness.

He honestly looks like a TE that has lined up out wide. He's big, will fight for the ball, and will rumble after the catch but he gets zero separation. And I mean zero separation. His highlight reel, the best plays he made, he was covered in almost every one. I'm not sure he'll beat NFL DBs in contested catches like he did in college. In fact, if coverage is that tight an NFL QB will just continue through his progressions.

Perhaps, I mean he's not who I wanted, I just have to hope the Falcons coaches know who will work with their system. I'm not super optimistic. But we'll see.

And you can train a whole lot for quick twitch. Granted all you're doing is refining. But it's impossible to improve top speed, with better drilling and mechanics things like cutting harder and faster and getting off the line faster are possible.

[striker42]

Perhaps, I mean he's not who I wanted, I just have to hope the Falcons coaches know who will work with their system. I'm not super optimistic. But we'll see.

And you can train a whole lot for quick twitch. Granted all you're doing is refining. But it's impossible to improve top speed, with better drilling and mechanics things like cutting harder and faster and getting off the line faster are possible.

I think you can refine technique to take advantage of quickness but if you've not got much quickness to begin with then technique will only get you so far. Watching London play I was literally cringing at how little quickness he showed.

Top end speed is a big issue for London as well. It's one of the biggest knocks on his game. He tried to say he wouldn't run the 40 due to his ankle injury but that seemed like an excuse. He was healthy enough to do a lot on his pro day, so not running the 40 seemed more of a tactical decision. Again, if he puts up a high 4.5 then he drops a full round. I'm not sure any team other than Atlanta would be dumb enough to draft a guy who just refused to run the 40 time in the top 10.

I do think the system played a big part in drafting this guy. I don't think he was close to the BPA but Arthur Smith loves big, physical pass catchers. Both his top picks have had a similar skill set. It feels like a system pick more than a talent pick.

[zitothebrave]

Yeah, I mean we'll see. If the Falcons are back in the playoffs next year great. I think we're in for a logn stretch of sucking personally.

[striker42]

Yeah, I mean we'll see. If the Falcons are back in the playoffs next year great. I think we're in for a logn stretch of sucking personally.

I agree which is why I didn't understand why people were saying the Falcons should draft a receiver. People have kept saying that with Ridley's suspension the Falcons have no receivers and so they had to draft one with their pick. My reaction was that 2022 doesn't matter for the Falcons. They're going to be absolutely terrible. Why do we care about whether Mariota has a good receiving corp? Run a bunch of scrub receivers out there and draft someone at a position of need. Or better yet, trade back.

[zitothebrave]

I think the Falcons didn't havea reasonable trade back. I could be 100% wrong. But I suspect no one was interested in giving a serious package up for the number 8, but I wanted Cross at that point, hopefully I"m proven wrong.

3 things that will make Atlanta look really bad with this pick if Cross winds up being a 10 year LT Seattle, if Wilson winds up being a much better receiver, or if Davis or Johnson are stud defensive lineman for 10 years this looks bad for Atlanta.

I don't really agree with the pick, I'm a big fan of BPA, that's why I didn't mind Pitts, Pitts by many draft pros was the most talented player in the draft and at that time we (the fans) didn't know Julio was gonna demand to leave and Ridley would fall apart. It was set up to be a fun offense and all the remaining QBs kinda stank. I was fine with that. i dont' know if London is the BPA at 8. This kind of smells like a Jamaal ANderson but honestly, this could just be kind of a dud draft year. It kind of looks like that. Looking at player grades from NFL.com which IMO are usually pretty optimistic, no one graded higher than a 6.81. Compared to last year 8 people did. Last year had 5 players at over 7 with Lawrence, Pitts, Chase, Surtain and Smith. This year no one sniffed it. It seems like maybe a dud draft and that falcons took the BPA? I dunno. I didn't love the pick we'll see how it plays out long term.

[striker42]

I'm generally a fan of BPA but with conditions. If your team is missing a lot of pieces at key positions, don't draft a luxury player even if they happen to be the BPA. That's what Pitts was. A dominant, pass catching TE is still a TE. The defense was a mess, the O-line was bad, and the QB was getting old. Pitts was a luxury.

I actually wanted them to trade Pitts for picks before the draft. Some team would back the truck up for him. He's still on his rookie contract, he's proven he's the real deal, he could be the guy to put a team over the top. The fact that the Falcons wont even consider it makes me shake my head.

One of my problems with picking London is that if you're going to go WR, London wasn't the guy to go with there. I'd have rather seen them go with Garrett Wilson. He's a burner with huge upside. Don't draft a glorified TE.

At least I can take solace in the fact that the Falcons are that much closer to a new GM and a new head coach.

[zitothebrave]

Falcons traded up and took a DE who probably would have been there at their pick. wooooooof.

Would have much rather kept that pick to fill out depth.

Also we really must not like Malik Willis or Matt Corral.

[striker42]

This Falcons draft just gets worse and worse. How on earth did these bozos get their jobs?!?!

[zitothebrave]

Only saving grace for the Falcoons seems to be that the draft kind of blows. But we could have not traded down adn got either Ebiketie or Ojabo. And I mean maybe Anderson works out but I mean Dean was on the baord, why wasn't he taken.

This could wind up being an all time stinker of a draft for the Falcons unless they get great value late in the draft.

[zitothebrave]

3rd round is solid for Falcons, nothing amazing, but an improvement from the second round for sure which was a head scratcher of a round.

[striker42]

This draft is proving Fontenot has no idea what he's doing and Arthur Smith isnt cut out to be a HC.

[striker42]

This Falcons draft looks like a draft by people who think they're smarter than they really are.

[zitothebrave]

This Falcons draft looks like a draft by people who think they're smarter than they really are.

I mean we won't know how things will be going from here. But it seems like Atlanta did much better rounds 3-5 than 1-2. They need some OL help still I think but honestly I think they did a decent job picking guys later in the draft. We have to see how things turn out of course but reading some stuff on the round 3 and 5 guys seems like they all could be good value picks.

[zitothebrave]

Justin Shaffer was a good pick, he could have gone as early as the end of the 4th. Getting him in the 6th is a good value. Honestly it seems like the Falcons pooped their pants in the second round which both picks still should be good, they just didn't need to trade up and they could ahve drafted another OL with that pick

[striker42]

I loathe the Troy Anderson pick. The NFL scrap pile is littered with small school players that had the athleticism but could never adjust to the speed of the game at the NFL level. If you want to take a 4th or maybe 3rd round flyer on a guy like that, okay. But a second rounder on Anderson with the other options there was silly. I wouldn't be surprised if he was on the practice squad in a couple years.

[zitothebrave]

I loathe the Troy Anderson pick. The NFL scrap pile is littered with small school players that had the athleticism but could never adjust to the speed of the game at the NFL level. If you want to take a 4th or maybe 3rd round flyer on a guy like that, okay. But a second rounder on Anderson with the other options there was silly. I wouldn't be surprised if he was on the practice squad in a couple years.

Yeah that was a head scratcher. Maybe he works out but I'm in the same boat as you. If you needed a LB Christian Harris should have been that pick.

[striker42]

Yeah that was a head scratcher. Maybe he works out but I'm in the same boat as you. If you needed a LB Christian Harris should have been that pick.

Him or Nakobe Dean would both have been better picks. It's like the Fontenot thought he was going to get a steal with this small school project but forgot spending a second rounder is a lot to pay and won't be a steal.

[striker42]

I think Drake London will be more Michael Jenkins than Mike Evans.

[zbhargrove]

Troy Andersen gonna make you guys look silly. Best athlete in the draft and was a man amongst boys in the Senior Bowl.