00:00So the Falcons released their depth chart.
00:02We already knew that Tua was going to be QB1.
00:04Any other surprises come up for you guys when you looked it over?
00:09I don't know if surprises is the right word.
00:12No, I don't really pay attention to them.
00:18The depth chart to me is kind of, other than a couple of things,
00:24like the starting offensive line, right, that's important.
00:29But the Kendall Daniels thing is probably what most people are pointing to.
00:33But I don't believe, I saw some people on social media happy about it,
00:38seemingly surprised.
00:39I don't believe in any way it was a surprise.
00:44And I also, Mike, I don't know about you,
00:48but I saw I was looking at where people had, how they listed the linebackers.
00:52People were like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, Christian Harris is backing up.
00:55But he's backing up Devon Diablo, and I don't believe he really is.
01:01No, I don't either.
01:02I think that if Devon Diablo was to go down,
01:09that Kendall Daniels would be slot into his role,
01:13and they would probably use a combination of Perkins and Harris,
01:17depending on the personnel that the offense ran out.
01:21And so that's why I say that I sometimes don't pay attention.
01:25I'm not trying to be smarter than you, holier than thou.
01:28It's just that guys are listed in certain spots just based on the way the depth chart lines up,
01:35not because of how they're actually going to play or be used.
01:38Yeah, no, the one thing I thought,
01:41it's not surprising for people that pay close attention,
01:43the one thing I thought was notable, I guess is the right word,
01:48is that Avion's listed as a starting nickel.
01:50Like, I thought that was notable.
01:52We haven't seen a ton of Avion play a little bit in preseason game three.
01:57Billy Bowman is not on IR or PUP or anything like that.
02:01Like, he's cleared and ready to go.
02:03I don't expect Billy Bowman to play personally,
02:07which means that Avion has to kind of be the starting nickel,
02:09and then I'm sure you'll do a practice squad elevation at some point over the weekend.
02:14But I thought it was notable that Avion Terrell was listed as a starting nickel.
02:19But I'm with you.
02:19Outside of that, Kendall Daniels being in the starting lineup or rotation or whatever it is
02:23was not shocking to me.
02:25I saw a little bit of feedback as far as Brandon Dorl is being listed at defensive end.
02:32That's what he is.
02:34He's a defensive end.
02:36The depth chart they put out is a 4-2 nickel depth chart.
02:39And when you have a 4-man front, that's exactly what he's going to be.
02:43He's going to play more of that kind of edge rotation, less of the B-gap kind of stuff.
02:47But, yeah, just some notable things.
02:49I don't know that anything was surprising.
02:50The Avion thing, real quick, I'm not going to sit here and say that I necessarily expected it,
02:56but I thought he had a better – we knew Bowman will – we know Bowman probably won't play.
03:00I'm more – to me, I was wondering if Sidney Brown would play the nickel to start the year
03:07and kind of use him because he can play all over.
03:12And, you know, obviously they're comfortable with Avion, which is fun.
03:16That's when they drafted and that's where we thought.
03:18The Brandon Dorl is saying, if you listened to us talk about it and you watched –
03:24you saw anything from any – he didn't get a lot of preseason action,
03:29but if you heard some stuff from training camp, that was what he did all of training camp.
03:33We saw that.
03:35And Arch talked about it with us that, you know, that was something he was going to do a lot
03:39of.
03:39And so that shouldn't really be much of a surprise either.
03:43No, I'm with you on that.
03:44Well, and we are going to hear from Tua today.
03:46He will be talking to the media.
03:48But what are you expecting from this offense with Tua as QB1 in Week 1?
03:57Expecting is a big word.
03:59Expecting is a big word because I don't know – I don't think –
04:02I don't think either one of these teams know what to expect
04:05about what the product will be on offense.
04:09And, you know, obviously you go through preseason,
04:12but how many times did Kevin Stefanski say in preseason,
04:14we're not game planning for these games.
04:15This is not something we're going to line up here and be like,
04:17oh, this is exactly what we're going to try to get accomplished.
04:20Now, I am curious to see certain things like how many gap scheme plays you run,
04:25you know, how quickly do you get to the screen game?
04:28Here's one.
04:28How much do you move the pocket and how much do you operate out of play action today?
04:34Yeah, a number of things I'll be looking for.
04:37But expecting, I think, is a little bit too much of a stretch for me.
04:40I don't know.
04:41Yeah, I'll be honest.
04:42I don't 100% know what to expect from the offense.
04:46I think that you look at it and you think of what you know of Tua
04:50when you think of Stefanski and they're going to come out
04:52and try to probably get the short passing game going quickly.
04:58But I'm more – my thought goes into more of what the Pittsburgh defense
05:03under, you know, Patrick Graham in his first year there as a D.C.
05:06Now, look, he's not – not his first rodeo as far as a defensive coordinator.
05:11I think it's like his eighth year maybe.
05:13He's in – as a D.C. or maybe ninth, something like that,
05:16and he's been in the league for almost 20 years in the NFL as a coach.
05:21What is he going to do?
05:22Because, Mike, I kind of throw it back on you.
05:27To me, the easiest way to stop a quick passing game is to disrupt the routes
05:35right at the line of scrimmage and get up and get your hands on guys
05:40and not allow them free releases.
05:44But depending on – you know, are we going to see routes that run away
05:48from defenders, you know, crossing over the middle and stuff.
05:51Like, what do we – like – so to my thing is,
05:53how are they going to try to take away a short passing game?
05:56Because you try to take that away early,
05:58and then you're really going to force either the run game to pick up
06:01or to take shots to kind of keep the defense honest.
06:06Well, I think that the answer to that is multiple things.
06:09First and foremost, if you do want to walk up and press,
06:12I think you're playing a dangerous game.
06:13Because let's just say you're in a trips bunch formation
06:16and you've got three guys out to one side of the formation
06:19and you try to walk up and press the guy at the tip of the bunch right there.
06:23All right, then I'm just going to utilize guys like Kyle Pitts in that formation
06:27to be off the line of scrimmage and to cut underneath
06:30and start running those crossing routes that we know that –
06:32Ooh, little shallow drags.
06:33Right.
06:34And we know that Tua likes to find Kyle Pitts, and we know that that's –
06:37so there's a danger in playing that way because I'm with you.
06:40Hey, I'm not going to let you get short passes off,
06:42but one of the things that Mike McDaniel and Tua were so good about in Miami
06:46was finding ways to exploit that.
06:47They did it last year against Pittsburgh, albeit a different coaching staff.
06:51So I think there's danger in that.
06:53I don't necessarily know if we know what Patrick Graham is.
06:57He's done multiple things over his career.
06:59I do think that that's going to be a sort of bend but don't break style
07:04where you're trying to eliminate the explosive plays
07:06and maybe that causes you to back off kind of at the line of scrimmage
07:10and play some of that deep kind of zone coverage with the linebackers
07:14and allow for some checkdowns.
07:16I think that Tua has obviously shown the ability to do that.
07:20So I don't know.
07:20We'll see.
07:21He's done multiple things defensively when you look into his background.
07:25I mean, coming from Vegas, he did probably exactly what Pete Carroll
07:28wanted him to do, which is try to play man coverage,
07:33mix in a little bit of cover too, and see where you can go from there.
07:35But I don't know.
07:38They've got good players.
07:39I do know that much.
07:40Like they have really, really good players.
07:42But those players, for a number of reasons last year,
07:44kind of fell short of expectations in the stretch run too.
07:47And this secondary has seen no action together with all of them
07:51and once in the preseason because of injuries and, you know,
07:56camp stuff, holdouts, that kind of stuff.
07:58Holdouts.
07:59There's a lot more to cover when it comes to the Falcons offense
08:02heading into week one on Sunday.
