OK Homers - How Good Are the Falcons? - Fess Up

How many legitimate pro bowlers can you pick out of that team? Not many.

More important than pro bowlers are "threats," for lack of a better term. The Falcons have consistent threats at every position. Roddy White is a deep threat who will run a 5 and out for 2 quarters and then hit a double move and house it (with a little offensive PI....).

Gonzalez is a threat on short yardage situations. He is 6'5". If you single cover him on 3rd and 5, they will go to him every time.

Turner is a threat to get 5-10 yards every time he touches the ball. He can run over people, and because of Roddy White and Tony G, you can't just put 8 guys in the box against him.

Matt Ryan is a smart QB. He will take the short stuff, and he will not beat himself. In that sense, he is like the rest of that team through 11 games - they do not make costly mistakes; teams make costly mistakes against them. Half of winning a game is not shooting yourself in the foot. If you want proof, look no further than the 3 games the Saints have lost. 4 defensive TDs between AZ and CLE, and a missed chip shot FG in overtime against ATL - that is shooting yourself in the foot.

On top of all that, their defense is playing well. They don't miss tackles. They are not a top unit, but you do not see them making huge mistakes. They make you take the ball down the field one play at a time, and seem to avoid the big play well.

All that being said, the Falcons are not flashy. Aaron Rodgers is a better QB, than Ryan. There are better TE's thn Gonzalez, and a lot of elite WRs probably would not want to play the role of glorified possession receiver that White often plays. But Flash does NOT win games, solid team effort does, and that is what they have been bringing. In that sense, they are like the Saints of 2009 who had a group of mostly unknown WRs, a hard charging UDFA RB, and a QB who had never been considered top 3 until last season.

It pains me to admit all of that, but being delusional about it is not going to help anything. Not to mention, as good as the Falcons are, the Saints can obviously beat them, they just need to avoid the mistakes they have made thus far.