NFL Nation: Kroy Biermann
Falling
1. Gregg Williams, Saints defensive coordinator: Remember early in the season when the Saints were playing good defense and the common assumption was Williams could parlay that into a head-coaching job next season? Well, forget about it.
The Saints haven’t been playing great defense for a long time. Some of that’s because of injuries. But you have to wonder if the rest of the league has started to figure out how to attack Williams’ scheme.
2. Drew Brees, Saints quarterback: It’s tough to say Brees’ stock is falling, but it is. It’s been at an extremely high level all season, and while he is far from dropping off the charts, he is out of the MVP race.
His numbers haven’t been all that bad in two losses. But this is an offense that needs to score more than 17 points.
3. Garrett Hartley, Saints kicker: He missed a field goal that would have prevented an embarrassing loss to the Buccaneers. It wasn’t a long one and Hartley said the snap and the hold were perfect.
Only recently, the Saints made the decision to go with Hartley over veteran John Carney, who has joined the team as a kicking consultant. Carney can’t come back to the Saints as a player this year. He better start doing some serious consulting with Hartley.
1. Josh Freeman, Tampa Bay quarterback: The kid has won his last two starts and looked good doing it. Pretty impressive for a 21-year-old to go into the Superdome and beat Brees.
Freeman just might save Raheem Morris’ job and he’s at least giving Tampa Bay fans a glimpse of light down what has been a very dark tunnel.
2. Jonathan Stewart, Panthers running back: DeAngelo who? With starting running back DeAngelo Williams out with an injury, Stewart has taken on a bigger role in the Carolina offense and ran wild against the Giants. We’ve always known Stewart was pretty good, but he suddenly is showing he can be great.
3. Matt Moore, Panthers quarterback:. He went into the last game in Giants Stadium and threw three touchdown passes. It’s premature to say he’s a franchise quarterback, but he sure has shown he’s a functional one.
If John Fox stays in Carolina, all the Panthers need is a functional quarterback in his system. Well, that and some receivers to go with Steve Smith.
We're going to give a special honorable mention to Atlanta defensive end Kroy Biermann, who had to kick off after Michael Koenen and Matt Bryant were hurt. Biermann doesn't look anything like a kicker, but he did a decent job.
Five nuggets of knowledge about this weekend's games:
Falcons rooting for the Saints. There’s irony in this on many levels, but the Atlanta Falcons have to root for the New Orleans Saints on Saturday night. If the Saints lose to the Cowboys, Atlanta’s playoff hopes are officially over. If New Orleans wins, the Falcons go into Sunday’s game at least mathematically still in the playoff race.
Christmas shopping for Roy. In Friday’s NFC South chat, one of the readers asked if I was going to wear ear plugs in the Superdome on Saturday night. Not a bad idea, and I’m going to shop around to see if I can find some. In fact, I’m going to buy a second pair. Think I might be able to turn around and sell them to Dallas’ Roy Williams, who is probably going to hear plenty from New Orleans fans about the shots he took at the Saints earlier this week.
What to do about Delhomme? Matt Moore will get his third straight start against the Vikings. That’s no surprise because Jake Delhomme’s broken finger is still healing. But I’m curious to see what the Panthers do if Delhomme is ready to play the final two games. Do they stick with Moore, who hasn’t been bad? Or do they turn back to Delhomme, who’s had a miserable year and probably has no future as a starter after this season?
Where’s the pass rush? We’ve all been harping on Atlanta’s cornerbacks this season. That’s not off target. But let’s look at the bigger picture and toss some of that blame on the pass rush -– or the lack of one. Whatever happened to John Abraham? And why did we all buy into Kroy Biermann so hard after he got off to a decent start? Yes, the Falcons need to make some moves at cornerback in the offseason. But if some sort of pass rush doesn’t surface in these last few weeks, we also could be looking at a lot of new faces on the defensive line.
Power Rankings: Preseason: 8. This week: 9.
2009 Schedule/Results
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| Todd Kirkland/Icon SMI | |
| Michael Turner has started to get on track the past two games. |
Disappointments: After hitting a grand slam with his first draft class, general manager Thomas Dimitroff hasn’t looked as brilliant with his second. Top two picks, Peria Jerry and William Moore, are out for the year with injuries and that’s part of the reason the defense hasn’t shown the improvement the Falcons were hoping for. The secondary’s been a big problem spot, particularly at cornerback. With veteran Brian Williams out for the season with an injury, the Falcons have turned to Chevis Jackson, Brent Grimes and Tye Hill to go with Chris Houston. No one in that trio has really stepped forward.
Surprises: The Falcons have made the most out of what was a bad situation by sliding former first-round pick Jamaal Anderson from defensive end to defensive tackle. Anderson’s at least competent in that role and playing Kroy Biermann in Anderson’s old spot at least gives the Falcons the threat of a pass rush. With Moore’s injury, second-year pro Thomas DeCoud won a starting safety job and he isn’t likely to lose it any time soon. DeCoud has been perhaps the only bright spot in the secondary.
Outlook: We’re going to find out a lot about the Falcons in the second half of the season. The schedule doesn’t get any easier and they probably have no chance of catching the Saints in the NFC South race. But the Falcons are very much in the playoff hunt. Can they stay in it? Well, much will depend on Turner. If he can run like he’s run the past two weeks -- and like he did last season -- that’s going to solve a lot of problems. There’s no doubt Ryan has to be more consistent, but that will happen if Turner can take pressure of him. The biggest question is the defense. It’s not like this unit is loaded with talent, so Mike Smith and Brian VanGorder will have to do some strong coaching.
Atlanta's class of 2008 looking better all the time
NEW ORLEANS -- Wow, all the people who talk about New Orleans’ defense being the one that comes up with big plays, they just got a very strong argument from the much-maligned Atlanta defense.
The Falcons forced a huge mistake by Drew Brees, who doesn’t make many. Atlanta took a 14-7 lead when safety Thomas DeCoud blitzed, sacked Brees for a 10-yard loss and forced the quarterback to fumble near his own goal line. Defensive end Kroy Biermann picked up the ball for the touchdown.
One common theme on that play: DeCoud and Biermann both were members of general manager Thomas Dimitroff’s first draft in 2008. That class already has gotten lots of attention because of Matt Ryan, Sam Baker and Curtis Lofton. But that draft class continues to appear deeper and more impressive.
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| AP Photo/Lynne Sladky | |
| Drew Brees and the Saints will look to exploit Atlanta’s struggling secondary. |
Posted by ESPN.com’s Pat Yasinskas
On paper, it might be the biggest mismatch of the NFL season.
New Orleans quarterback Drew Brees and his army of receivers, which just might be the deepest stable in the league, vs. Atlanta’s much-maligned secondary.
You could say this one is Goliath going against David again. But that one doesn’t quite fit because David also had a bit of a pass rush to compensate for his lack of size.
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The Falcons simply don’t have a lot going for them in the secondary right now, and that could end up costing them any shot at the NFC South title. At 4-2, they’re already on the verge of playing only for a wild-card spot as they head into the Superdome to play the undefeated Saints on "Monday Night Football."
The Saints have Brees, Marques Colston, Jeremy Shockey and a whole bunch of other guys who can catch the ball all over the field. They’ve also got the tape of last week’s Atlanta loss to Dallas -- a game in which the shortcomings of the Falcons’ secondary were exposed repeatedly.
“They got hit in a couple of pressures when they weren’t able to get to the quarterback so they had receivers with a lot of time to work downfield and the Cowboys did a good job of taking advantage of some of those,’’ Brees said.
That’s just Brees being politically correct, as he always is. But, you have to figure that Brees and coach Sean Payton have spent the week watching the Atlanta-Dallas film and getting more than a little excited about the possibilities. If Tony Romo and Miles Austin can batter the Atlanta secondary, Brees, Colston and company could absolutely shred it.
The Falcons don’t have anything close to a shutdown corner, and two of their top three cornerbacks wouldn’t be among top three cornerbacks on any other team. Although Atlanta coach Mike Smith and general manager Thomas Dimitroff have done a great job since taking over a franchise in total disarray, cornerback might be the one spot they’re not better off than they were when they took charge in 2008.
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| Tim Heitman/US Presswire | |
| Dallas’ Miles Austin torched the Falcons for 171 yards and two touchdowns. |
Part of it is bad luck. The Falcons lost veteran cornerback Brian Williams to a season-ending injury. But part of it is that the Falcons largely have ignored this position. That’s been showing up recently and it could be completely exploited by the Saints. If that happens, Dimitroff and Smith have no one to blame but themselves.
They didn’t have a strong stable of cornerbacks last year, but they were able to hide that. They had an entire offseason to get better and they didn’t. They let Domonique Foxworth go in free agency and decided to stick with Chris Houston, Chevis Jackson and Brent Grimes -- and that’s a little scary.
Houston’s the best of the bunch, but he’s a decent No. 2 cornerback being asked to be a shutdown guy. Grimes is athletic, but woefully undersized. Jackson showed some big promise as a rookie, but hasn’t been able to cover anyone this year.
The problems became apparent in the preseason and training camp and that’s why the Falcons went out and signed Williams and traded for Tye Hill at the last minute. Williams was decent before his injury, but Hill hasn’t shown anything to convince the coaching staff to let him on the field.
The Falcons also have rookie Christopher Owens and there are hopes that he could be an impact player down the road. Don’t be surprised if Owens gets some playing time against the Saints because his size might allow him to match up better than Grimes against the New Orleans receivers, but Owens isn’t going to fix all of the problems in one game.
If there is any hope for the Atlanta cornerbacks to at least slow down Brees and the passing game, they’ll have to have help -- lots of it -- and there haven’t been many signs that anyone is ready to come to the rescue.
The Falcons were able to hide their deficiencies in coverage last year mainly by putting pressure on opposing quarterbacks. That came almost entirely from veteran pass-rush specialist John Abraham, but he’s been relatively quiet this season.
At times in the Dallas game, Abraham was seen dropping into pass coverage, which makes about as much sense as putting Brees in the Wildcat formation. You have to let your best players do what they do best and the Falcons need to let Abraham focus solely on getting to Brees. They also need some help from their other starting defensive end, Kroy Biermann, who started the season fast, but has cooled off recently.
Smith and defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder tried to give the pass rush some help against Dallas by blitzing frequently, but that didn’t really work out. The blitzers seldom got close to Romo and he was able to find the weak spots in the secondary.
“You live by the pressure and you die by the pressure,’’ Brees said. “You might make a few plays when you pressure, but you’re leaving yourself open to giving up some big plays. That’s the pros and cons on a pressure defense.’’
Those are the pros and cons facing Smith and VanGorder. They have to generate a pass rush to keep their cornerbacks from being stuck in coverage too long. But Brees and the Saints are pretty good at handling pressure. Brees gets rid of the ball quickly and doesn’t take many sacks.
“I figure, with these guys, they’ve shown to pressure a lot at times and do some things that they haven’t done in the past,’’ Brees said.
Maybe that’s the key for the Falcons. Maybe they need to do something they haven’t done in the past -- like have their cornerbacks actually cover some receivers.
Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas
Long ago, I learned not to read too much into preseason games. I saw Tampa Bay teams coached by Sam Wyche look good in the preseason and then hit double-digit losses in the regular season.
But I am going to take one thing seriously out of Saturday night's preseason game between the Falcons and Chargers. That's the Atlanta defense.
It didn't look good at all and that's a growing reason for concern. We all knew the Falcons would be entering this season with five new starters on defense and that means there is going to be some transition.
But shouldn't we be seeing some positive signs by now? Probably. But we haven't. In the only preseason game that really matters (because the starters play a fair amount), Atlanta's defense struggled. Yes, San Diego has a good offense, but LaDainian Tomlinson wasn't even playing. It didn't matter because the Chargers barely ran the ball.
They were throwing it and throwing it very well. In the first half, the Chargers had somewhere around 250 passing yards. That's not good news for any defense and every offensive coordinator the Falcons face in the regular season will be watching the video blueprint of how to carve up Atlanta's defense.
The Falcons aren't going to go out and blow up their defense at the end of the preseason. They're going with what they've got and that's a little scary. They could have gone out and grabbed some blue-chip defensive backs in the offseason. But they didn't.
They're going with Brent Grimes and Chris Houston as their starting cornerbacks and Erik Coleman and Thomas DeCoud as their starting safeties, for better or worse. If the Falcons are going to make the best of this, they need to do some of the same things they do with their offensive line. They don't have a tremendous amount of talent there, but they make the most of it because they hide their weaknesses.
They need to do the same thing with the secondary. The best way to do that is with a pass rush. They've got an elite rusher in John Abraham, but they need more than that. They need third-year pro Jamaal Anderson to step up from the very start of the season. Anderson was a top 10 pick in 2007 and he'll be on the bench if he doesn't start quickly.
The Falcons have Chauncey Davis, Lawrence Sidbury and Kroy Biermann as alternatives to Anderson. One, or some combination, of all those defensive ends will have to step up or the secondary really might be in trouble.
Atlanta's Abraham thriving in 'reduced' role
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| Michael Montes/Getty Images | |
| Through three games, John Abraham is leading the NFL with six sacks. |
Posted by ESPN.com's Pat Yasinskas
They sat John Abraham down in the offseason and told him that, on a rebuilding team, he would not be an every-down player.
An insult to the biggest remaining name on a roster that had just shed Alge Crumpler, Warrick Dunn and DeAngelo Hall? Well, you could have taken it that way. But Abraham didn't.
As it turns out that meeting with coach Mike Smith, defensive coordinator Brian VanGorder and defensive line coach might have been the best thing ever to happen to Abraham's career. A three-time Pro Bowler and one of the league's most talked about pass rushers during his time with the New York Jets (2000 through 2005), Abraham, like a lot of people in Atlanta, had become somewhat of a forgotten man since joining the Falcons in 2006.
But you can't forget him anymore. Through three games, Abraham is leading the NFL with six sacks. At his current pace, he would finish the season with 32 sacks. He's a major part of the reason why the Falcons, 4-12 a year ago, are off to a surprising 2-1 start.
It's all because Abraham has embraced what some would view as a reduced role.
"They came to me and said this would be best for the team," Abraham said.
It turns out it's also best for Abraham to not be out on the field for 50 or 60 snaps a week. At 30 and with a long history of injuries, Abraham has been limited to about 35 plays a week, but that's maximizing his production.
He sacked Kansas City quarterback Tyler Thigpen on the first play of Sunday's victory and forced a fumble with a sack in the third quarter. Abraham had three sacks in the season opener against Detroit and another in a loss to Tampa Bay.
"I think that he has bought into how we are going to use him,'' Smith said.
Abraham has more than bought into his role, which has kept him as the starter at right defensive end. He's welcomed it completely and said he's invigorated after struggling, with everyone else, through last year's disastrous season with coach Bobby Petrino.
"Things are just more relaxed around here this year," Abraham said. "Coach Smith is a professional and he understands players and knows how to mentor young and old players. He talks to us as grownups. He talks to us as men."
Smith and his assistants talked to Abraham as a man back in the offseason and that may be why his career, and the Falcons, are rejuvenated. They told Abraham they were looking for addition by subtracting from his playing time.
"They basically said, 'If we do it this way, it will work and it will help the whole team'," Abraham said. "They were being smart and it's showing up in my numbers right now. I've got to stay fresh and do it that way the rest of the year."
Keeping Abraham fresh was the main goal in Smith's thinking. The arrival of defensive line coach Hamilton reunited Abraham with his position coach from his rookie season with the Jets and that may be another reason why Abraham is looking so youthful.
"It's the same as it was before when I was with Ray. It's fun," Abraham said. "I've got somebody I can talk to. Ray can work through anything. He's trying to see me succeed."
Abraham is succeeding because the Falcons are giving him plenty of rest. They're keeping him on the sideline in a lot of obvious running situations and letting younger defensive ends Chauncey Davis and Kroy Biermann get more playing time.
"I've played the whole game before and that's fine," Abraham said. Now, we have some guys who are accustomed to playing the run and we're using them. That helps me stay fresh and lets me do what I do best."
The reduced role isn't the only way the Falcons are getting the most out of Abraham. They're moving him around a lot, putting him at right defensive end, left defensive end and dropping him into coverage.
"I've moved around some before, but never anywhere close to as much as I'm doing now," Abraham said. "It's good and it's fun."
It's also confusing for offenses that have to figure out where Abraham is and what he's doing. Four of his sacks have come from the right side and two from the left. But being the designated pass rusher isn't Abraham's only role.
He's also become a mentor to Atlanta's other starting defensive end, Jamaal Anderson. A first-round pick last year, Anderson had a disappointing rookie season and still has not recorded an NFL sack.
But the coaches have been complimentary of Anderson's play through the first three games and say it's only a matter of time before the sacks start coming. Like Abraham, Anderson also has been moving around. At times, he slides inside to defensive tackle.
"Jamaal is a totally different player than last year," Abraham said. "He now understands what he has to do. It's not showing up in the stats yet, but it will because he's matured as a person and a player. I've talked to him a lot and told him to just keep doing what he's doing and things will take care of themselves."
That's an attitude that Abraham has carried throughout his career and, now, it's working out better than ever.
