The symptomology around the first half 2019 Falcons suggested this team was sick head-to-toe. They lost 7 of 8 games. They were well-rounded crummy, but I can still pick the moment when one infirmity became glaring. It was moment when you should have come off the couch and asked for your money back.
It was the season opener against the Vikings in Minneapolis. Third quarter. The Falcons faced second and eight from their 44-yard line. Quarterback Matt Ryan completed a short pass to tight end Austin Hooper, which turned into a 13-yard gain.
Right guard Chris Lindstrom, the club’s top pick in the 2019 draft, broke his foot on the play. Lindstrom played nine more snaps in the game. X-rays after the game confirmed the break. He was done until the second half of the season.
The Falcons started 1-7 and were within a hair of the abyss that comes with a coaching change. It was a bad team for eight weeks and one of the big reasons is because the offensive line was brittle without Lindstrom. It allowed 50 sacks on the season, which is not healthy for a team built around the passing game. Only four teams allowed more sacks.
I understand, the defense was a bust, too. The statistics for the 2019 defense, first half to second half, are illuminating. Just one stat makes the point. The Falcons defense in the first half allowed opponents to convert 53 percent of 3rd down plays. In the second half it was 25 percent.
But we’re not here to talk about defense. I think the defense will be squared away for 2020.
It’s the offensive line the Falcons’ fans should worry over. It’s not just if they can block, but are they tough? I have always maintained that a football team gets it toughness from its offensive line.
So as the Falcons open the 2020 season Sunday at home against the Seahawks you better keep your eyes off the ball and on the offensive line. Train yourself early in the broadcast to bear down and watch the line because you are going to get a hint where the 2020 season is going to go. Look at the game: man-to-man and see who gets handled, or who does the handling.
I have watched football games where the defensive line has a poor game and the team still wins.
I can’t remember watching a football game where the offensive line has a poor game and the team wins.
The Seahawks do not have much of a rush presence on the defensive line. If the Falcons have a hard time blocking Sunday, feel free to be uneasy.
I am not the only one who has diagnosed what ails this franchise right now. Pro Football Focus rates the Falcons the 24th best offensive line in the NFL going into the 2020 season. Here is the PFF lowdown:
The story of the 2020 Falcons will start with the offensive line after they posted the worst pass-blocking (67.2) and run-blocking (58.2) grades of the Matt Ryan era.
After years as one of the most stable units in the league, Atlanta’s offensive line has regressed, and they finished 24th in our final 2019 rankings. The good news is that Atlanta still has strong pillars up front in left tackle Jake Matthews and center Alex Mack, who are still two of the league’s best at their respective positions. Matthews is one of the best zone blockers in the league (89th percentile over the last two years), while Mack has ranked second, fourth and ninth among centers over the last three seasons.
Questions abound beyond that, but there is hope. The Falcons invested two first-round picks in right guard Chris Lindstrom and right tackle Kaleb McGary in 2019, but Lindstrom only saw the field for 309 snaps and graded at 66.6 overall, while McGary struggled to a 53.0 overall grade that ranked 79th out of 89 qualifying tackles.
Offensive linemen often take time to develop, but the Falcons must start seeing the rewards from their steep investment. That leaves the left guard position, where James Carpenter is slated to start after a posting a 45.3 grade that was worse than all but seven guards last season. Keep an eye on third-round rookie center Matt Hennessy, who could compete for snaps after three strong years of grading at Temple.
It doesn’t take a complicated Means Test to understand the subtext for 2020 is clearly this line has to be better.
The statistics for the second half for the offense when Lindstrom returned showed some significant improvement. Sure, there were some gruesome games, like the nine sacks allowed against the Saints on Nov. 28, but there was also a stretch of three games where the line allowed just four sacks. The Falcons went 6-2 the second half and Dan Quinn saved his job as the head coach. Defensive play on the back end and blocking were the chief reasons for the improvement.
The five starters for the 2020 opener are left tackle Jake Matthews, left guard James Carpenter, center Alex Mack, right guard Lindstrom, and right tackle Kaleb McGary. Rookie Matt Hennessy, a third rounder, might have started at left guard, but he injured his knee the third scrimmage, Aug. 28. That Carpenter has to start at left guard is your first early warning sign of trouble. Hennessy practiced in full this week, so hope for him to get back soon as the starter.
Mack and Matthews are All-Pro caliber so there is a base of good. That leaves 60 percent of the line play to be nervous about. Lindstrom started five games the second half of the season and the line just looked more stout on more plays with him in there.
What was it specifically that hurt the Falcons when Lindstrom went down? I called my friend Jeff Van Note, who knows more about offensive line play than anybody walking upright in Atlanta. Note played mostly center for the Falcons for 18 years and 246 games and made six Pro Bowls. He is an ATL Superhero.
He played center for the Falcons when he was 40 years old and technique and smarts were as much of the deal as strength and toughness. Note had to contend with the likes of Dick Butkus and Mean Joe Greene. He played against defensive lines nicknamed Fearsome Foursome, The Purple People Eaters, and The Steel Curtain. Note played in an era where it was ok for the head coach to walk past his rookie center in the locker room and spit hot coffee on the plebe’s bare back.
In college at Kentucky, Note played everything but center, it seemed, so he learned the whole field and what teams tried to do to O-lines and the scheming.
One of the issues, Note said, is that most football teams are right-handed on offense with the run and pass. Suddenly, there is something lacking, especially when the right guard, Lindstrom, was your first round pick and his replacement (Jamon Brown) was bad enough the Falcons eventually cut him.
Not only was the Atlanta right guard injured, but the running back, Devonta Freeman, never recovered from a 2018 injury. The old Freeman could burst through the slightest of holes. The 2019 Freeman didn’t have the same burst. The running play became something to do between pass plays so Ryan’s arm didn’t fall off from throwing every down.
The other thing about offensive line play is the chemistry, which we have all heard about. Chemistry is not just moving in sync, like all five are connected on a string. It is understanding where each other is mentally and “getting over it” when a cohort blunders.
Note said more than once in his day the offensive linemen would break the huddle and start a jog to the line and one of them would say, “What’s that snap count?” No one got mad at the guy who asked about the snap count because they all did it, except Note whose job it was to snap the ball on the right count. They were so entranced about their assignment, what they had to do exactly on the play, they missed the part where the quarterback said “on 2.”
Wouldn’t the defensive linemen hear the O-lineman telling each other the snap count? “No, they were just as focused on what their assignments as we were,” Note said, “and, besides, Mean Joe thought we were lying so we could get him to jump off-sides.”
The Falcons need that kind of togetherness out of their offensive line this season. Blunder one, blunder all. Lindstrom and McGary became friends at The Senior Bowl in January, 2019, and bonded throughout 2019 camp. Suddenly, the first week of the season, Lindstrom is hurt and McGary struggled.
McGary was one of the worst right tackles in the NFL in his 16 games. There were plays where he was as able as a mannequin because he couldn’t get out of his stance before the defensive lineman’s hands were on him. But he held things together in one important way. The Falcons had the fourth most holding calls in the league in 2019 (28), but it wasn’t the rookie dragging the operation down. McGary, 25, was whistled for just five penalties in over 1,000 snaps and had zero holding calls. The bad news is that he gave up 13 sacks. I guess you could say he probably should have tried to get away with holds.
What else about the 2019 Falcons’ O-line that needs to be fixed?
The Falcons’ line in 2019 had a real hard time picking up the extra rusher. It ruined them. Note said the proper skillset is knowing which guy to block and which guy to turn loose when you are out-numbered. The guy to turn loose is the guy with the furthest run to the quarterback and by evidence of the 50 sacks the Falcons didn’t do a very good job of figuring that out. Lindstrom is a lot better on his feet than any of the backups the Falcons used at right guard, so you would think the delayed rush up the middle can be handled better by the more nimble blocker.
Whatever happens Sunday, pay attention to the Falcons’ line, not Todd Gurley’s moves, or Matt Ryan’s accuracy, or the play of the young cornerbacks. Bear down on the offensive line and you will have an early feel where the season is going.
“The line is the key to the game because the NFL game is an offensive game,” Note said. “They have done as much as possible to open the game up, they want scoring. And the offensive line, how it plays, usually determines the outcome of the game. Not always, but most of the time. Success comes from establishing a line of scrimmage with your offensive line.
“They have to have a certain type of performance together. And they have to be consistent game in and game out.”
If the Falcons fail this season and the front office is kicked out the door, along with the coaches, one of the first things that will be tied around Thomas Dimitroff and Quinn’s neck will be the two draft picks in 2019, Lindstrom and McGary. More than one personnel man in the NFL called the picks “a reach.”
Indeed, there was some significant scolding around the league for the “overpicking” of Lindstrom at 14, the second offensive lineman chosen. The only other O-lineman taken after Lindstrom in the first round was McGary at 31 and he was rated a second rounder. It was not a strong class of college offensive linemen, but the Falcons needed blockers so maybe they did the best they could. Dimitroff is called Trader Tom, so perhaps he should have put together a package with the 14th pick and found a veteran and not taken a chance on the free agent Brown.
The two friends, Lindstrom and McGary, as different as night and day, and they better grow and they better carry along Hennessy, assuming he gets healthy. I don’t say this lightly. The franchise depends on these three guys.
(Editor note: On previous newsletter “Do We Really Want Football On The Ballot?”, my friend Paul Shea set me straight on the minimum wage in Georgia: it is $5.15. Georgia and Wyoming have the lowest minimum wage in the country, if you don’t count the five states with no minimum. I used $7.25 in the Ball Atlanta story, and that is the federal minimum wage.).