The Most Important Guy in Flowery Branch?
...this guy from Marion, North Carolina. Dwayne Ledford. He better be good.
Billy Dwayne Ledford, 44, has never coached in the NFL. He has been a college assistant coach, most recently at Louisville. He played in the NFL as a center for seven seasons and with five teams. But he’s never coached in the NFL.
This is the guy we should all be paying attention to because if he’s not any good as an offensive line coach, if he doesn’t improve the Falcons’ offensive linemen, the Falcons are not going to be any good as a team for a fourth straight season.
The team just drafted tight end Kyle Pitts with the fourth pick overall, the highest a tight end has ever been drafted. The guy is already being enshrined in the Hall of Fame. A “Unicorn” somebody suggested on draft night because Pitts is 6-foot-6 and runs 40 yards in 4.3 seconds and is a matchup problem for the defense: too big for cornerbacks, too fast for safeties. He was labeled by many the best football player in the draft because he can play anywhere he wants on the field.
Can he block?
I don’t know if he is The Greatest Tight End In The History Of Football, but Pitts won’t get his mitts on the ball if Quarterback Matt Ryan is throwing passes from from flat on his back.
And I don’t care how slick this offensive scheme of new head coach Arthur Smith is supposed to be, or how good Pitts can be, but if Ryan is dodging pass rushers, or getting spun to the turf, Atlanta is not going to keep up with Tampa Bay in the NFC South. We know the defense is spotty. If the offense sputters, cover your eyes.
The upside of taking Pitts:
Ryan, if he is upright, will be throwing the ball to All-Pro Calvin Ridley and future All-Pro Pitts. The great wideout Julio Jones? He is being dangled as trade bait and the Falcons could sure use some salary relief because they need to find about $12 million to sign their draft picks. But if they have all three—Ridley, Hoo, and Pitts—what fun that would be.
The downside:
Ryan needs time to throw. And he’s the only quarterback on the roster.
And so Coach Ledford better be good at his job. The third-year right guard Chris Lindstrom and the third-year right tackle Kaleb McGary, both taken in the first round in 2019, have to make significant improvement in 2021. The second-year center Matt Hennessy needs to grow this season.
The veteran Jake Matthews is the left tackle and will be fine. Matt Gono could be the left guard, even though most of his time has been as a tackle. He played in all 16 games in 2020 and started four. The Falcons put a second-round tender on him, which means he could make almost $4 million in 2021. He is the starter, but the Falcons still have Day 2 and Day 3 of the draft to look for O-line help.
Those five guys, along with the blocking tight end Lee Smith brought in from Buffalo for Smith’s scheme—Kyle Shanahan’s offense—will have as much to say about how this offense does as Matt Ryan and Kyle Pitts. If those Five Guys play well, burgers could be named for them because the Falcons will routinely get 30+ points a game.
Ledford is from the mountains of western North Carolina and he looks the part of a mountain man at 6-foot-4 and the thick beard. He played college football at East Carolina. The man has been around all kinds of people in football, but he has never coached in the NFL. A Louisville official I know said Ledford bonded with his offensive linemen and routinely had them over to his home.
Ledford coached Mekhi Becton, a three-star recruit out of Richmond, Va., who became first-team All-ACC and the 11th overall pick of the Jets in the 2020 draft.
The last time the Falcons hired a coach from Louisville—and I hate to mention this— it was the ill-suited Bobby Petrino, who couldn’t finish one season in 2007. He skipped out to Arkansas before the Falcons’ season was complete.
The Falcons drafted Ryan the next season and he has had a Hall of Fame career.
Plenty of fans Thursday night wanted the Falcons to be done with Ryan last night.
There was much boohooing the Falcons didn’t draft a quarterback with No. 4 and establish a Ryan succession plan. Zach Wilson (No. 2 to the Jets) and Trey Lance (No. 3 to the 49ers) were off the board, so many thought the Birds should have picked QB Justin Fields of Ohio State.
This dude Scales was sure upset the Falcons did not draft Ryan’s successor.
From the start, Ryan wasn’t going anywhere as a starter. The guy threw for over 4,000 yards last season, without much from the injured Jones, and a below average offensive line. I wouldn’t have picked Fields anyway. He still throws the ball like a shortstop and that slow trigger is not going over in the NFL.
Some fans were upset the Falcons didn’t draft for defense:
They were upset the offensive line wasn’t bolstered.
And they are mad because Ryan is staying and Jones may be leaving to create salary for the incoming rookies.
Some fans see the Falcons on a cliff, but I wouldn’t go this far:
Ryan, 36, has three years left on his deal and considering the productivity of Drew Brees and Tom Brady in their 40s, it is fair to think Ryan will be capable. Peyton Manning was 37 and the quarterback of Denver Broncos when they made it to the 2013 season Super Bowl, albeit with a nasty defense. Manning was 39 when the Broncos won the Super Bowl in the 2015 season. Ryan has missed one game in the last 11 seasons. He could shine again.
But it depends on this man we hardly know. Billy Dwayne Ledford.