AJC > Sports > Falcons > Blog > Archives > 2006 > November > 28
Tuesday, November 28, 2006
Give coaches some credit
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Though strategies, schemes and play-calling by the Falcons coaches can be debated, the actual coaching of players is hard to question, which calls into question certain players’ ability to compete at the NFL level when the lights are on.
For two seasons, I have watched wide receivers coach George Stewart put receivers through just about every type of pass-catching drill possible. Balls are directed at receivers’ shoe tops, knee caps, two feet over their right shoulders, directly between the numbers, on every type of pass route the team runs. After practice, the wide receivers are required to catch a certain numbers of passes out of the jugs machine.
Defensive backs coaches Ashley Ambrose, Brett Maxie and Emmitt Thomas work with corners and safeties on reads and how to tell if a receivers is going to break off a pattern and go deep. Offensive line coach Tom Cable and consultant Alex Gibbs work on drill after drill to get the line in sync with the vastly different run game and passing game schemes.
These drills are worked on daily. So, again, in terms of actually coaching players, they are being coached. For the most part, players respond in practice.
Which means in games, when it’s time to deliver, some of these players wilt.
The Falcons, no matter how hard they try in practice, aren’t going to get better until some players understand they play Big Boy football and when the ball is thrown at them, they have to catch it. Or when a receiver releases from the line of scrimmage for the end zone, they might want to turn and run and cover him.
The coaches are taking much of the heat and maybe they deserve it, but the players might want to come to grips that they too could be bounced out of Atlanta and, if they look around, there might not be too many teams who’d want to hire them.
