Falcons' defensive line sets fast pace

By RAY GLIER

For the AJC

When the ball is spotted to start a series, the Atlanta Falcons' defensive line does not hear the sound of a referee’s whistle. It hears the sound of a bugle.

Charge!

The hurry-up Birds are in a one-gap scheme — no peering to either side of a blocker to protect two gaps — and they charge through that gap. Maybe they pause long enough on some plays to chip a guard to keep him off a linebacker, but mostly they are marauders creating havoc in the backfield.

“Coach [Ray Hamilton, defensive line coach] told me when I got here with this scheme, you’ll think you died and went to heaven,” said tackle Thomas Johnson.

Through two games, the fast and furious Falcons have five sacks and have been a crutch for a rebuilt secondary that might, or might not be, the weakness of the defense. It’s hard to tell.

Miami’s Chad Pennington and Carolina’s Jake Delhomme did not get much time to find the soft spots, even when the Panthers left a tight end and running back behind to provide a seven-man protection.

The Falcons are playing with an eight-man rotation along the line, essentially four players to play two spots. The defensive ends are Abraham, Kroy Biermann, Jamaal Anderson, and Chauncey Davis, and the tackles are Jonathan Babineaux, Thomas Johnson, and Vance Walker and they have been disruptive enough to help the Falcons force six turnovers in two games.

It is enviable depth this week considering the season-ending knee injury to rookie defensive tackle Peria Jerry, their first-round pick. Johnson, a second-year player from Middle Tennessee, slides in as the starter, but the culture on the defensive line will not change.

“If you are going to be a good defense, you’ve got to play behind the line of scrimmage, you can’t play at the line of scrimmage,” Abraham said. “The coaches give us the freedom to play behind the line and make plays, and we want to play fast.”

When the Baltimore Ravens won the Super Bowl following the 2000 season, there were stars galore on defense: linebacker Ray Lewis, defensive back Rod Woodson, tackle Tony Siragusa, end Rob Burnett, and linebacker/end Peter Boulware.

More obscure were the backup defensive linemen — Keith Washington and Harry Swayne, among others — who played well enough to get snaps and rest the starters, which allowed the first-team players to be more effective late in the game.

Still more obscure was an assistant coach with the Ravens — Mike Smith, the Falcons coach.

When Jack Del Rio, the linebackers coach for the Ravens, got the job as head coach in Jacksonville, he hired Smith to run his defense and they followed the same script as in Baltimore, which was to build depth on the defensive line and teach one-gap approach to get up field and be disruptive.

“Our football team is based on winning the line of scrimmage,” Smith said. “We want to be a penetrating, disruptive defensive line and we want to be able to knock people off the line of scrimmage on the offensive side of the ball. Our guys have a good understanding of what we’re trying to get done.”

The Falcons' pass rush will be important Sunday because the Patriots have not shown any balance with the run and pass (100 passes, 43 rush attempts). Tom Brady will stand in the shotgun and throw and throw. He will also use a no-huddle to slow down the Falcons’ substitutions.

“Getting him to move around the pocket is big, and the Jets were able to bring some things into his face and got him to move,” Abraham said.

What the Falcons learned Sunday against the Panthers is they cannot get so revved up that they end up behind Brady with an over-rush. When he wasn’t getting the ball out quickly, there were times Delhomme just stepped up into the pocket and let the mayhem fly past.

On obvious third-down pass plays, Abraham is lined up at one end and Biermann, the second-year man out of Montana, is lined up on the other. Abraham has quick moves and a bull rush while the 260-pound Biermann uses speed and quickness and leverage to dart past blocks.

“They have a few more athletic guys than they had last year,” said Ryan Kalil, the Carolina center. “They had Abraham, but they didn’t have as many guys lighter and quicker in the pass rush as they have now. You can tell they have an emphasis in the pass rush.”