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FLOWERY BRANCH -- The Falcons' coordinators Kyle Shanahan (offense), Richard Smith (defense) and Keith Armstrong (special teams) meet with the media on Tuesday for the first time as members of Dan Quinn's coaching staff.
Also, the Falcons announced that they hired Keith Carter as assistant offensive line coach, Matt LaFleur as quarterbacks coach, Doug Mallory as defensive assistant/linebackers coach, Marquand Manuel as secondary coach/senior defensive assistant, Mike McDaniel as offensive assistant, Chris Morgan as offensive line coach, Jeff Ulbrich as linebackers coach, and Chad Walker as defensive assistant/defensive backs.
Here are 10 things we learned from the coordinators:
Credit: D. Orlando Ledbetter
Credit: D. Orlando Ledbetter
1. Shanahan believes that quarterback Matt Ryan is athletic enough to run his system, which includes stretch runs, bootlegs and waggles. "Matt Ryan fits into everybody's offense," Shanahan said. "When you have a good quarterback like Matt, he's done little bit of everything whether if it's dropback. Whether if its play-action. He hasn't done a lot of movement stuff, but he has athletic ability to do it. I'm really excited to deal with Matt. I'd like to know what he's done here in the past and hoping that we can help him in the future. I'm really looking forward to working with him."
2. Shanahan said the offense plans to attack defenses from sideline-to-sideline in the run game and will require mobile athletic linemen.
3. Smith said that the coaches just held their free agency meetings and have made plans to target certain players in free agency.
4. Armstrong said that head coach Dan Quinn passed him a note with the word "speed" on it. The word was underlined. The Falcons want to get faster on special teams.
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5. Shanahan, who coached All-Pro wide receiver Andre Johnson in Houston, favorable compared Julio Jones to him.
6. Smith first met Quinn when he was with the San Francisco 49ers back in 2001.
7. Shanahan didn't want to talk much about his stay in Cleveland. He did wish Johnny Manziel the best as he's entered a treatment center. He said Manziel worked hard in Cleveland.
8. Quinn and Shanahan hooked up during last season when Quinn interviewed for the head coaching jobs at Cleveland and Minnesota.
9. Smith on his coaching philosophy: "What we are looking for are guys who will come out and have fun. We're looking to play fast and be able to attack. . . .it's not necessarily where we going to be a big pressure type football team. . . .we have to make it where we don't have 1,000 different defenses….(We want) the players to react, play fast and hard. We are trying to create turnovers."
10. Smith said that sacks matter. "First of all, it's more than just third down defense. To be successful on third down, I really believe that you have to play well on first down. You have to make those third downs where you're not playing a lot of third and shorts."
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