Here’s what Falcons offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter had to say to the media on Friday:
Q: Just a couple days before the start of the season, where is the offense?
A: "(Laughs) Of course, everyone is excited to get the season started. If you're in this business, this is what you're in it for. You put in all the time in the offseason, all the hours, the players doing their work, the coaches doing their work. You're can't wait for the real thing to start. The practice games are over. Just seeing that game last night, it kind of gets your nerves rolling a little bit seeing the situations. It's a fun time of the year."
Q: The matrix looks different on how you all put the units together in the exhibition season, with who plays and who doesn’t. How do you plan for that when you’ll be playing some people together for the first time in the opener?
A: "You guys have a tendency to look at that as playing together for the first time, but they play together every day in practice. Teams are managing their risks different in real games. There is such a big push right now on players being healthy going into the season. We had five exhibition games. You want to have your best 22 guys out there on the first game when it really counts."
Q: How much have you seen Kaleb McGary grow throughout this preseason?
A: "Yeah, I think he's grown a ton going back to when he first got here. It's unfortunate that he had the setback with the (heart) procedure. Kaleb has come a long way. If his number is called, then I'm sure he'll be ready to go."
Q: He had only the one exhibition game. In your eyes are you confident that if he’s needed to play, he can get the job done?
A: "I'm confident in ever guy that we got. If they are out there on the field, I'm confident in them."
Q: How are you dealing with this whole Julio Jones situation?
A: "I've meet a lot of players in my life. I've been around a lot of players in my life. Julio Jones knows when he's ready to play. He knows how to prepare for a game. He knows how to handle himself. That is no concern at all for me."
Q: If for some reason he’s not on the field, what kind of confidence do you have in those guys like Calvin Ridley, of course Mohamed Sanu and Russell Gage?
A: "Sure, it's the same thing with the Kaleb McGary question. Whoever those guys are, we are going to have 21 guys that are active in the game, whoever those 21 guys are, those are our guys. Let's go."
Q: How have you tried to keep things from the old offense and build onto the existing scheme?
A: "I've learned a lot. The stuff that has carried over from Kyle (Shanahan) to (Steve Sarkisian), they were doing some things differently than I did in the past. I learned a lot from the staff that is in place. We had Mike Mularkey coming back into the fold. Mike and I's history with the old Atlanta offense, pre-Kyle. We tried to work some of that stuff back in there. But the bottom line is that we have good players on offense and I think it's a lot more about the players than it is the scheme. I try to put those guys in position to do their best."
Q: How’s Devonta Freeman been as he tries to come back from a tough year?
A: "I think he's definitely back to full health. I think he is right at the top of the list of guys who are excited to get out there and start playing. He's an energetic guy. He's a great competitor. If anything, I'll be saying don't get too excited because he wants to get out there and play. He's been ready to play since 'Bonus Monday.' "
Q: Based off last year, what’s your plan to improve the red zone offense?
A: "One thing about the NFL is we sure are not at a shortage for stats. We've got numbers for everything. It's real easy to compare where Atlanta was last year to compared to the league average or compared to the best teams. We have targets that we want to hit in every area. Turnovers. Sacks. Red zone percentage. Third down percentage. You've got targets that you want to hit. It would be easy to go back and say we've got to be better in short yardage situations this year. The one thing I've learned in my career is that those numbers rarely carry over to the next season. This is this season. There are a bunch of new faces. Players and coaches. Mainly on the offensive line. That's where the new faces are. So, of course, without going through every single one of these situations, we have targets. We worked on all of them. Guess what, next time that I'm standing up here, we probably won't be perfect in all of them. We'll still have stuff that we are good at. We'll say hey, let's keep going. We'll have other stuff and we'll go hey, we weren't very good in this area. We have to work on it."
Q: What’s the percent you want to hit in the red zone?
A: "You know what's crazy is that red-zone touchdown percentage has skyrocketed league-wide in the last three years. It used to be if you scored 55 percent touchdowns in the red zone that would put you in the top five in the league. I think there were three teams last year with over 70 percent touchdowns. That's incredible. Atlanta I think last year was around 60 percent and that put them at like 11th or 12th in the league. That would have been top five almost every year, we're in the 100th year, for the first 97 years of NFL football. So, we've had to rise some targets. …most of that statistical stuff stays really constant throughout the years when you look at all 32 teams and then each team fluctuates up and down by year. It's really weird, some years you're a great third down team and another year, you're not so good. Then, within third down, you've got third-and-short, third-and-medium and third-and-long. Redzone third downs. Goal line. We have targets, but I don't want to get into all of those. ….We've had to raise them because of that trend. I think that trend is mainly because of running quarterbacks in the red zone. That maybe will not be our strength because we are not going to switch to the wishbone once we get inside the one."
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