The Falcons raced to the airport Tuesday afternoon, flew 1,300 miles to Houston and settled in for three days of competition against … the spitting image of themselves.
In partnering with the Houston Texans for a couple of practices and an exhibition game Saturday, the Falcons have come across a team that drove off the same cliff as they did last season. Much as the Falcons’ Super Bowl campaign cratered in a 4-12 mess, the Texas were expected to contend in a weak AFC South Division.
The won their first two and lost the next 14, a difficult stunt that got coach Gary Kubiak fired. Naturally, both franchises remain troubled by 2013. All this makes for interesting dance partners this week.
“Again, we’re still in the evaluation process,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “There’s going to be a lot of guys that got some (playing time) in the ballgame in Week 1 that are going to get an opportunity to play a little bit more in Week 2, not just only in the game, but in practice.
“When you practice against someone else, you get to evaluate them against players that they haven’t seen or haven’t been working against for 15 practices. We want to get some special-teams work done. We’ve been moving a lot of guys around in the special teams, to evaluate the guys in different roles. So we’ll continue that while we’re there.”
The teams will practice together Wednesday and Thursday before the Falcons use Friday for a walk-through in preparation for Saturday night’s exhibition at NRG Stadium.
The Texans offer a selection of challenges. Wide receiver Andre Johnson has twice led the NFL in receptions, and running back Arian Foster, though slowed by an undisclosed injury, is a three-time Pro Bowler who led the league in rushing in 2010. The Falcons will be tested against a defense that features end J.J. Watt, the AP’s 2012 defensive player of the year, and linebacker Jadevon Clowney, the first player taken in the May draft.
“So we’re going to be able to gauge ourselves against some very good individual players,” Smith said.
“(Offensive line) coach (Mike) Tice was just telling us, ‘This is training camp. We’re still training, man,’” Falcons offensive tackle Sam Baker said. “These aren’t games we’re going to play. We’re training. We’re going to get better with these guys.”
The sessions will be similar to the recent shared practices with the Titans at the Falcons’ facility.
“We’re a little further along, so there’ll be some situational periods that’ll be different than the Titans practice,” Smith said. “Again, we’re talking about going down there and playing. We’re not going to take guys to the ground. We’re going to make sure we’re not cut-blocking. We want to have a good clean practice.
“It’s going to be good for us to compete against some really good players. I think their team is in some ways similar to ours, in terms of the type of season they had last year.”
As with so many teams in the NFL, there is a New England connection to be found here. While Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff was serving as the Patriots’ director of college scouting (2003-07), new Texans coach Bill O’Brien joined the Patriots’ staff as an offensive assistant, eventually rising to offensive coordinator. O’Brien previously coached at Georgia Tech during George O’Leary’s tenure.
“Bill has done a very good job everywhere he’s been,” Smith said. “He was here when we worked against the New England Patriots, so we have a relationship in terms of how you do things in a practice. The practice structure was really easy to put together. It was just a matter of a couple of phone calls, and we got that set in terms of what we want to get accomplished.
“There’s going to be some opportunities for us to do a couple of different things while we’re down there based on how the practice goes, and we’ll have those discussions when we get down there.”
