FLOWERY BRANCH – The Falcons pass-rush has been non-existent since they elected not to re-sign John Abraham after the 2012 season.
The Falcons, in Dan Quinn’s first year last season, finished last in the league in sacks with 19. The team had the opportunity to select some of the top pass rushing prospects in the first round of the draft, but they passed on Clemson’s Shaq Lawson and Kevin Dodd, Oklahoma State’s Emmanuel Ogbah and Eastern Kentucky’s Noah Spence in order to select Florida safety Keanu Neal with the 17th overall pick.
Quinn believes that Neal will help the pass rush by playing better coverage against tight ends and running backs. Essentially, the rushers will have more time to get to the quarterback because they won’t be open receivers underneath roaming around the field.
“It helps it because we got better on third down,” Quinn said. “That helps your pass-rush a bunch, too.”
Teams converted 82 of 191 (43 percent) of their third downs against the Falcons last season, which ranted tied for 28th in the league.
Safety William Moore and linebacker Justin Durant were released because of their poor coverage. Durant and middle linebacker Paul Worrilow struggled in coverage. Worrilow had a 104.6 efficiency rating in coverage by profootballfocus.com last season.
“We struggled at times in different areas of our coverage,” Quinn said. “We are not done yet. We are still working and we’ve got a couple of days to add to our club. We like the additions that we made in the offseason.”
The Falcons signed defensive end/tackle Derrick Shelby, who showed some pass-rush promise as a reserve for Miami. They also re-signed Adrian Clayborn and plan to use him at right defensive end. They didn’t re-sign defensive end Kroy Biermann.
With better play at strong safety from Neal, Quinn believes the pass-rush will be improved.
“We like the fact that he’s all-downs,” Quinn said of Neal. “We know how to feature him covering tight ends and we do play zone, which we play a lot of on third downs as well. He is a factor.”
Neal, who passed on his senior season to enter the draft, had 96 tackles and one interception last season.
“Tight ends and backs, at strong safety that’s primarily where we feature them,” Quinn said. “When we play those kind of downs when we have to play really tight and aggressive coverage, you’ve got to know the matchups that you have at tight end.
“You’ve got to have a guy who has some length whether if its arm length or jumping ability to be able to defend when guys are running option routes. He has the ability to do that.”
Neal is confident that he can cover tight ends in the NFL.
“I’m a bigger person,” said Neal, who’s 6-foot, 211 pounds. “I’m a bigger safety, but I’m as fast as the smaller guys. Just being a bigger body and being able to handle those guys and not be bullied by the big guys in the league helps me out a lot.”
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