If it comes to pass that rookie Isaiah Oliver starts his second NFL game Sunday, the Falcons will probably feel better about that than the first time, when he ended up in the wrong place at the worst time on the Bengals’ game-winning pass to A.J. Green.
The new guy is calmer and sees more clearly now, and the Falcons will have you believe that thanks to that play, where the veteran wide receiver beat the young cornerback and one a week later where Steelers wide receiver Antonio Brown beat him for a score, Oliver is less green.
Chances are everybody will find out when the Falcons (3-4) play at Washington (5-2) because starting right cornerback Robert Alford missed his second consecutive practice Thursday with a bum ankle.
“I’ve seen big growth. When he first got here, I used to tell him, ‘It’s alright to give up a play. Everybody gets beat, everybody gets scored on.’ He’d get mad,” free safety Demontae Kazee said. “... He’s way better. Now he understands, like, ‘Man, we’re in the NFL. We go against people that’s way better than us.’ So, he sees that now.”
The Falcons knew some of what they were getting upon drafting Oliver in the second round out of Colorado. He’s big at 6-foot-1, 195 pounds, and “long” as scouts might like to say, with a wing span of nearly seven feet.
He can run, too, and there’s athletic ability aplenty, perhaps inherited from his father. Muhammad Oliver played cornerback at Oregon, where he was an All-American track-and-field performer in the decathlon before playing in 21 NFL games with five teams from 1992-96.
Isaiah Oliver is not in college anymore, but he’s still studying.
“Just coming in, rookie year ... there’s a lot of things you’ve got to learn about the NFL game,” he said. “It’s just so much different than college is, whether it’s the speed of the game or even the concepts we play.”
Stated simply, Falcons coach Dan Quinn wants Oliver to play with more physicality and to better grasp zone principles.
He missed Atlanta’s first two games with a sprained ankle, played 12 defensive snaps against the Saints and then was pressed into the starting lineup against Cincinnati.
That was the first game after safety Ricardo Allen was lost to an Achilles injury, and the Falcons moved nickel back Brian Poole to strong safety, starting left cornerback Desmond Trufant to nickel and Oliver to left corner.
He played defensive 63 snap against the Bengals, 10 in a reserve role against the Steelers, none against the Bucs and four against the Giants.
Quinn said, “we’re not going to rule (Alford) out yet,” and acknowledged that if his streak of 46 consecutive starts ends, Oliver will fill in.
“Isaiah’s the first one going in outside. He and Blidi (Wreh-Wilson) have both got experience doing the outside stuff,” Quinn said. “Inside, we’ve got Brian, Kazee and Tru ... We’ve put him in a number of different spots.
“What I’ve seen from him, the discipline at the line of scrimmage has really improved. The way we want to play our corners, right down at the line and challenge ... he’s certainly improving in that area quite a bit.”
Playing up hasn’t come naturally for the rookie. He’s spent extra practice time working on playing closer to the line of scrimmage and jamming receivers at the snap.
“That would be one example. In college we just didn’t play that way,” Oliver explained.
Green and Brown are two of the NFL’s top wide receivers, and another said that Oliver’s trending upward more quickly by having gone through the league’s school of hard knocks.
“It’s a young guy. It’s all about confidence. He has the size, he has the speed, he can do it all; he just has to settle in,” said Falcons wideout Julio Jones, who faces Oliver frequently in practice.
“And you’ve got to get beat a couple times to get battle-tested. If Rocky don’t go, I have all the confidence that he’ll go out there and play and do a great job for us.”
Quinn said that Oliver’s skill set fits the Falcons system, and Kazee agrees. It’s just taken a little while.
“He’s got long arms, so he can get you at the line of scrimmage,” the safety said. “Great speed, great coverage.”
The Redskins will unpack a somewhat atypical passing attack paced by tight end Jordan Reed (29 receptions) and running back Chris Thompson (28) . The leading wideout, speedster Paul Richardson, has 18 catches.
“That’s something we’ve looked at from the defense,” Oliver said. “How they spread the ball around like that. We have our own little adjustments for those kinds of situations.”
Time may soon tell if No. 20 is ready. He has four tackles, two pass breakups and perhaps a shorter memory than before.
As if to suggest that he’s not dwelling on touchdowns surrendered, he wore an Quinn-issued undershirt Thursday that said, “OWN NOW.”
“He has to come in there and dominate his role is what we are asking him to do,” defensive coordinator Marquand Manuel said. “Stay on top. Tackle and get the ball. Do everything that we are asking him to do.”
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