Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan arrived with a reputation for being an unwavering and demanding adherent to his system.
While there have been individual and group meetings about how the offense sputtered last season, Shanahan plans to remain tethered to his outside-zone running scheme and passing attack.
“It’s not about changing,” Shanahan said. “It’s about going through things together. I have never been a guy who doesn’t talk to the guys, who doesn’t listen to guys. I’ve always done that.”
The offense was nearly unstoppable as the Falcons raced to a 6-1 start last season, but as teams adjusted, the Falcons stumbled to an 8-8 mark.
There was unrest over not having hot routes, players entering the game to run specific routes, the run game getting stuffed and the general bumbling about that led to a rash of turnovers.
But having gone through those tough times last season, Shanahan believes the Falcons are better for weathering that storm.
“When you go through experiences with people and you go through adversity with guys, you start to really find out who people are,” Shanahan said. “They get to find out who I am, who they are and what makes people tick. Going through the stuff that we went through last year makes it a lot easier to communicate because we’ve been through stuff together.”
Quarterback Matt Ryan, who must play on the move with bootleg runs and passes, concurs with Shanahan.
“We both have a better understanding of who we are as a team,” Ryan said. “We understand who we are better than we did at this point last year.”
After playing seven seasons in one system, Ryan learned a big lesson last season.
“You have to be able to adjust and adapt,” Ryan said.
Wide receiver Julio Jones had an All-Pro season as he led the NFL with 136 catches and 1,871 yards receiving. But he questioned his lack of use in the red zone as he had just eight touchdowns.
“It’s just communication,” Jones said. “We just have to get back to doing what we do and understanding where Kyle wants to go and where Kyle wants to take us.”
Shanahan, who had much more controversial stops in Washington and Cleveland, is ready to move on.
“You lose six in a row, it’s tough,” Shanahan said. “What I was the most proud of with our guys, and what I learned was the character of our guys. We got a lot of it.
“When things were bad, we found a way to step it up. We found a way to win two of our last three. We went through a lot of adversity together. We all know each other a lot better because of it.”
While Shanahan’s offense is much different than the one Ryan thrived in under former coordinators Mike Mularkey and Dirk Koetter, it’s not being retro-fitted to better suit Ryan.
The Falcons plan to improve in the red zone by reducing their turnovers, they don’t plan to use more no-huddle, give Ryan more audible power nor throw more deep passes.
Shanahan hasn’t found a consistent thread as to why his offenses have finished in the lower half of the league in red zone efficiency in six of eight seasons.
Last season, the Falcons finished 18th with a red-zone efficiency (touchdowns only) of 54.72 percent.
“Every year is different,” Shanahan said. “When you look at ours this year, I think there were a couple of things. When you are 18th overall in red-zone offense and you’re 32nd in red-zone turnovers, that’s saying a lot.
“Usually, if you’re 32nd in red-zone turnovers you’re usually at the bottom five in red-zone offense.”
The Falcons have a plan to ramp up their red-zone attack in 2016.
“Start with turnovers, the next thing is whenever you run the ball well down there, points usually happen for everybody,” Shanahan said.
Shanahan doesn’t have any plans to incorporate more no-huddle into the attack for 2016.
“We do no-huddle when we think it gives us an advantage,” Shanahan said.
Ryan was taught the old-school no-huddle of the Cincinnati Bengals and Sam Wyche as a rookie in 2008. Over seven seasons, Ryan grew to be quite effective when attacking defenses from the no-huddle.
“We do no-huddle more than most people in the league,” Shanahan said. “We don’t just sit and do two-minute no-huddle. But a lot of run plays that you don’t always notice, they are no-huddle.”
Ryan had wide-ranging audible authority under his former coordinators.
He has an audible option — to check a run into a pass or vice versa at the line of scrimmage — on maybe 50 percent of the plays, according to Shanahan.
Because of the team’s outside zone running style, Shanahan is not afraid to run into eight-man fronts to keep a defense honest.
“Not all of them,” Shanahan said when asked about Ryan’s audible authority. “A lot of them you do. You don’t want to get into that game all of the time. … Sometimes you need to run the ball into a bad look to slow down the (defensive) line.”
Fans have been squawking about the Falcons throwing more deep passes.
Shanahan insisted that the Falcons are always searching for times to strike deep, but they don’t want to force passes into deep coverage.
“You always look at that after each game, when did you have (a one-on-one deep opportunity) and when did you not,” Shanahan said. “Explosive plays, I think this will be my ninth year calling plays, it’s really never been an issue. We didn’t get as many last year.”
While they hope the communication flows, eliminating turnovers in the second year of Shanahan’s offense will be key.
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