Falcons quarterbacks coach Bush Hamdan, after spending seven seasons in the college ranks, was named to his current position in February.
Hamdan, a former quarterback at Boise State, coached at Washington the past two seasons after making stops at Davidson, Arkansas State, Florida, Sacramento State and Maryland. He was also a student assistant at Colorado.
He replaced Matt LeFleur, who became the Los Angeles Rams’ offensive coordinator.
Hamdan, who’s never coached in the NFL, was at Florida, where he was the wide receivers coach in 2012, when Falcon coach Dan Quinn was the defensive coordinator.
Hamdan chatted with Matt Winkeljohn for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently. Here’s what he had to say on a variety of issues:
ON ANY CONNECTION WITH NEW OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR STEVE SARKISIAN: "I'll be honest with you. Sark and I didn't ….I just missed him at Washington. I met him one time when I was working with coach (Dan) Quinn at Florida. So, it's been a really cool the first four months just growing extremely close to him. He's a guy that you can naturally gravitate to very quickly just because of his personality and how genuine he's been. It's been a great experience."
ON INHERITING FALCONS QUARTERBACK MATT RYAN: "It's special. I was blown away with how intentional, really all of these guys are. They don't waste time. If they are going to do something, they are going to do it the right way. As coaches we have a playbook and a lot of our answers come from the playbook. There are a lot of times that I think both Matts (Ryan and backup Matt Schaub) give the answers from a lot of experience. It's been a unique experience for me piecing this offense together and learning this offense, but also getting the offense from their point of view as well."
ON THE OFFENSE REMAINING THE SAME VS. SOME TWEAKS: "Obviously, this is a tremendous system. What they've done the last couple of years here really probably changed the league in a lot of ways with what they've done. But I think every year is new. You have different players every year. You have to be able to feature certain guys and play to their strengths, but again, if I were to give a percentage, I'm not really sure. I definitely think that the system in place is a very good system. Obviously Sark brings … a lot of years of calling plays (in college games) and we'll benefit from that."
ON MATT RYAN'S HIDDEN TALENTS: "I think that the guy plays with a chip on his shoulder. He works with a chip on his shoulder. That's what has been really unique for me see him day to day. Seeing what he looks like in May and June. How he attacks everything that he does. It starts there. From a player's standpoint, if you just really have watched him over the past four or five years, there is certain element of toughness that you don't just think about naturally maybe with the quarterback position or him in general. But …it shows up with him standing in the pocket, moving the pocket with walls of people in his face. I think it starts with toughness.
“The second thing there is just his accuracy. We refer to it as strike-point accuracy that allows him to give receivers the ball in position where they can advance it as well as running backs.
“I think toughness as well as accuracy, he’s really, really good in the pocket. When you look at those guys in the NFL and how you get (from) good to great, what separates those guys, he does not need a lot of room to make throws. Both of those things jump out at you.
“His knowledge of the system and his leadership, those things jump out. Again, the toughness and accuracy and his ability to make all of the throws in tight spaces are in my opinion is what is really separating him.”
ON RYAN AND THE KEEPER GAME: "When you look at the offense as a whole, one of the strengths of it that everything looks the same. A lot of the (play) action passes, a lot of the keepers occur from the simple standpoint is that it looks like a run, it looks like a run and all of sudden one guy is switching his route and Matt is getting outside and using that. It's intricate I think. It's extremely important in the run game as well. Again, we have the ability to keep them honest. To keep on extra guy out of the run defense is critical. It's a staple of this offense and we just have to continue to grow with it."
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