Archive for May, 2011

Who’s Your Favorite Birds?

The last Falcons Retro Post asked Bird Cage Family Members to give their top 10 Atlanta Falcons according to a Ring of Honor. Any standards could be used to make your own list, but the word “honor” did reside in the actual title. Now is your chance to do the same thing and build a list purely on who your favorite Falcons were/are not including any needed accomplishments, awards, or recognitions. This truly is your chance to give the players that you liked the best for whatever reasons. The greatest thing about this one is that you can’t be wrong. You may have liked this player because that’s who you remember or what jersey you bought or who has the coolest name. The point is for you to make this all about you and your favorite Falcons for any reason. Only stipulation is to keep it to ten and you don’t have to designate any rank or order unless you want to. You certainly can include some of the same from your Ring of Honor, but for …

Continue reading Your All-Time Favorite Atlanta Falcons »

Your Top 10 Atlanta Falcons of All-Time

Mr. Falcon (Manny Rubio, US Presswire)

 With the summer drought and no-Falcons doldrums upon us, it’s time to go a little retro and build your own Atlanta Falcons Ring of Honor. This is a really tough task for several reasons. First of all, you have to compare and contrast players from different eras in the NFL, which can sometimes be like comparing apples and oranges. Second of all, this will be tougher on younger fans like myself who didn’t have the chance to watch many of the great legends in red and black, but learned of them only through family members and their memories. Third, this one will be tough to separate “favorites” from those that may be deserving. Finally, there so much criteria that could be entered here, but the main point to remember is that you make this list however YOU want to. This only one in a series of retro posts, so one coming soon will be who your favorite Falcons are/were not necessarily including …

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Will Dent Get a Look @ OLB? (J.Crawford/AJC)

The Akeem Dent pick was perhaps the biggest surprise outside of the trade up to get Julio Jones. After scouting so many linebackers, the fact that Curtis Lofton was coming off two knee surgeries, and also that the backup middle linebacker position has been a rotating door for the last three years, it was almost a certainty that the Birds would be grabbing a linebacker of some sort. The surprise was in who they got and when.

Many Bird Cage Family Members predicted that the Falcons would probably take a chance on Dent, but that it would be much later in the draft, perhaps somewhere around the 6th or even 7th round. Fans were shocked when the pick came in as Akeem Dent in the third round after giving up a 2nd rounder and a 4th rounder to get Jones. Dent had pretty good numbers, especially in terms of tackles, racking up 240 in his career (126 as a senior), 12.5 tackles for a loss (6.5 as a senior), 4.5 sacks (2.5 as a senior), and 5 …

Continue reading What Role will Akeem Dent Play? »

The Million Dollar Question

All Smiles! (J.Crawford/AJC)

The story is well-known and the reasons are well-documented on why the Falcons gave up 4 picks to move up and grab one of the best wide receivers, and overall players, in the draft. Two words: explosiveness and impact. Many in the media and some fans have denigrated the pick as giving up too much and not addressing the defensive pass rush. John Clayton from ESPN credited Dimtroff and Co. as being bold, but also compared it the 49ers giving up picks to get wide receiver JJ Stokes. Some believe that the Falcons are way more than one player away from reaching the big game and the move was foolish. Others think it was the perfect strike to what had become an overly conservative team that couldn’t keep pace with the Packers and Saints of the world. Assuming he stays healthy, there’s almost no doubt that Jones will have some impact, but the million dollar question is: how much?

Few Precedents

As Clayton mentioned in his …

Continue reading How Much Impact will Julio Jones Have? »

Well Bird Cage Family Members, this is one of the toughest times of the year and especially so with no end of the lockout in sight. The draft is over and there’s no indication that there will even be a season when August rolls around. With that being said, there should be some things we can do to keep our Falcons and Football appetite satisfied. So it’s that simple, while a new post is getting finished simply throw anything you’d like to discuss during this insanely difficult period.

New post coming soon.

To get you going today, go ahead and give your “ridiculoulsy and entirely too early” 2011 Atlanta Falcons depth chart with all 53 roster spots and 8 practice squad spots.

Continue reading Need Your Input »

Time to Dish Out Your Grades

Coming to an End-zone Near You (J.Getz/AJC)

Well, just as Mel Kiper and Todd McShay and every other “expert” give their draft grades (even though they know a miniscule amount compared to our Bird Cage Family), it’s time for the real Atlanta Falcon experts to give their draft grades. If nothing else, you can’t say this draft was boring and it surely has provided us with plenty to talk about for the next several months (hopefully not longer than normal due to the lockout). Since the letter grades have been played out and then some, we’ll try something a little different this year. Instead of using the letter grades (B-, etc), try using the number scale from 1 – 10. This will give you more options of assessing the Atlanta Falcons draft. 1 would be absolutely Adam Jennings muffed punt terrible and 10 would be Roddy White 3 consecutive Pro Bowl worthy. And with that, here’s the Bird Cage’s take…….

1st Round

Julio Jones – Wide …

Continue reading Grade the 2011 Atlanta Falcons Draft »

A New Champ is Crowned!

What a weekend. If any Falcons fan thought they had a good idea of what GM Thomas Dimitroff had in store, they were wrong. Mock drafts are always just as good as throwing darts, but this year seemed particularly crazy. Even though we heard the rumors close to draft day that the Birds may be moving up to get wide receiver Julio Jones from our very own D. Orlando Ledbetter, no one took the bait except for one person (james), who also was the only BCFM (Bird Cage Family Member) to guess more than 1 player we actually drafted.

Waynester was the only Bird Cage Family Member to make the correct strike on Jacquizz Rodgers, even though he had him going in the 5th round. Akeem Dent was by far the most hit on pick, but almost all had him slotted in the very late rounds. Several notched points by guessing that we’d take a receiver with the first pick, but only one had us taking Jones. One of the more popular selections had the Falcons taking a running back in …

Continue reading 3rd Annual Falcons Full Mock Champion! »