Atlanta Falcons Get GREAT News For NFL Week 1 + Falcons Practice Squad Signings

[Music] the Falcons have released their initial practice squad and they got some great news today so we're going to check it all out on this episode but let's start with the practice squad here as the Falcons have introduced 13 names to it including three wide receivers Dylan Drummond and Chris Blair both of which were with the team over this summer Jesse Matthews coming over Carlos Washington makes the practice squad after losing the rb4 battle with Jace mclen tight end John Fitzpatrick returns a couple of defensive tackles including the rookie Zion Logue who was a sixr draft pick out of ug a pair of offensive lineman Lal London Kenny oenny by the way he is an international pathway player so he does not count towards the practice squad limit so basically they can have 17 players on their practice squad two corners including preseason standout nron Brooks and Veteran Kevin King I fully expect Kevin King to be added to the active roster with his three free call-ups in the first three weeks of the season and if an injury pops up they can put him on the active roster then or after three weeks they can decide whether or not to keep them all together and then safety Dane Kook shank as well being added to the roster but uh initial impression from that is I wish we had some more movement from the Falcons on the waiver wire I know that ultimately every single fan and fan base Hypes up the waiver wire when in reality it's one man's trash might be another man's treasure or it could just be the same situation that the team that released that player finds a new team in which is there's a reason why he didn't make the 53 man but when you look at the Falcons wide receiver room only having five guys and one of which is a rookie one's a core special teamer and the other one's cadero hodj who by the way is also a core special teamer there's really only two receivers on this team that have serious offense experience over the last few seasons Drake London and Darnell Mooney they are one injury away from having two core special teamers in Ray McLoud and cadiro Hajj out there or a day three draft pick out of Illinois KC Washington who had a nice preseason but every single year fans and sometimes even teams kind of fall trapped to buying too much into the preseason stock and the first string defense is out there and oh it's not as easy as it was in August so I'm a little disappointed Atlanta did not go out and land a wide receiver via the waiver wire I'm sure they did their homework or I hope they did and they probably came to some conclusion that there's no one out there that's worthy of an initial 53 man roster spot you can't take someone from the white waiver wire and put them on your practice squad which I'm sure they would have liked to have done for a couple of guys but still I think this whole time a lot of us and a lot of you you commenting down below were pretty um gung-ho on going to get another receiver and it hasn't happened yet and I sure hope they wake up at some point and go get one or I pray that no one gets injured because they are one injury away from having a little bit of a crisis in the receiver room but that's the initial look at the practice squad like the initial 53 man roster it's fluid you're going to notice guys get added guys get Dro so for now this is the roster this is the practice squad they still have some more practice squad spots open so they'll probably make one or two more additions over the next few days but that's an early snapshot of the Falcons 20124 roster now on yesterday's episode I told you guys we were going to do a sub battle with our Steelers talk channel here at chat sports going into week one and they beat us in subscribers off of yesterday's video we gained 21 they gained 38 the good news is this is not even the first quarter of this battle we still got 11 more days until the Falcons ship pump this dealers so if you want to be Pittsburgh Week 1 and you want to start off 1 and0 hit that sub button down below now let's talk about the great news the Falcons got today which is Russell Wilson was announced as the Pittsburgh Steelers starting quarterback that might not be groundbreaking news if you follow the NFL closely but I'm going to tell you why it's great news for the Falcons and Falcons fans but first what's on the menu over at f factor factor is the best place for quick delicious meals that are ready to eat in Just 2 minutes so no matter how busy you are you'll always have time to enjoy nutritious great tasting meals they've got an awesome menu of Chef crafted meals with options like calorie smart Protein Plus and keto crush your Wellness goals this month with dietician approved meals and ingredients that you can trust I'm walking to work pretty much every day now trying to get myself into a little bit more of a wedding body season cuz that's coming around the corner for me and with factor it's a great way that I don't have to spend too much time in the kitchen while also still getting delicious food and not breaking the bank in the process so get started with Factor today head to factor meals.com Falcons ch50 and use code Falcons chat 50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month that's code Falcons chat 50 at Factor meals.com Falcons ch50 to get 50% off your first box plus 20% off your next month while your subscription is active I put all that information in the comments and description of today's video so go check them out today and get started with Factor Jay Glazer the first one to report that Steelers have made their decision and Russell Wilson will be the starter for week one this is not a big surprise to me I think going into training camp in the preseason the expectation was Russell Wilson will be the starter then he got injured early on Justin Fields was making some nice plays here and there so there started to be a little bit more of a quarterback controversy in Pittsburgh but on top of Russell Wilson being named the starter which we'll talk about in more detail in just a moment there might be a key member of their offensive line out for week one their guard Isaac sumalu left practice to today with an apparent Peck injury so definitely something to monitor because this Falcons pass rush is not filled with Pro bowls and studs across the board so every little bit helping if they're missing one of their better offensive linemen and sorry for Georgia fans bradick Jones has kind of been a little bit of a disaster so far in Pittsburgh being down arguably their best lineman period that would be a tough blow to the Pittsburgh offense but this is why Russell Wilson being announced the starter is great news for Atlanta I know that his stats last year just when you look at it from afar look pretty good 26 touchdowns eight interceptions 3,000 yards completion percentage way up compared to year one with the Broncos but Jessie Bates and Justin Simmons are going to torment Russell Wilson for starters Justin Simmons knows how to defend Russell Wilson he did it every day in practice for two years in the mile high city so he goes into this game and he goes into every single defensive meeting with hey I know how three operates and I'm going to tell you all of his Tendencies all of his bad habits and we're going to exploit that but let's take it one step further Russell Wilson was on track to be a no doubt Hall of Fame quarterback now honest conversation I don't know if he makes the Hall of Fame okay but there are three reasons why I think Russell Wilson has really started a spiral in a downwards pattern for starters he holds on to the ball twoo long in Seattle he was always getting sacked and the belief was he had a bad offensive line not that Denver had some top three offensive line but there was a lot of frustration with Russell holding on to the ball too long taking on too many sacks the offense falling behind schedule and then punt after punt after punt that's reason number one reason number two as he gets older and this is not a criticism just a little bit of you know nature his athleticism goes down the mobility decreases and that's something that he was so good at early on with the Seahawks he held on to the ball for a while but he was able to evade pressure and then hit up like Baldwin or Tyler locket way downfield for a huge play he's still holding on to the ball for a long time but he's not running away from Defenders which is leading to a lot of sacks but most importantly it may be the Boomer bust element that he had with the Broncos last season bear with me we're going to look at some uh nerdy analytics here but what I pulled from 2023 passing depth was the amount of attempts and percentage of passes he had for varying uh degrees of distance so deep downfield passes 20 plus yards from the line of scrimmage he had 60 attempts which last year ranked 11th in the NFL now in your intermediate passing 10 to 19th he was 27th 0 to9 yards he was 21st behind the line of scrimmage he had 104 attempts that was fourth he's basically running like a college basketball offense either we're dunking or we're shooting threes that works in college basketball it does not translate to the NFL if the offense is predicated on we're either going to go for verts and deep or we're going to dump it off to a receiver or a running back behind the line of scrimmage over the course of four quarters the defense knows what to expect right they can start to pick up Tendencies they'll either start crowding the box and eliminating the short passes or they've seen this look three times they know it's all go for verts like it's NCAA and they're going to have two high deep safeties to knock down or pick off any 20 plus yard passes here's the extra bad news for Russell Wilson you want to go deep against Jesse Bates and Justin Simmons two players that have combined for 50 interceptions that sounds like a recipe for an awful outcome that's chapter one of a book of bad ideas trying to go deep not just against one of these two but both of these safeties and then you factor in how I don't think the Falcons front 7 is some like Pro Bowl stud filled group but it's young it's athletic and it's experience all at once so they're going to recognize a screen from The Experience standpoint right you think Grady Jared and David onad haven't seen a screen before in their life and then for the younger guys they're going to be able to track down a lot of these short passes and take down the backs and the tight ends and the receivers for minimal gains there's just nothing over the intermediate portion of the field which is where you could exploit the Falcons a little bit cuz outside of AJ Terrell there's some question marks at the quarterback position but if you're not going to throw it 15 yards on a curl route to like Mike hughes's half of the field how are you taking advantage of this Atlanta defense and its weaknesses so hopefully no one from Pittsburgh watched that last three minutes and hopefully everyone from Atlanta did because there are a lot of really good things about the Falcons matchup with Russell Wilson and if you don't believe me who did the Falcons lose to last year was it Justin Fields With You could argue a worse roster in Chicago than what the Pittsburgh Steelers had since Pittsburgh made the playoffs and the Bears didn't or did the Falcons lose to Russell Wilson Justin Fields was able to beat Atlanta I would rather go up against Russell Wilson than Justin fields and I'm not even afraid of jinxing that so predict the score for me Falcons vers Steelers I'm taking Atlanta in a Beatdown give me the dirty birds 27-10 now before we let you guys get on out of here I got to show some love to the dirty birds Club Jose Santana Ken Ballard who is the biggest Saints hater in the entire world and Trey 1222 shout out to you three for being the first three members of the dirty birds Club if you want to get on screen and get shout outs for the entire 2024 season hang out with us during our watch parties like week one against the Steelers $100 Super Chat and we'll add your name to the club to get shout outs all year long [Music]