The Falcoholic
The Falcons attracted quite the crowd of fans for Saturday’s practice, and the on-field action didn’t disappoint. Day 2 featured an impressive showing by the defense, some young players stepping up, and some nice throws by Michael Penix and Kirk Cousins.
Atlanta Falcons fans are in a frenzy over this year’s team. Likely the mixture of rejuvenated optimism in quarterback play combined with this being the first weekend day of camp practice in Flowery Branch open to the public in two years, the amount of people on the hill was incredible.
In all my years attending camp practices, both reporting for this website as well as being a fan on the hill myself, I have never seen as many cars in the various parking lots across the complex as I did today.
In the post practice press conference, owner Arthur Blank began at the podium by thanking the fans and talking about how important that connection with the fans will be to the team’s success on the field. He also gave an estimation that there were around 5,000 people who showed up to view practice today.
Here are some observations from Day 2 of Falcons Training Camp this year!
New defensive coordinator Jeff Ulbrich had his fingerprints all over today’s practice, as we witnessed a number of blitzes dialed up throughout the 11-on-11 scrimmage portion. The new DC has also made it an emphasis for his defensive players to try and punch the ball out when they can (a philosophy dating back to the Dan Quinn days), and his troops followed orders to a tee.
Despite the fact that there are still no pads and physical contact is limited, the defense was as aggressive as I’ve ever seen it while in shorts and t-shirts.
The primary victim of that aggressiveness was star WR Drake London, who fumbled the ball twice in 11-on-11 drills — the first forced by S DeMarcco Hellams and the second forced by CB Mike Hughes. London also committed a clear drop at another point, and was visibly frustrated multiple times throughout the practice session.
Hellams had another impressive play, driving in hard and forcing an incompletion on a pass intended for WR KhaDarel Hodge on what ended up being a collision between the two.
There was another strip fumble forced on RB Nathan Carter, although I could not see who exactly forced it from my vantage point, but I did see CB/S Billy Bowman recover it. Overall, the offense suffered four total fumbles today, with the other being a pre-snap mistake.
If you look at the pure completion percentage today, you would think that QB Michael Penix Jr. had a rough go of it — he was an overall 6-13 with most of the work coming against the second team defense — but context matters a lot here.
Four out of seven...
