Atlanta Falcons defense getting healthy the biggest offseason victory
The Atlanta Falcons defense was decimated by injury last season and getting healthy for 2019 is the best thing the team could ask for.
Fresh off of following up a devastating Super Bowl loss with a Divisional Round exit from the postseason, the Atlanta Falcons hoped to get back to the Big Game. Instead, they experienced even more regression in terms of their overall success as they missed out on the playoffs entirely and truly had a year to forget — at least by their now heightened standards.
While the second year of the Steve Sarkisian experiment certainly didn’t help things on offense, it was the defense that was the true black sheep of the team. Per Football Outsiders’ DVOA, the Falcons defense was the 31st ranked defense in the NFL for the 2018 season. The only team worse by that metric was the rival Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
In fairness to Atlanta, though, the issues on defense were not entirely their fault. In Week 1, safety Keanu Neal suffered a torn ACL that kept him out for the rest of the year. Meanwhile, linebacker Deion Jones was limited to playing just six games last season and was not at 100 percent for even those he appeared in either.
Every NFL team experiences injuries and, in the grand scheme, losing two starters shouldn’t be that detrimental. Having said that, it’s hard to think of two worse players for the Falcons to lose on that side of the ball than Neal and Jones.
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Under head coach Dan Quinn, they are asked to move around and take on so many responsibilities that, once they’re out of the lineup, it becomes near impossible to replace what they’re capable of on the field. Hence what the defense struggled through without Neal and Jones last season.
There have no doubt been efforts made by the Falcons this offseason to try and improve their defensive group as a whole. One such transition is Quinn taking over defensive play-calling duties, something he earned acclaim for during his time with the Seattle Seahawks prior to coming to Atlanta.
Along with taking over those duties for the Falcons, Quinn will certainly have things in mind for how to improve this group. We could see new looks, new personnel groupings and so on from Week 1 and throughout the season.
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All of that could indeed help the Atlanta defense in the 2019 season to not be at the bottom of the league in terms of performance. However, nothing will help the Falcons quite as much as getting healthy. With Jones and Neal back on the field, things immediately will take a dramatic uptick in regards to performance. That simple fact alone is a win for this unit in the offseason.