Things are changing in Atlanta, though. There’s a freedom in place that wasn’t there before. Freedom from old, costly contracts. Freedom from salary cap constraints. Freedom from the binds of not being able to run the ball as an offense. Freedom from – let’s be honest – age, too, as the Falcons have one of the youngest rosters in the league.
This freedom may not be all its cracked up to be, but for right now? It’s a freedom that Blank is excited to live in for a little while.
“I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in many, many years,” Blank said. “I don’t think it’s, ‘Oh, you’re just optimistic because you own the team.’ Really, it doesn’t have anything to do with that. It has to do with looking at the facts as they are and sizing up the roster the way it is and having the freedom that we’ve finally found ourselves in going into 2023 this year. I think it bodes well for us.”
The fact of the matter is that the top performing players on this Falcons team in 2022 were players still on their rookie deals. The fact of the matter is that the Falcons have found value in free agency as well as the last two draft cycles even without the money to make a big splash. (Blank added that seeing the work of players like Tyler Allgeier, Drake London, Kyle Pitts – when healthy – and others has given him “great confidence” in Fontenot and Smith’s abilities to make their selections on draft night as well as when free agency arrives).
More so, the fact of the matter is that the Falcons are beyond the dead money hit they took in 2022. They’re in the position to bring in some top-level free agents if they so choose (and yes, Blank said, that includes signing their own guys). They have (at the moment) nine draft picks in 2023, including the No. 8 overall pick. They’ve establish a culture, an identity based in physicality if the hire of Ryan Nielsen as the Falcons next defensive coordinator didn’t make that obvious.
“There’s absolutely no confusion about the way Arthur Smith wants to play football,” Blank added.
It’s all of this combined that amounts to the owner feeling as optimistic as he does about where things are trending in Atlanta. It doesn’t mean things are perfect. Far from it. It doesn’t mean the work stops. On the contrary, it’s just getting started.
What it means is that, finally, there’s room to breathe. What the Falcons do with this space, this freedom, is still to be seen.
Blank said most people who are students of the game would say the Falcons organization is on the…
Click Here to Read the Full Original Article at News…