 Ahead on Early Birds, the Falcons look to strike gold in their passing game against the 49ers. We'll get you ready as Atlanta looks to get back to 500. Plus, shocks in the film room and Atlanta running back proves he's more than just a supporting actor. And what led to the Deon Jones trade? That more on Early Birds. A couple of your favorite, Joe. Let's talk Falcons football on Early Birds, presented by Mercedes-Benz. Good morning and welcome into Early Birds. Here's to Early Birds. He's DJ. I'm Justin. We got the guys from the Bay in town. Falcons helping them send them back out west with a big ol' L. After a loss, it's always the worst trips. It would be a long flight. Well, we get things started with a drive, the opening drive. Falcons in 49ers tomorrow here on Fox 5. We'll start with the quarterback spot, Marcus Mariota, coming in off back-to-back games with under 150 yards passing. Seven fumbles already this year, but he's done plenty of good, including with his feet. So shock, five games in. What have you seen? Justin, I think that's where you start with his feet. Because his feet has given this team a lot of things to be excited about. A lot of things to be happy about to be frank. Defenses have to know where he's going to be at, because he can take off at any given time. You know, the good thing with carried on his face, because that holds the backs out in and run games sometimes. He also made some good throws here and there. Remember, he hasn't played in over two years. Spot duty with the raiders. Now he's getting five games in. He's got a chance. He's still learning how to play in a system. And I asked Marcus Mariota this week how he assesses himself through five games. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it's been okay, right? Like we're two and three. We got to be better on third down. We got to be better in the red zone. I really don't sit back and reflect. Especially six weeks in, you know, I tend to just kind of let things play out. I try to be what I can be to this team and just go out there and make plays when we can. So let's talk about those 49ers who, by the way, spent the week in West Virginia after playing the Panthers. Take me home country roads. Falcons will have their eyes on Deebo Samuel. He can do it all kind of pioneered that Cordero Patterson role of wide receiver turned running back. Though he hasn't been getting as many rushes this year just for total through the last two games. But shock, still a dangerous guy. Yeah, anytime the ball is in his hands, he is an opportunity to make something spectacular happen with it. And he's an unbelievable player when he has it. He can play outside. He can play inside. He can put him in the backfield. Kyle Shanahan loves this jack of all trades kind of Swiss Army knife guy that can do it. And Falcons have to tackle well when he gets the football in his hand because he is nasty with the ball in his hand. And guys got to make sure they get him to the ground and he can make it a big play. Our guy TQ has something to say about stopping number 19. He's a pretty unique player. You know, he calls himself a wide back and he's a pretty physical runner. He breaks a lot of tackles. You know, they get him in space. He makes plays. Total football player. Complete football player. That way. Other than probably playing left tackle, I think he could play most positions on the field on offense or defense. Maybe not three technique or nose, but I'm sure he probably tried. I'd actually like to see that. Playing three technique. That would be crazy. As we wrap up the opening drive, let's talk a little bit about Dion Jones-Shock. Traded earlier this week to the Browns for a late round draft pick. Remember Dion's second round pick in 2016, he started 83 of his 85 career games, but he kind of fell out of the team's plans this year. So DJ, was it a scheme fit? Did he just need a fresh start? I think a little bit of both. I think he just didn't fit exactly what Dean Pease and that defense wanted to do. They wanted to be a little bit bigger. They wanted to be, you know, faster. They wanted to be longer. And that's what they got and the guys they got now. So it just was in a situation where he just was not the right fit for this type of defense. And now he's getting the first start he wants in Cleveland. Yeah, Dion, heading to join that Cleveland Browns defense. Welcome into Early Birds alongside former Falcons quarterback DJ Shockley. I'm Justin Felder, and we also have a matchup of real strengths in this game when Atlanta has the ball Falcons, the number three run game in the NFL, the 49ers, the league's best run defense. Yeah, this is going to be strapped at all. Make sure you're physical ready to go because both these, you know, entities want to stop each other. It's going to be tough to see what happens in this ballgame, but good ol' good. Got to bring your best. Going to be physical game. Another physical game for sure. Well, Shock, as everybody at home is saying, I left my heart in DJ's film room. Let's go. I like that. There we go. Yeah. Every once in a while, I find a good one. All right. We'll see you in a few. But first, sometimes NFL careers don't go exactly as originally scripted. Falcons running back Avery Williams took some rewrites by the higher ups at the network, in this case, Arthur Smith, and ran with his new castings and shifting to offense from being a defensive back. No surprise for someone whose mom is a well-known television producer. Pam VC, the former executive producer of CSI New York, among the lines on her IMDb page. Avery and I spoke one-on-one this week, and I asked him about the Hollywood moments from when he was a kid. I can remember the first time playing Grand Theft Auto. So I was playing GTA with one of the actors. You know, when they're not filming, they have their little trailer or whatever that they go to, and Eddie Cahill had his video game set up in his trailer, and me and my brother went there, and he taught us how to play GTA, so that's something I'll never forget. Did living in that world make you at all say, I could be an actor, I want to do that, or did you make me say, I never want to do this? To be honest, when I was younger, I didn't really pay much attention to it. I haven't seen, you know, what they do behind the scenes. Now that I'm older, I have a lot more respect for what they do. You know, having to do, you know, one scene for an hour or so seems like really tiresome and exhausting, so, yeah, I don't know. That would be really challenging to do. All right, from acting roles to football roles, how's life as a running back? It's going well. Yeah, it's going well. I love it. I'm extremely blessed to be on the offensive side of the ball, and just to help this team, you know, in whatever way it is, whether I'm getting the ball or whether I'm not getting the ball. I love being out there and, you know, helping my teammates. Do you see any of your return skills show up in your running game? I ask, because I remember people talk about that with CP a lot. Super explosive returner, he kind of brings that one-cut style. Do you see any of that in your running style? Yeah, 100%. I mean, you know, it's really just fundamentals of the game. You can see it from CP. Just how aggressive and how hard he runs, you know, with the ball on his hand on returns. You know, you see it through and through on the offensive side. How about you personally? Are there areas that you look at? I'm still working on these areas. This is what it's going to take to kind of take that next step. You know, every aspect of this game, you know, this is my first time playing offense since high school, and, you know, I'm always asking, you know, as much questions as possible, because there's always things to learn, fine-tune details that you can learn, you know, from guys that have, you know, a lot of experience on offense. So I'm always just looking to get better. It's going to be a matchup of strengths this weekend. You guys have the number three rushing offense. The 49ers have the number one rushing defense. What's it going to take to come out on top of that matchup? We know it's going to be a physical ball game, you know, so as long as we, you know, stick to who we are and we play a physical game and finish and fight the way we know how to. You know, we'll look to get the result that we want. It's time to get some game intel from shock. You're invited into the film room. So cut the lights and let's get started. All right, Justin, we just talked about how Marcus Marriota has had seven fumbles. He's under 150 yards passing, but I'm going to give my QB some love. I'm going to talk about his toughness, things he does that never shows up on the stat sheet, but ends up being the critical point in why the Falcons have been successful. Now, this is a simple third down here. You're going to get an inside little out route by London here. He's going to go outside and just inside and release and be outside, but they're going to blitz. And when they blitz and come through here, he has to stand in there and complete a pass. Now let's watch this. This play gets started. Watch this add-on linebacker. Here's the add-on linebacker, Devin White. Now he gets his football out with a guy in his face and London, this ball gets out. But I want to show it to you from the back. This is the toughness part that I want to show you from Marcus Marriota. Here's the add-on linebacker. This is Devin White, downhill, fast, physical linebacker. Watch him stand in here. Nobody has to take a hit and deliver a strike to a man. Now what? Here's the gut, right here. Now he's standing in there. He could easily run, try to get out of it or just throw it away. And watch when he lets this ball go. To play continue, let's this ball go. Look, he's just turning his head around just to get this ball out. And now he throws the accurate ball and stands in there and takes a shot from Devin White and completes this ball. Guess what? Third down completion. These are the things that come up for Marcus Marriota that makes it perfect and makes it work for his offense. If he continues to do this, his offense will continue to strive and have big plays. Justin, I like what he's doing. Yeah, third down is going to be critical this week against the 49ers. Thanks, Shock. More to come on Early Bird's Rocky Top. We'll be rocking today. Michael Jenkins here to get you ready for undefeated Tennessee against undefeated Alabama. Plus. They do all types of things, but if you know your rules and you know what you're doing on the defense, you'll be all right. Richie Grant says, follow the rules and you'll be all right. It could end to a big pass break up. We go deep with the Falcons safety. Next. Hey Falcons fans. Score a touchdown with low tire prices at Mavis Tires and Breaks. The official tire retailer of the Atlanta Falcons. Visit MavisTire.com to find a store near you. This is presented by Mercedes Benz. The best or none. And brought to you by Georgia Lotter. Today could be the day. By Truis. Committed to a better future. By Home Depot. How doers get more done? Bought to you by Truist. BNC and SunTrust are now Truist. Here again is Fox 5's Justin Felton. Welcome back into Early Birds. We welcome in former Falcons wide receiver Michael Jenkins. Might be the best slate of college football games we've had all year. I counted six games with both teams in the top 25. I'm psyched. Me too. Great day to watch college football. I'm going from here to the couch. For the rest of the day. All right. Perhaps the marquee game today is on Rocky Top. Tennessee and Alabama. Both undefeated. Crimson tide. Maybe not the force they've been. Questions at quarterback. Meanwhile, Tennessee. They got to be feeling good. Knoxville is going to be crazy. Give me your breakdown on this one. Tennessee is feeling great. But obviously they're offensive versus Bamba's defense. Both top 10, respectively. And then you add in Bryce Young. Will he play? Will he not play? I can't see Bamba beating Tennessee at Tennessee without Bryce Young. You need that. Heisman finalist. You need the town and quarterback. Could be town and quarterbacks on both sides. Here's Nick Saban offering his thoughts in the high flying balls. Tennessee's got an outstanding team. They're undefeated. Josh has done a really, really good job there. Probably one of the most explosive offenses, if not the most explosive offense in the country. Tennessee and Alabama today at 3.30. All right. After a rocky couple of weeks, Georgia maybe got back on track somewhat last week. Okay. Are they back on track? Where are they right now? Georgia fans. There's nothing to worry about. DJ, everything is okay. You're favored by 38 against Vandy. They'll be fine. All right. So, 3.30 today against Vanderbilt. So, real quick, what do you want to see in a game that might be lopsided? Well, just come out and play to their standards. Come out from the first play and play at a high level. Taking on Vanderbilt today, here's what Stetson Bennett had to say. I think we're getting two just like, ah, well, you know, it wasn't perfect. So, I'm going to be miserable. I know. Like, we played a good game. We got a lot of things to get better at. But we're going to, that's all it is. We just get better at them for next week. So, we can be better next week. All right. And finally, let's get to your home turf, the Big 10. Yeah. Itching to talk some Big 10 football. Big noon kickoff. Just a few hours here on Fox. Penn State and Michigan, both undefeated. Two-part question. One, who wins? And two, whoever you're picking to win, can they challenge your Ohio State puck guys? One, I can't pick U.M. So, Penn State will win. Okay. And, you know, yes, they can challenge Ohio State. I mean, they're a physical, both of these teams are physical running the football type team. So, it's going to be a grinded out type game between them two. And then we'll see what happens later on down the road. Okay. All right. Can't bring himself to pick Michigan. That game coming up at noon here on Fox 5. DJ, I'm sure you'll be watching that one once we get to Athens, right? Oh, no doubt. I cannot wait to watch that. Jink, I appreciate that. Dogs will be good. So, I appreciate it. All right. Quarterbacks are always trying to use their eyes to manipulate the defense. The best defenders have to know when to look for clues and when to ignore the QB's eyes. They also can't get fooled by the other eye candy before a play. Here's Safety and Richard Grant to explain, and this week's Going Deep. Well, I mean, before you even get that far, you have to know formations. Okay. You have to know down the distance, because that tells a lot. You know what I mean? Obviously, certain situations call for certain formations or certain personnel, like a bigger guy, a faster guy, stuff like that. So, let's get past that. I got that locked in. So, now a quarterback. If I am in the post, which primarily you'll be reading, you know what I mean? Quarterback. So, if I am in the post, I'm just scanning his eyes, man. So, typically, that'll take you where you need to go. But that's why I said a lot of this stuff come before the snap. You want to see the formation. You want to see the personnel. You want to see down the distance. You want to know what defense you're in. And that'll tell you how you can play. Do the eyes ever lie to you or are they ever trying to manipulate you? Absolutely. Offenses do all this. Wish you wise. And they do all types of things, like motions and double shifts and not a running back and jet. They do all types of things. But if you know your rules and you know what you're doing on defense, you got it. Know your rules and you'll be all right. All right. We got more to come on Early Birds. It'll be a big week for Falcons fashion as the red helmets make a triumph and come back their history still to come. You see it on just about every ankle in the NFL and then cut up and torn off all over the locker room floors after games are over. Athletic tape. It's everywhere in football, but there's a lot more to it than you or I might think. Dr. Kyle Hammond takes you behind the scenes in this week's Emery Roads Recovery. Ankle taping here that we're going to demonstrate is one of the most common types of taping that we'll do for our athletes. And a lot of athletes who have either been dealing with ankle sprains or have have an ankle sprain will sometimes use ankle taping to help prevent that or treat that and allow them to play safely. So this is our Colin. He's one of our athletic trainers and he is a taping expert, a professional taper they may say. So each athletic trainer or individual who does taping has their own technique, but generally they're done in a specific way to help stabilize the joint and secure the joint. But it's got to be done pretty fast and then a lot of times we'll have to do this on the field. And so in the field, obviously in the heat of the battle during the game we got to be fast doing this as well. There's lots of players who are getting taped. Now there's a little bit of variations of certain guys like it done certain ways or if we're dealing with maybe inside of the ankle versus the outside of the ankle that can be done differently. And then obviously other joints can be taped as well. Wrists, thumbs, we can stabilize thumbs that have been sprained, wrists that have been sprained. We can even do taping on the knees for certain knee injuries as well. So there's a lot of different methodologies. All right, more to come after the break. Our resident fashion expert in my house will take a look at what Falcons fans will be seeing real tomorrow. That's next on Early Birds. This has been presented to you by Mercedes-Benz, the best or nothing. Falcons fans, score a touchdown with low tire prices at Mavis Tires and Breaks, the official tire retailer of the Atlanta Falcons. Visit MavisTire.com to find a store near you. All right, now it's time for our weekly fashion recap. No, I'm just kidding. I wouldn't ask you to do that. For the first time since 2013, the Falcons busted out the red helmets this week. I saw them at practice. Have you seen these things? They look good. I'm a big fan of the red helmets. I like going back, bringing back some of the old swag, little old style. I think the fans are gonna like it too. You're gonna get to see a lot of different, like shirts and jackets, people trying to wear, trying to match up to the red. So it's gonna be cool to see. Yeah, that's Savory Williams when we sat down. He's a fan of them. He says the team's a fan of them. And we're a fan of our resident fashion expert. That's Miles Garrett, of course, who joins us now to walk the runway for you with a little uniform history. Fashion is as important as anything in the NFL. Just ask Dion Sanders. Look good. Feel good. Feel good. Play good. Play good. Couldn't have said it better myself. Falcons unveiling these beauties this Sunday. Why not take a look back at the history of the Falcon helmets and uniforms? We start at 1966. The inaugural season of the Dirty Birds. They have these red helmets and the black jerseys. A little bit, shout out to Georgia Tech with the gold stripe on the top. And I shout out for the Yellow Jackets. 1971. We make a little bit of a change. The red helmets and the red jerseys make their debut. A little bit of a variation of numbers. They have gray numbers. They have white numbers, white jerseys. Red jerseys doesn't matter. Red is the prominent color there. We move all the way to 1990. That's when the next biggest change occurs. Jerry Glenville with the Falcons. We go back to black. We have black helmets ushering in a new era of Atlanta Falcons football. The team makes the Super Bowl in 1998. You got to stick with them right. If the jerseys are working, you cannot change it. That goes all the way up until 2003 when Michael Vick is the quarterback of the team. There is a total rebrand, a new meaner Dirty Bird on the helmet. We now have red jerseys and black jerseys. And it finally takes us to 2020. The latest rebrand for the Falcons. This is the new look for the team. We've got black helmets, chrome face masks, solid touch, but I cannot wait to see these helmets make their return tomorrow afternoon at Mercedes Benz Stadium, guys. Thanks, Miles. The red helmets will be fun to see indeed. And great trip down memory lane. That was really cool. All right. We've got so much more for you. Be sure to join us for the Dirty Bird report tomorrow night, 11.30 p.m. Wrapping up the Falcons in 49ers. Highlights, interviews and so much more tomorrow, 11.30 p.m. Make sure to tune in. So shock, Falcons in 49ers. Big opportunity for Atlanta. A tough challenge. Give me another match up to watch in this one. I'm thinking about Keith Smith, Fred Warner. Right in the middle. You know, I got a lot of leading up on these guys. A lot of in the run game. We're talking about it's going to be a physical game. Those two guys are going to be in the center of it. As much as the Falcons want to run a football, we're talking about the 49ers want to stop their run. So it's going to be fun to watch those two go at it. They're probably going to meet a little over 50 times in this ballgame. So hopefully Keith Smith gets the best stuff they want in this one. Yeah, and Tyler Algier and Caleb Huntley, are they guys that can maybe benefit from a fullback? Maybe a little bit more between the tackles? Oh, absolutely. They're definitely guys who are bowling balls of their own, but I think they definitely can benefit from having a fullback in front of them that can lead and just create some pathways on the line for them and be able to go for them. And we'll see it. Avery Williams too getting outside the tackle has been effective in his chances. Yeah, absolutely. Well, that's it for us here on Early Birds for our quarterback, DJ Shockley. I'm Justin Felder. Thanks for joining us. Have a good morning and a great weekend.