 Welcome back to face to face. I'm Kelsey Conway. He's Dave Archer and we haven't talked to you guys in a while arch It's been a few weeks since the Falcon season is over, but No shortage of news on the Falcons and obviously the Falcons wrapped up coach NGM search hiring Arthur Smith as head coach And Terry font know as general manager and we're gonna get right to exactly what we can expect from Arthur Smith as head coach And what we should be keeping an eye on with Terry font know as the free agency and draft process heats up So arch let's just start it off with Arthur Smith and talk about what exactly fans can expect from Arthur Smith's offense Obviously, he spent the last two years in Tennessee as the offensive coordinator But success seems to follow him where he goes So just what what are your first impressions of the hire and what are you most looking forward to with Arthur Smith's offense? No, I love the fact. He's a roll your sleeves up kind of guy, right? He doesn't come in a lot of fanfare there was some people that were talking to him around the league that were interested in him coming in as As their head football coach Atlanta obviously secures his his duties or his services to be your head football coach And now what do you get you get an offensive line guy and hey, that's where I that's where the bread How long have we been complaining about the offensive line and what they are aren't this guy said from jump one of his first things He said was we are gonna be solid up front That's music to my ears Matt Ryan's ears whoever's squeezing the trigger for the Falcons a quarterback You got to love the fact that you've got a guy that your offensive coordinator head football coach and he cut his teeth in The offensive line tight end area So he knows what it takes to play up front and think about the guys Kels that were up front on that Tennessee Titan team He lost Taylor Wanda a knee injury the number one draft pick He had three different offensive tackles play on that side of the ball Here's your laundry list of guys David Quisenberry never heard of him He was a six-round backpick for Houston back in 2013 been with two teams Roger Saffol They got him in a trade from the St. Louis Rams way back in the day. He comes in. He is it He's an unmet the free agent. He's been with teams Ben Jones the former Georgia Bulldog the center. He's been with two teams He started with Houston Jamil Douglas Yeah, I don't know either. He was with two teams. He was a five teams. Okay, he played in Miami first He was an undrafted free agent and then you got Dennis Kelly who was in Philly. He's been with two What the reason I'm getting to all this is is because he had to mix and match guys And when you look up, this was the number two total offense in the National Football League It was the number two rushing offense in the National Football League They were number five on third down and you're going to get to an area that they really need to be good in this year Here because it was a struggle here They were very good in it several other areas in fact in the gold the goal area was pretty good as well But I'll let you you talk about red zone Phenomenal higher I think to dress up because on this team is the offensive line Yeah, and speaking of the offensive line those games last weekend on NFC and AFC championship game Tom Brady is having this success He is in Tampa because of that Tampa offensive line Of course those weapons he has are no joke, but he never it seems like he never gets hit So like you just said we've been talking about from the last four years the Falcons need to improve the offensive line. They've obviously Dedicated some of their resources to doing that, but there still seems like it hasn't really been missing And we'll have the whole off-season to talk about what exactly needs to be changed But you got to love that the guy that's coming in one of his biggest areas of Strengths is the offensive line because of course he was a guard in college, but you just led me into what I was Gonna talk about I I'm so excited for what Arthur Smith is gonna do in the red zone Let's put these numbers into perspective last year with Arthur Smith as offensive Coordinator of the Tennessee Titans the Titans ranked number two and red zone scoring 74% of their chips to the red area the Falcons on the other end ranked number 26 scoring on just 53% To jump their tips to the red zone And I know we talked about it a lot on the show during the season But my gosh, it was super frustrating sometimes to watch such a promising drive Just go nowhere or have who come on and attempt to field goal And it and if there's two things that we can definitely count on from Arthur Smith Of course gotta give him some time to get the right players and players Act me back to the team, but I'm excited to watch the way he draws up plays for guys like Julio Who's not really been a factor in the red zone for the last couple of years? Calvin Ridley and of course Hayden Hurst It should be fun to see the Falcons offense in the red zone once again, which I know we both can't wait to see right Yeah, think about how much different this team or this season would have gone for the Falcons if you'd scored one more touchdown per game When you got in the red zone, I mean, what were we two and eight in one score games? Think about one more touchdown per game. What would the scenario be? But he certainly showed his prowess in that in and let's go even further into what you were talking about Okay, they were number one in the league in goal to goal situations 94% of the time when they had got in the goal to go they scored now. Yes, I get it They had a six foot five two hundred fifty pound running back named Derek Henry You got to go find a guy that could do some of those things But a lot of it had to do with the offensive line and the scheming you're talking about Kels about getting the weapons The football he's got in my opinion more weapons on this team on the perimeter than he had in Tennessee I Tweeted during the Packers box game. I can't wait to watch Arthur Smith draw out plays to get Julio Jones Freed up in the end zone like Matt LaFleur does for Devontae Adams because it seems like every game He's the number one or get it I haven't seen that from Julio. So hopefully we're seeing more Julio Jones next year Moving on with the argument came the other coordinators that he hired because of course he can't do it all himself He made a big splash Higher in getting Dean Pease to come out of retirement again The established defensive coordinator for many years in the NFL to come over and run his defense And I love the hire Simply because if you look at when the Rams went to the Super Bowl, how about this Dean Pease is 71 He's gonna be running the defense for the Falcons when the Rams went To the Super Bowl with Wade Phillips as defensive coordinator with Sean McBae was 33 or something Wade Phillips is 71 so But but the point there I'm making is Arthur Smith in his first year He's gonna be so focused on the offense. Although he said I'm gonna have to coach the whole team But we know how that goes. He's gonna be calling the players on the offense He's gonna be so plugged in on what they're doing. He has a defensive coordinator who and you're gonna get into this He has seen Everything there is no coverage or no offensive play that Dean Pease hasn't seen and I think for Arthur Smith getting a veteran coach Like peas and it's not just a veteran coach who's been a position coach. He's been a coordinator at three different places He's a proven winner everywhere. He goes they play tough They take away the ball and they get sacks and those are three areas where I think the Falcons defense is really really Really going to enjoy having Dean Pease as their coordinator. So for you Why do you think Dean Pease is the right guy for the job in Atlanta? Well, I think the the thing that jumps off the page to me about peas as you mentioned three different places He's been a coordinator and not just the just hey, he's the coordinator They've been elite at all three places new england baltimore, Tennessee All have been very good on the defensive side of the football with a variety of different personnel So you think okay. Well, they're a lead up front Well, they were a lead here upright. No, he had he had a mix and match You start looking at when you look at the players in new england that defense They were ranked sixth in the league. They were ranked fourth in the league They're ranked tenth in the league. They ranked 11th league. Those are the four years. He was it in new england Okay, he had the school fork up front He had Mike Vrabel who wasn't a dominant edge rusher But he was the guy coming off the edge asante samuel in the back end He had harrison a rodney harrison in the back end. Okay, let's shift gears and go to baltimore Now, listen, he's got an elite defensive front He's got sugs and he's got Arthur jones coming off the edge And halote not in the middle. So you had a really good defensive front. He built it around that He gets to tennessee He doesn't really have an edge rusher now. It's about the linebackers. It's about brown It's about westley woodyard and then it's about the back end. They go draft the dory jackson They've got byard the safety who's led the list That was pretty good What the point i'm getting to is that he can mix and match his system to the personnel he's got and Make those guys elite and the reason I say how are they elite nine of the 12 seasons? He's been a coordinator his defenses have allowed 20 points or less in nine of the 12 seasons And that's across three different teams that does not just thought with one team Yeah, I'm excited about this guy. I'm excited what he brings it by the way He was lured out of retirement for a second time. Mike vrabel lured him out After he'd retired after his baltimore days said hey, i'm done I've had great defensive through vrabel brings him out to tennessee and now here arthur smith is saying Hey, oh man, I need your help a little bit one more time Come help me out and he's not too old to get it done now arthur You just mentioned the the synergy right there with wade phillips and him I think it's going to be tremendous and it really is nice From a piece of mind standpoint. I'm running the offense. I've got a guy I can really depend on the defensive side of the ball and I think the thing I like most about d&p's is He coached with bill balachuk. He coached with don harbaugh and he coached with Mike rabel and if I asked you what how would you define all three of those coaches? You'd probably say tough coaches who demands Demand excellence from their players and I don't think there's going to be any shortcuts allowed at practice in the meeting rooms And I think this falcons defense. We saw a lot of promise There's there's a lot of room for growth and they have some talent So I think if you get the right guy in there like d&p's to get it out of them I think things definitely look promising on that side of the ball and we've talked about the coaches a lot but before we Close out the show. I think we should talk about the other big hire the falcons made and we'll be back Breaking out free agency drafts like you guys have seen us before But the guy that's going to be running the show terry faun. No, I know we're both pretty pumped up about that hire For me it's simply because he was so Mental and bringing those key free agents from new orleans They've been phenomenal for the last five years and it's because of the players that they've stacked that roster with And terry faun. No is a huge part in that and everybody that I've talked to I've talked to a number of people who worked with terry played For the saints or worked in the building with him They say he's been long overdue for this job and the falcons get the guy that they want So i'm excited about what he's going to do and and we're going to start talking about bp a best player available He made that very very aware of it everybody let everybody know hey We're going to take the best player available in the draft and that's exciting And certainly music to the years a lot of the falcon fans real quickly You talked about free agent signings in the last five years. Let me give you a couple larry warford He was four years late spent four years in detroit comes to norleans Three state seasons. It is a probable offensive guard for the new for the new orleans saints demario davis comes over from the jets He leads his team in tackles. Here's the tack. Here's the numbers demario davis brought with him That he that he's assembled in new orleans in another great get by terry fontanou and his pro side staff 304 Two tackles for loss and 13 sacks for demario davis. That's a guy they went and got malcolm jinkins comes over play safety In the back in instrumental 91 tackles this year three interceptions And how about a manual sanders to add to the weapon the weaponry that the quarterbacks had in new orleans Those are just some guys just a couple guys that he has been instrumental in in the pro side being the pro personnel director That's his that's his baby right. He goes out and finds those guys. I think his plan is spectacular I love the fact of what he said kelson. I'll close with this on this my last thing Is he was he's been asked a couple times on interviews? Hey, what do you think about this roster? He says, you know what? I'm not gonna talk about our roster. He says we're gonna zip it up We're gonna let the other 31 teams talk about their rosters and we're gonna glean information from them Who don't they like who do they like they're gonna tell us who they like and who they are And we're not gonna tell anybody who we are we can figure that on our own and we're not gonna tell anybody else I just thought that was one little little wrinkled to what he brings to the table about knocking not talking about his Own guys and maybe Just one thing that I think that terry font knows brings to the table and there's a ton of stuff that you and I are Going to get to over the next several weeks Yeah, I can't wait, but we had to jump on here and give you guys our reaction to the big coaching news But don't worry arch and I will be back to break down all the falcons news regarding free agency draft season Just like we were there for you guys last year and we've got some big exciting ideas for you Thanks for tuning in and we'll see you next time on falcons face to face