 And welcome back to another edition of Falcons Audible, presented by AT&T. I'm Derek Rackley with my guys Dave Archer and DJ Shockley. You're going to have to do me a favor and just bear with these two because they came back with the team last night and they're going on maybe about two hours of sleep. So, but you know what? They're going to tough it out and they're going to, they're here. They're going to talk Falcons and then they'll get their rest after we're done with the podcast. Is that about right? Is that fair, fellas? Sounds good. All right, let's do it. I'm just glad you're not filming some part of walking dead out here. Because that's how we feel. That's how he feels. Getting back to the hotel late and then having to wake up at five o'clock for a flight to get back to Atlanta is not always the funnest thing in the world. All right, here's real quick what we're going to cover today. We obviously will go back and recap our thoughts and opinions on the Falcons against the Jets. We'll talk a little bit about the quarterbacks. All three of them got into some action yesterday. Then we'll move forward because we had joint practices last week with the Jets. We've got joint practices again this week with the Jacksonville Jaguars before Atlanta concludes their preseason play and we will talk about that game. Their first home game of this 2022 preseason at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. So with that, fellas, let's get right into it. Let's talk a little bit about the game last night as we saw it against the New York Jets. There were a lot of good things and there were some not so good things that came out of it. Let's start with some of the positives because I think the great thing that a lot of these players are going to take away and the coaches from the first half is how they started this game. They went into a road opponent territory and they were able to get started quickly. So Dave, as you were calling the game, what stuck out to you as the positives early on in the game offensively for Atlanta? Yeah, they just thought execution. You're looking for that offense to take the next step and they had a really good opening drive against Detroit and then they were out, right? 12 plays, 82 yards, nine and a half minutes, shove it in the end zone with Mario to get it out of the pocket. Mario puts it in for a touchdown and you love that drive, they're out. Okay, so let's see some extended action. Let's see you back that up. Mario has been in the game, I think, what, four drives now? They scored on three of the four drives that he's been the quarterback. That's execution. And then within that, there were some plays and I talked to Marcus Postgame, he was kicking himself a little bit. Had pits came clean, that could have been maybe a touchdown pass, a little bit under thrown. Sometimes you, Shock and I both know, you got a guy that wide up, you're trying to get him to rock, don't overthrow him, don't overthrow him. Had another one to Firks or two along the sideline on the wheel, little Derek Rackley wheel route right there along the sideline. Execution probably jumps out to me. I thought offensive execution was outstanding early in the game. Yeah, and it seemed like Mario to, he was on time with his passes, seemed comfortable, seemed like he was in command. DJ, what did you see out of that offense? Yeah, no doubt about it. I thought he did a good job of the execution part like ours talks about, but just getting in and out of the huddle, making the plays that were there for him. Now, obviously they just didn't play all their guys, but at the end of the day, you still got to play the guy that's in front of you. And I thought they did a good job of taking advantage of what was in front of them and making those plays because they easily could have went the other way with it. But I thought everybody was decisive. I thought guys coming out of their breaks were good. I thought the offensive line held up a bunch of times in that first couple of drives. And I thought Marcus was very efficient. I thought he did a good job spreading the football around and giving the guys opportunities to make plays. Like Art just talked about on that deep throw to pitch. That's a tough throw because he's so open and it's such a big play. You don't want to overthrow that guy. So just give it him a chance. I'm okay with it. Of course, everybody wants to put it out there. So it's a touchdown, but give it a guy like eight an opportunity for it. That's a big job. So I love the fact that they were very efficient in going on those first couple of drives and getting points. No, no. Yeah, and I think the concern and shock brings up the fact and a lot of people were talking about it, that, okay, who the Jets playing? Okay, well, they're playing guys that are trying to make, there's NFL guys that are gonna make that team that were playing in the game, but you're not playing against their number ones. Okay, the concern there for us, if you're Falcon fans, would be if you did nothing against that group. But if you went out and laid the wood to him, which is exactly what you did other than down in the scoring zone, the red zone, and we'll talk about that today as to why that didn't happen. But you did go out and you control the game. Was it 16, three at halftime? Could have been maybe 28 to three at halftime. Or 35 to three, who knows? But so that kind of backs up what Shaq's talking about. Hey, maybe they didn't have some guys on the field. They liked to have on the field maybe on opening day, but you worked the group that was on the field. Yes, absolutely. Guys, a couple of things that you guys touched on it, but more bigger picture, explosive plays. Like, I think everybody would agree this offense needs to find more explosive plays. They've got the weapons, obviously when London comes back, that brings another downfield threat form, but they've got to find ways to get pits the football down the field. Use that size, that uncanny combination that he has of size, speed, body control, what everybody's drooling about is find a way to get him the football and move the ball down the field, right? You take the ball from your own 40, put it into your opponent's 30, 20 yard line, now you're barking on for points, right? So as we saw a little bit of that last night, Ferkser, the big catch that he had, and then of course the skinny post to Zacchaeus down the middle, I thought was really good accuracy from him and understanding timing, getting rid of the football down in the red zone. Remember when Greg Knapp was here, rest his soul, he used to always talk about touchdown, check down, right? But get the football out of your hands. As soon as you see it, you can't hesitate, you got to let it go, and that's what we saw early on for Marriota. It's interesting enough, you bring that up, me and Arch were like salivating after the game. We were talking to Marriota and OZ about that particular play, because like, we, you ask QBs to see that, how it came about, and this EOZ, you know, have to get outside, release, get inside, leverage, then get on the top of them, and then Marcus let that football go before he's coming out of it. I mean, that's like a dream for us to just be able to talk to him about it. You're throwing it too, right? Because you, Zacchaeus, and like Shock's talking about, Zacchaeus did an unbelievable job with the route because he wants to be inside. It's an inside breaking route. You'd like to get an inside release there. But the defender took a hard inside technique to him, so he didn't waste time fighting his way to the inside. He went ahead and jumped around and got vertical right now. So that declares the route. And now, all of a sudden, I'm Bryce Hall, who happened to be a Virginia player as well. Those two guys played with each other at Virginia. He says, I've got to bring him to the far pylon. If he goes to the corner, I got to take him. And Zacchaeus had a little hint at the top, Marriota read it, or Mario read it and threw it in there. So just like you're talking about the execution and just kind of, you and I were both kind of squeezing the trigger and trying to throw it too. It was pretty cool, really was. And Brad, I think the other point that you bring up is very important in the fact that they pushed the football down the field. I think a lot of people were like, okay, is this going to be a dink and dung? Marcus, as you know, over his career, has been a guy who, you know, has been kind of underneath. And we've seen that, but pushing the football down the field. I think they had 11 completions of 10 plus yards in the first half of the game. And then from my point of view, I looked at it like, okay, here's a preseason game. A lot of teams are vanilla at times. I thought Arthur did a good job of like, he was creative. He had some uncanny formations. He showed a lot that I thought in the future team, I'm like, okay, we got to prepare for this. We got to prepare for that. And they pushed the football down the field, which was good to see and they executed. I know a lot of the Jets played a lot of, you know, simple vanilla, maybe defenses, but you still got to execute it and throw it and catch it. And I thought he did a good job of that. So let's switch gears a little bit. We think that Mariota has gotten off to a pretty good start as the starting quarterback in this preseason, but we got a chance to see a lot of Desmond Ritter as well. So DJ, let me come right back to you on this one. Let's talk about the positive, the things that you liked that you saw from Desmond Ritter last night that will carry over into the regular season if and when he gets his opportunity. I think the number one thing for any quarterback, let alone just a young quarterback, is being able to overcome an issue that you had early in the drive or early in the game and learn from it. And I give you a perfect example. They go play action and they got this deep in cut and he doesn't give it enough air or he doesn't throw it the way he wants him and the linebacker gets a finger on it. They come back maybe four plays later and throw the exact same route. He gives it air, lays it in the hole and that just shows you right there. He learned quickly on the move in game on how to just adapt to certain things. And that's the kind of stuff that you want from a quarterback. That's the kind of stuff that maybe you don't, it don't show up on the stat line, but when the coaches turn on the tape, they gonna say, okay, we saw him do this and then three, four plays later, he learned from his own mistake. We're talking about this when training camp start. Okay, you make a mistake in practice or in a game, don't do it twice, don't do it again. And you saw him better do that in game. I thought he continued to be poised. I thought he continued to be accurate with the football. I thought he made good decisions. I thought he, you know, at times when he needed to use his legs, but I just thought he was smooth, man. He's played well in the first two ball games. He's moved to football, which is most important, he's gotten first downs. He's not tried to force the football. So I thought Ritter's shown exactly why the Falcons came in here with just two quarterbacks at camp because they believe and they saw an OTAs and mini camp that this guy could handle the bright lights and he's shown in the first two games. You know, those two plays that you're talking about, the average fan might say, oh well, he's got an earpiece. The coach can tell him that he needs to make, no, that was something that you bet right after he made the first throw and it was incomplete, he knew it. And then the next time that play came up, he didn't need coach to remind him. He didn't need coach to tell him, put a little air under this one or let it go a little earlier. He knew exactly what he needed to do, Arch. What did you see from Ritter that was positive? Well, his willingness to turn it loose. I thought there was a couple of hesitation throws against the Lions. One of them cost him, he was late getting a ball out. He recovered from that against the Lions. In this game, he was willing to turn it loose. Even though he made the mistake on a flatter throw, where the linebacker gets a hand out like shock, talking about came back and just put a little bit of arc on it, made the adjustment. But his throat of firks are on the crossing route where he had man coverage. No window. Well, and he knew the defender had his back to him. And so he went ahead and shot it in there, realizing the defender's trying to just stay in man coverage. He's not playing the ball. And he shot it in there. And that was one of the explosives you guys are talking about. So his willingness to turn it loose. And it kind of becomes two fold now because the coaches are willing to give him stuff. Now you're not coaching around some of maybe some of the mistakes you think he's going to make because he's not doing that. And if he does make one like Shock talked about, he immediately overcomes it and comes back. So now I don't have to coach around some shortcomings. I can turn this kid loose. I can give him everything I want. I can feed him anything I want to feed him because he's going to be able to handle it, which I think relaxes the coaches from a play calling standpoint. You know, I want to kind of piggyback on what both of you guys talked about with Ritter because something that stuck out to me, you guys kind of signaled out specific plays. Mine's going to be kind of a positive and negative. Okay, then I'm going to start with the negative because it sets up my positive, right? He's driving down the field and we talked about it before we came on the air. It was penalty after penalty after penalty, right? And guys, how many times have we seen in the NFL? You get one 10 yard penalty and it's almost a drive killer, right? But what was encouraging to me is number one, every time the flag came out and it said whatever penalty against the offense, you looked at Ritter, nothing. It was like it didn't impact him. It wasn't like, oh God, you know what I'm saying? He wasn't flustered and what did he do? The next play he came right back and he made a play, right? So they get backed up and I liked how he responded and got the yardage back, right? Couple plays later, penalty again. What does he do next play? Gets yardage back, right? So to me, just from a leadership standpoint, just from a adversity, right? You have to face adversity many times throughout the course of a game as a quarterback and how do you respond from it? He kept pouring the ball back down into the red zone. Now they ended up having to settle for a field goal but you get two big penalties like that and generally your punt team is coming on the field, right? And you're not getting any points. So his ability to stay focused and continuing to push the ball down the field when there's penalty after penalty to me was very impressive. That's something that I think will play itself out in the regular season because the guy is not letting the moment get to him, okay? Now, let's discuss the bad side of that, right? Because Dave, you talked about it. Give us the penalty number from last night. 13 penalties, 121 yards. 13 for 121, right? Well, that's not what you're looking for. And the problem with it was, I would say at least half, maybe two thirds of them were in the scoring zone or in the red zone. It'd be one thing if you get a holding penalty in the beginning of a drive and all of a sudden you thought you were at the 35 and you had something going and now you're backed up your 20 kick, you kind of defend your end, punt it out of there, right? But when you get down to the scoring zone, especially when you get in deep red zone, and Jack will tell you, you know this, there are different plans for the red zone. If you got high red zone, which is out near the 20, 18, 15 yard line and then you get deep red zone, which is the 10 yard line in. We had deep red zone opportunities. I mean, Ritter runs for a first down down to what the one or two yard line, boom, comes back. You know, you had a player jump offside down there, boom, comes back. You had a holding call right down to one yard. Yeah, after you get the really good run by Algier, pounds it down to the one, and then you get moved back out. So I thought that there are different degrees there, but a lot of them happened down in the red zone, which took points off the board. This was a pretty good offensive performance other than that. And the things guys that I didn't like was, was coaches will generally group penalties into two different categories. One is, is lack of focus, mechanics, basics, right? The other ones are effort, right? Like if you end up getting like a passenger clearance because you're running step for step for a guy and you get a little bit too physical with him, you get called for, it's okay. But what I didn't like, it was there was a lot of lack of focus, right? The illegal formations, the penalties. I know one of them, there was one penalty where the tackle, I can't remember which one it was, he came out of his stance, he was way too high. The guy was basically down here, he had beat him with pad level. And then as he comes around, he basically just grabs him with the right arm and gets called for holding. That's fundamentals. That's something that the player can control himself with his technique. Get your pad level lower, use your feet and punch off the line of scrimmage. Those are the things again in the building when they're starting to sort out this roster, they're gonna say which guy from a technique and fundamental standpoint is gonna help us win, right? And helping us win is staying out of the penalty column. So again, we don't necessarily have to sit here and point fingers at people, DJ, but you know the coaching staff in the front office, that's what they're looking at is which guys are ready and we cannot win with that many penalties. And I think you bring up a good point to the fact of when you get towards the end of a roster, you get end of training camp, where you're trying to make these hard decisions, you go back to those moments of, okay, we got two guys who we really like, they're really close, but then there's one guy whose technique is not as good. There's one guy who we've seen in certain spots have two or three different penalties that are affected drives or affected the play of the game. And those are the things that can separate guys. And at the end of the day, that's where you see, okay, well, we like you guys, but this guy we know at times, we may not be able to depend on. And in the position that you're in, when you come in, you're probably gonna be a backup, you're gonna be a third string guy, and you get your opportunity, you can't come in and have those issues. You can't have those penalties because that's not what you need. We want you to come in and be able to play clean. So I think that's a big part of as well too. We had a number of illegal formation calls, okay? So you think, well, what the hell's going on? I think the fans would look to coaching, you know? So, well, why is the guy not being coached? That's not what it is, okay? A lot of that has to do number one with the quarterback. It's gonna fall in the quarterback's lap. Shock will tell you that we've got a lot of pre-snap movement on this team. There's a lot of design, a pre-snap where you shift, and then you get motions and you get reverse motion back. So a lot of movement means that I've gotta be, make sure my guys are secure from an offensive standpoint, that if we got two guys' movement, I gotta make sure they're set before I get the ball snapped. Now there's gotta be a sense of urgency. You played one of those positions. If I'm moving, I need to get over there and get set. But if I've got two guys' motion, and we've seen it a number of times, where a quarterback will stop a guy because you've got too many guys' movement. So that's an attention to detail that I didn't necessarily see from Mariota, but I do think the younger quarterbacks, both Ritter and Felipe had some issues with that. Some of that has to do with reps for Felipe. He didn't play, he hasn't played much quarterback. He played a ton of quarterback last night. And Ritter, that's something he's gotta know is I've gotta take command of that and I can't allow it to happen. So that's something that he can almost take care of himself on the field and eliminate all of that. And you're right, Dave. And I don't wanna take anything away from that individual player as well. The wide receiver and the tight end, they have to handle their business, right? But you're right. Like the quarterback is the leader of the offense and that's, guys, that's why they get paid the most money. It's because they're the one that has to see it. They have to orchestrate it. They've gotta make sure that this guy is off the line of scrimmage. This guy is on the line of scrimmage. Have they been set for account? If they weren't, stop them, wait account, restart, whatever it has that does generally fall on the shoulders of the quarterback. This episode in part brought to you by The Home Depot. Everything you need for your next home improvement project is just a tap away on The Home Depot app. The Home Depot app digital toolbox gives you access to how-to guides, project calculators and image search. So you'll know exactly what you need to pick up. With the tap of the finger, you can rent and reserve the right tools for the job. Also, browse through millions of items from top brands that you can have delivered right to your door. Whatever your project, find exactly what you need with The Home Depot app. Download The Home Depot app today. Quarterback. So we kind of talked a lot about quarterbacks. We talked a little bit about the penalties. Guys, let's move forward, Arch, and I'm gonna come right back to you because there's joint practices again this week for the Atlanta Falcons against the Jacksonville Jaguars, leading up to their final pre-season game. If you could take the things from the first and second pre-season game that they need to apply in these practices, what are some things do you think needs to come out of the practices with Jacksonville? Well, some of the stuff we just talked about, right? The little, the intricacies, the mental errors, the being able to understand, okay, we've got a clock, because for the fans that don't get a chance to be at practice, they've got a clock on them. It's not like they're just carte blanche walking around. Well, let's run this play. And then two minutes later, let's run this play. They're working with some tempo and under a clock, and there's constantly somebody, hey, you didn't get the playoff or whatever. So that's not something that isn't necessarily present. So you can take care of that in practice. The physical parts of things, this is the real difficult part about this, guys, is if you've got a guy that's having a tough time with his technique, you can talk technique, but when it becomes physical in a game, if he's not applying that technique, the shock set, he's not gonna be here. You're gonna get beat. You know, you're gonna get beat, and we can't use you. You can't be here. So there's gonna be some moments where there'll be a little bit more physical in a normal practice when you get these kind of things. You watched it up there in New York, and I think the jet guys got a little chippy and some stuff up there when they were doing some combination rush stuff, and so that got interesting, but you kinda want some of that, a little bit of that word, some physicality. But I think as far as the execution part of it and taking care of your job, it's a simple thing, but we didn't see it take place last night, which I thought cost Atlanta, they're gonna need to work out on that this week. Yeah, and one thing, Shock, I'll kinda lead you into this, that, you know, not to go back to the game, but there was a play where, I believe, Kager ended up scoring a touchdown, and there was a breakdown in the secondary, and it's communication, right? Like, if you're a defensive back, linebacker, whatever it is, that has to be something that you work on, like, right from play one. Like, as soon as you get to a team drill, like you've got to open your mouth and talk to your teammates, because you can't have two guys come off the line of scrimmage, and you guys both end up taking one, and you get a free crosser coming across the middle, that's generally not play call, that's just communication. Who do I've got, where does this guy go? If he comes to the middle, he's mine, if he goes outside, he's yours. Anything else stick out as far as things that need to happen this week? You know, I think to that point, the Falcons have to be the team that dictates the tempo, dictates what happens as opposed to responding. Like you mentioned that particular play, we talked about it last week, and I was glad Archie brought it up about, we talked about, hey, when Emma Katie got beat outside by Swift and we thought it was him losing contain, and we later found out another guy was supposed to be coming down, similar to what happened on the touchdown. This is a play where, hey, you guys got to talk, and you got to know exactly if this happens, you got to make something, you got to dictate what's going to happen beforehand, and not wait until it happens, and say, okay, we got to make sure we respond to it. So I think this is a good time for, when you have these joint practices to dictate to this team, exactly how in the style you want to play, because up in New York, Archie has mentioned it, that just dictate a lot of the practice for the most part of the time, and I think that's what led to them not playing as many starters, because their coach felt like, all right, we kind of dominated a little bit more than maybe people thought coming into the ballgame. So I think coming into these joint practices is a scenario where you want to be more consistent, you want to have the continuity that you want on both sides of the ball, to be able to say if certain things happen, we're dictating what's happening, and not responding to it. You know, I'm going to come right back to you, Shot, because you make a great point, and I'm just starting to think, does, you mentioned dictating tempo, do you feel like Atlanta will have an edge in dictating tempo, because it's going to be on their own facility, and not in New York? Does the sense of comfort being at home allow them to take control of the situation? I think for some guys it may. For other guys, I don't think it matters. Some guys, you got a field, you got grass, you got a hundred yards, they won't care, they're going to play football. For some guys, just being in a familiar area, it does help, because you understand where things are, you understand the sight lines of certain things, and you feel different. And for me, I don't think it makes a big deal about it being here and being on your own surface, but in the end of the day, if it helps a player, then yeah, let's go for it with it. I think the perception from what I was able to gather, and you watched it, so I didn't get a chance to watch it, but the perception of what happened in practice might not necessarily have been a reality. Bree Saul, who's the outstanding running back from Iowa State, Bree Saul took a handoff on one play. What was that? What was that? Iowa State, Iowa State. You know, represent. Represent. So Bree makes a little move and he's really good hesitation, and he's going to be a really good player for the Jets, and boom, gone. They said, oh, ADRs, Bree Saul. You go back and look at the tape. We're not tackling anybody. Four Falcons came up and tapped him up on the rear end along the way, in the first five yards of the run, and then he takes off and runs down the field. And so it was reported that Bree Saul ran for an ADR touchdown run. Well, not really, okay? And the way they practice in New York right now under Coach Sala is different than the way the Falcons practice. The Falcons are a little bit more get in your face, not as physical as we saw maybe on the hard knocks with Detroit where they're tackling guys in shells and stuff like that, but it's been, it's been much more physical here, much more of a thought process. We're going to hit you in the mouth. And the Jets were a little concerned about guys getting hit. That was why they didn't play a ton of guys. There wasn't a lot of one-on-one with the line and the defensive line. They didn't want to do that. And so Jets got their own thing. They get their team prepared the way they want to get them prepared. Atlanta was prepared last night. And I thought Atlanta hit them in the mouth. I don't care who they had on the field, they hit them in the mouth. We didn't talk about the defense. Defense flew to the football last night, especially in the first half. They had 90 yards in total offense. They were 0 for 5, I think on third down in the first half against the Falcon defense. And the Falcons were everywhere they needed to be. They looked fast on the field. They open field tackled extremely well. There was a number of plays, one-on-one plays that guys made. You could, there's a litany of players you could name their names. So that's what I'm hanging my hat on is the way Arthur's got them practicing here and the kind of the culture, if you will, that they've got here. I think that'll transmit to these open practices. There's one play that I think speaks to what you just mentioned about this defense flying around in dues or just getting to the football. It was a play early in the ballgame. I think it was first, second drive maybe. And they got two Agap Blitzers and they end up dropping one and then Jalen Hawkins comes. If you watch the film, you watch the tape, you see, you see Rashawn Evans like jumping over a guy. He's got an arm stretched out trying to get to the quarterback. You see Jalen Hawkins completely almost vertical like laying out trying to get to the quarterback and he forces the quarterback to step up and here comes to Cohen Graham retracing his steps to make the play. That's the kind of defense you want. You got dudes flying all over the place and he had nowhere to go to football. He had to step up and here comes your defense alignment who's getting upfield, retracing steps and go make some play for no gain or maybe a yard or wherever it is. That's the style of play I think that Dean Pease wants. That's the style of play that Arthur Smith wants is guys giving it all to make a play. Even if you don't make the play, guess what? You're setting up for another guy to make it. And I think that's the difference between what's happening and how this team is starting to grow. So shock, you're talking about guys flying around and they made a comment on the broadcast last night about how Dean Pease said that we are not going to play defense here like it's been played the last five or 10 years, right? The one thing that we didn't see last night in actual statistical category was sacks. So let's move this forward to the game. Arch, how important is it leading into regular season? Is it for the Atlanta Falcons to actually start seeing sacks in the preseason? Like seeing it actually happen to know that it's going to happen once we get in the preseason because that is one area that has to improve if their win-loss record is going to improve. Well, I think it's like any position you make a catch for a touchdown, you make a good throw, get a guy down the seam. Once you do it, it frees you up a little bit. I don't think you play with a little bit less inhibited and you turn it loose. I think that when guys win and get to the quarterback, you need to have the KT and you need Malone, you need Carter, these guys, you need guys getting to the quarterback. I think it's just a matter of if it happens, then it does free guys up. I think it frees you up mentally a little bit. I mean, you're not really willing to make that little speed out throw until you make it a few times. And all of a sudden you get a little confidence and boom. Cause that's a dangerous throw, but all of a sudden you feel good about where you're putting it, you feel good about the timing of the guy coming out. I think it's the same thing. I don't think it's different for an edge rusher. He has a move that he's got and he gets there. He's got a counter move that gets there. All of a sudden it kind of frees him up and now he plays a little bit more looser, right? And turns it loose. Not only frees that player up, but the thing that kind of comes to my mind shock is once one guy gets it, another one wants one. Wait, wait, like get the party at the quarterback type thing, right? So that's another thing, Arsh, that I feel like they need to start getting one or two. And then maybe Ebacade's like, I need to get back there. Malone says, I did this in college. Like these are things that I feel like need to build on top of each other. And then it's like, then you get these little conversations in the locker room like, how many are you getting today? I'm going for two, what you got, right? Expectation level, right? If you don't get there, you can never expect it. Exactly. Once you get there, there's an expectation level. We got some. All right, shock. So final preseason game back at home. Like what type of excitement do you feel like these players are going to have getting their first, a lot of these guys will be the first time playing in that beautiful stadium. Last chance to make an impression on the coaching staff. How important is this game for so many younger players? So important. I mean, I was this guy for my entire career. So I looked forward to this last game because I knew it could make a break. And going into this ball game, you can't go in with that mindset even though it's reality, but you got to go out and put your best foot forward. Because at the end of the day, if you're not playing for this team, there are 31 other teams that are looking at this field saying, whoa, maybe we could use this guy on our team but they don't want him. So you don't look at it as, hey, I'm trying to go out. I'm just, yeah, you're trying to make this team, but you're also trying to put a good product on the field while playing within what you're asked to do on this team. So this is a huge game for a lot of guys, a lot of guys on the back end, a lot of guys who played that second half. Maybe a lot of guys look at that second half of that field and say, okay, I didn't play on best ball but I get one more chance to show this organization that I need to be here. And for a guy like me, I looked at it like, I'm gonna make it hard. I'm gonna make it hard for you to cut me. I'm gonna make it hard for you to put me on the practice squad because somebody's gonna come get me. And that's got to be their mindset going in is, I'm gonna be where I'm supposed to be. I'm gonna execute and I'm gonna give everything I got. The effort part of it is huge because you can turn on that tape and maybe, yeah, I may be out of place but I'm giving everything I got. I can coach that. I can teach that. So that's a big part of this ball game is those guys when they're back in, you gotta lay it all on the line because you never know when the next time you better strap that helmet on again and say I'm playing in national football league. Well, and the coaching staff, they might say, okay, maybe from a technique or a production standpoint, he's not ready to play on offense or defense but with the effort he's playing with, he can play on special teams. Yes, sir. He can play on special teams for us. So the difference in the NFL and I think it's, to me, it's kind of a gift and a curse of all the other professional sports leagues, right, you get NBA guaranteed contracts, Major League Baseball guaranteed contracts, football, not so much, right? So this is an opportunity for some of these guys to get their payday, to be on the active roster to actually see the big checks. Some of them got signing bonus checks and more power to them but I think every NFL player wants longevity and how does longevity get started? Making your first roster. In your opinion, perspective, how important is this for some of these guys and maybe who are you excited to see in one last dress rehearsal on the field? I think it's obviously critical and Shock talked about how he had to play late. I remember my first couple of years in the league, I had to play latency in the preseason to solidify my opportunity. There's no question that you feel that but you're not in this business if you don't thrive on the pressure and you don't thrive on those moments because quite honestly, I know Shock and I are in the broadcast. We're all in the broadcast business now. You can't find anything that thrills you the way it does, this game does and making plays in games. So you thrive on the pressure and wanting to perform in that moment. D'Auford is a guy that stepped up for us. D'Auford has played some corner. We saw him play some really good corner against the Lions. He played nickel last night a good bit. He made some more plays, made some open field tackles that were outstanding. I wanna see that continue to come. He might be your opening day nickel. You may wind to find out and see number 37, lined up in the slot. I think he's played himself and potentially in a position. A guy that's kind of off the radar probably a little bit is Abdullah Anderson. I think Abdullah Anderson has come in here kind of signed over the last 10 days. He is stout. You watch 65 in the middle. Nobody moves him. He's just, it's a stalemate. And you know as well as I do a defensive line if I'm getting a stalemate or playing on your side of the line of scrimmage that's a problem for you. They need movement. He's a guy that ain't steps up. Obviously everybody's got their eyes on number 83, right? Number, Jared Bernhardt has stepped up and when he's been given his opportunities, he's done well. I think that's the part that really my eyes will go to is the wide receiver core is that's got to continue to ground up. We saw some guys step up in this game. You gotta continue to see who's gonna step forward to round that out. We know we got pits. You know you got London. You probably have Edwards, right? So who are the other guys, the Kias. So there's a couple spots there and those guys will be fighting on those special teams to get that opportunity. Yeah, it's one of those situations where, you know I always say that, and granted, we're all biased, right? Like former NFL players and I don't wanna take anything away from NBA and Major League Baseball hockey, whatever it is but like I just feel like professional football players especially if you're not, life isn't like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers, right? That's not normalcy for every NFL player. It's a grind many a times to make a roster year in and year out, make any roster, get past your third or fourth year in the NFL. So I just always feel like NFL players know what true competition is about because they lived it to make a roster. They didn't have a five year, $100 million contract that was guaranteed no matter whether they made the team or not. They didn't get to go get set down to the minors. Right, I think you bring up a great point and you get a chance to, you know to go to some of the top college football games every single week and call them and you see guys at the highest of their game and then they get here and they're not that guy anymore. It's exactly. And how different that is and you talked about that third phase being so important how many guys are willing to say, all right I will do that when for their entire career they've been the guy and now you gotta come in and you gotta run down on kickoff you gotta run down on punt. I mean, can you speak to the point of where those guys are coming from to now having to give that up and say, all right I'll be a secondary or third player. It's an attitude, I'll tell you that because you can't be this wide receiver that was a star for your college and then come to a professional franchise and expect to be the star wide receiver. Like you better be willing to run down as a gunner on punt team and you better be willing to go hit somebody. You know what I'm saying? You better be able to come back on kickoff return and get your body square and find somebody to block and make sure that they don't run into your returner, right? And to me, it's always like how much does the game mean to you? How much does being an NFL player mean to you? Do you wanna be a diva? Or do you wanna be an NFL player? Because sometimes you have to work on special teams to get the opportunity because we always hear timing is everything, right? You gotta be on the roster and I'm just throwing a wide receiver. You gotta be on the roster as a wide receiver to potentially take a spot if somebody gets hurt to go in and perform. But you gotta be able to do something. You can't just say you're the number seven wide receiver and get paid every other week. That's just not reality. Really guys, in a good bit, I know if you guys will agree with this is having that attitude kinda comes from your veteran players. And so if I've got a guy like Grady Jured who works his tail off, we're out here watching him and he's practicing like he's a rookie trying to make the team. And so if you get a guy like that, this is a team that's in search of some more of those guys. You've got a bunch of guys that are chip on the shoulder, guys we talked about in one of our first shows here coming back, Lorenzo Carter and Sean Evans and these guys that were number ones and were that big fish where they came from. And then all of a sudden they didn't, maybe they just started to let go, maybe it was injury, maybe the defense didn't fit them or whatever it might be. Now you got guys coming in here 26, 27 years old, 25 years old saying wait a minute, I'm supposed to be all that. I gotta get back to getting me in that attitude that made me all that. And you hope that that kinda rounds out. And then other guys that are on the periphery like you guys are talking about, they adopt that attitude too. And that's where culture and all that kind of those cliched words come in. That's what's it about. You see a younger player or a non-established player if they can look across the field at a guy like Grady Jured and seeing him getting extra reps after practice, seeing him bust his tail and they say, well, gosh, if it's good enough for a guy that's deep into his NFL career, better be good enough for me, right? That's the attitude that you need a whole lot of guys to adopt. All right, that's gonna wrap it up for us here on the Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. Thank you so much again for joining us. Make sure you like, subscribe and review on whichever platform it is you watch our podcast, Spotify, iTunes, AtlantaFalcons.com, YouTube, Sam, are there any other ones that I'm forgetting? I feel like those are the top four. Shocked vision, shocked vision. Shocked vision, whatever it is. Not a real thing, not a real thing. Feel free to ask a question, comment. If there's something that you wanna see us do or talk about, throw it out there. Maybe we can make it happen. Thanks so much for joining us, everybody. Once again, I'm Derek Crackley, DJ Shockley, Dave Archum and I'll let these guys get some sleep. Thanks so much for joining us. Take care.