After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 1

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For important information, visit principal.com slash disclosures. We welcome to the show to talk about the Atlanta Falcons. Josh Kendall, who covers the Falcons for the athletic. Let's start, Josh, just in general with this final preseason game. They didn't score any points, so what stands out? Arthur Smith and the Falcons had decided, you know, as of Thursday, if not earlier, that they weren't going to play their starters.

They had a few that were going to be held out. So rather than playing a sort of patchwork lineup of some starters and some second teamers, they just decided to rest everybody in the starting lineup. The Steelers, on the other hand, played their guys for about three series, and you could tell. I mean, you could tell the difference between guys who are going to play on Sunday and guys who are not going to make, most of them not going to make a 53-man roster.

So it was an ugly game. The Falcons were mainly looking for, you know, they've probably got five or six roster spots of the 53 that they're still trying to figure out. Those are the guys that they were looking at, and they got to see them against some real competition.

A lot of them, you know, they're going to have to go back in peace through the film because, you know, they were overmatched at so many positions. It's going to be hard to get a good evaluation, but they were happy to get out of the preseason healthy, mostly, and they're eager for September 10th to get here, I think. Why do you think Coach Smith decided not to use any of his number ones?

He used the word risk averse himself tonight after the game. I think that they've got a couple of offensive linemen, Chris Lindstrom and Drew Dahlman, who are a little banged up and probably wouldn't have played. They lost three cornerbacks in camp. Jeff Okuda with the ankle, Mike Hughes, and Cornell Armstrong with hamstrings. Mike and Cornell might not make the 53-man roster because they've just been out two weeks and they haven't been able to get a good evaluation of them. I think he was really worried about a significant injury last preseason. If you remember, Drake London caught one pass and then goes out with a sprained knee.

Kind of a hold your breath moment. Kyle Pitts is just coming back from missing the last seven games of last year. He said they had a physical camp. He felt good about their preparedness for September 10th, and he just didn't want to risk an injury.

Interesting though, considering that it's a young quarterback and he doesn't have a ton of experience on an NFL field, what do we know about Desmond Ritter as he prepares to go into his first season as QB 1? We know that the moment's not too big for him. He went out in those four games, he was thrown into a tough situation, and he proved he could do it. He wasn't great, but he didn't blink.

He didn't stumble. He got a little better each game. They're betting on the fact that Desmond Ritter has the right mental makeup, the right personality to be able to do to be able to do what they ask him to do. It's a very quarterback friendly offense because it's so run heavy, because it's so play action heavy. Desmond is very comfortable with the play action game. And because he's got a lot of offensive weapons, he really just needs to be a point guard. He does not need to carry this offense. He just needs to get the ball to the right place, and they feel comfortable with his ability to do that. They like everything he's shown from the time they threw him in the lineup with four games left last year, and just very incremental improvements.

As you point out, he's got a ton of weapons around him, and this is, in my opinion, not that different. We'll see how it works out in the regular season. We saw Brock Purdy get thrown into a lineup with the Niners last year, and even though he was the last guy selected in the previous draft, he didn't try to do too much.

He relied on the veterans around him. It seems as though Desmond can have his pick of veteran weapons around him. Then, of course, a rookie running back with a ton of buzz.

Yeah, and I think that the Arthur Smith and Kyle Shanahan systems share a key trait. That being, the head coach is going to dial up the play to where they want the ball to go. They just want the quarterback. They don't need a guy out there to make a ton of plays. They just need a guy out there to run the play that they've designed the way they've designed it. And Brock Purdy proved he could do that for the Niners, and Falcons believe Desmond Ritter will do that for them. How much buzz is there around Bijan Robinson?

Oh, a ton. He dressed out tonight, but did not play. Had four carries, I think, for 20 yards last week, including his first carry. He had a 12-yarder.

If you look closely at that tape, if a wide receiver holds his block for a second longer, Bijan probably scores from about 45 yards out on that play, and then people are really losing their minds. But he's been everything that they thought he would be. He'll catch a lot of passes for this team. He'll get a lot of carries for this team. The offensive rookie of the year stuff, I think that buzz is real. I think he'll be a great fantasy play. Whether or not you should pick a running back in the top 10 or what you have to do when you get to the second contract and how you handle that, that's not the Falcons' concern anymore.

This is about 2023, and they feel like he's going to make them a lot better in 2023. Josh Kendall is with us from Atlanta as the Falcons wrap up their preseason. He covers the team for the athletic.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Forge Radio. Considering they do have this rookie stud in the backfield with Ritter, what type of balance do they want between run and pass? Well, they ran the ball more than anybody in the NFL last year. Ran it more than they threw it. Not many teams do that.

This year, Arthur Smith has only said that he wants to be more balanced. Now, that doesn't mean they're going to throw it all over the place, but I do think you'll see an uptick. I think you'll see them throw it more than they run it this year. Some of that will be dependent on if they can get in leading games, if they're quietly pretty optimistic about what they can be. If they're as good as they hope they might be and they can get some lead in some games, then they will put Tyler out here and there and run the ball down people's throats in the fourth quarter and try to hold on to leads.

Then you could skew that number back and forth. They will not be a wishbone offense like they were at times in 2022. You mentioned Kyle Pitts. What is the expectation for him in what will be his third season in the NFL? They say he's healthy. They say that they think he will take another step this year.

I don't know. I think that he's probably the fourth target in this offense. When you talk about Drake London, when you talk about Bijan Robinson, even when you talk about Tyler Algier in the workload that he'll get. Do I expect Kyle Pitts to have this breakout all pro season? I'm not sure that's in the cards, but they think he will be very good for them.

He will do what they need to do. He will be a key part of this offense, but I don't think he's going to be necessarily the star of this offense. What then would be the weakness of that side of the ball or maybe the Achilles heel, Josh?

Well, it's clearly Desmond. The offensive line is good. They've got plenty of people to throw the ball to. Even if Kyle Pitts does not have this sort of gigantic breakout year, they've still got plenty of offensive skill position players.

It's all about Desmond Rood on the offensive side of the ball. If he can't do it, then these last three top 10, they spent three straight top 10 picks on an offensive skill player. All this work they put into the developing and all this money they put into an offensive line.

If the quarterback just can't do it, then all of that's for naught. And yet the owner of the team, Arthur Blank, came out not that long ago and said he feels like this group, this team, will be more competitive in 2023. Do you agree with that statement?

It should be. This is the year that Arthur Smith and Terry Fontenot have built toward. They took their medicine in the first two years, finished seven and 10, dealing with some salary cap constraints, getting some old contracts off the books. They had the money this year. They spent it. They rebuilt the defense.

They got another playmaker in Bijan Robinson. The NFC South is the NFC South. This is a team with the easiest schedule or second easiest schedule depending on how you look at it in the NFL this year. Everything is lined up for the Falcons. They should be better this year. They should be a double digit win team this year and they should be in the race for the NFC South. Falcons beat Ryder Josh Kendall with the athletic conjoining us here after our CBS Sports Radio.

Okay, I'm hopping on that. This was a division that was won by the Bucks last year, did not have a winning record, so no team in the division had a winning record. Why do you believe then that the Falcons can be the team that separates itself from the pack? Well, they get to play those Bucks twice and nobody's expecting much there. They get to play the Panthers twice.

We'll see what Bryce Young's about. The Saints might be pretty good, but you can split there. Can you count four wins right there just in your division? You play the AFC South.

That's not a great division. You know, there are wins to be had on this schedule. For a team that's in year three, this is not year one. This is the year they've built towards. This is the NFL. You don't get five-year turnaround plans in the NFL. It's sort of time for them to win. The idea that one of these teams is going to end up as a playoff team is pretty enticing, right? So then thinking about Arthur Smith and the fact that he's been in place for a couple years, does that give him an advantage?

It should. I mean, you're looking at Frank Reich, who's a very experienced guy, but he's got a rookie quarterback. You're looking at Todd Bowles. I'm not sure, you know, people are necessarily scared of a Todd Bowles head coach team. Dennis Allen is a great defensive coordinator. He hasn't proven to be a great head coach. You know, I think that if Arthur Smith sort of can't get this done in this year, in this division, then he will go into year four. He will go into year four, but he'll go into year four with some question marks. What about the defensive side of the ball?

Spent a lot of money. Their defensive line looks nothing like it did a year ago. They finally got Grady Jarrett some help. They've got David Onyemata. They've got Kaleis Campbell. They've got Bud Dupree. They traded in the secondary. They added Jesse Bates and traded for Jeff Okuda.

We'll see if he can get things turned around. They've got two young linebackers as athletic as anybody in the league. Inside linebackers in Troy Anderson and Kate Nellis. You know, they spent a lot of money. They spent a lot of resources and pre-agency to rebuild the defense that finished 30th in the league last two years in DBOA. If it can just be a middle of the pack defense, and it should be considering how they've spent, that should be plenty good enough considering what they expect from this offense. It is nice that there's an owner and a front office who do want to make this a winning team and have gone aggressively to address needs, considering that it's been a bit of a vast wasteland going back to, would you say, the Super Bowl appearance?

Yeah, absolutely. And Arthur Blanken, you know, he certainly has his, he's got his flaws, but he has been willing to spend his money and, you know, sort of pour resources into this team in hopes of having a winner. And he thought he had one in that Super Bowl, and he realizes that, you know, his tenure as the owner of this team is not indefinite. He's getting, he's probably closer to the end of it than he is to the beginning of it. I think he's feeling that pressure a little bit.

All right, here's the question, Josh. In Atlanta right now, considering the Braves running away with the National League East and all of their expectations versus the start of the Falcons season, what's the bigger story for sports fans? Well, this is still a Braves town. The Braves have been good for a while in a city that hasn't had a lot of winners. So this is, this is still a Braves town and will be a Braves town as long as they're in contention. The Falcons, though, will, people are constantly in wait and see mode with the Falcons. So when you get to the midpoint of the season, this team is five and three, maybe six and three, people start paying attention. I don't suppose I should leave out the two-time defending champ in college football, though I know they're not right there in Atlanta, but I assume there's a ton of buzz around them too. Oh yeah, they're right there 1A with the Braves. This is a bulldog in Braves town.

All right, you can find Josh on Twitter at Josh the Athletic covering the Falcons and it is a wide open NFC South, so why not them? I appreciate a few minutes, Josh. Thank you so much.

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