Falcons Slip Out of NFC's Upper Echelon

Offseason Roundup: Atlanta Falcons

The Atlanta Falcons looked like a team on the rise when they reached the NFC title game at the end of the 2004 season in Jim Mora's rookie season as an NFL head coach. They had the sport's most unique talent in quarterback Michael Vick, and it seemed that they would thrive whenever Vick was healthy enough to stay in the lineup.

Wrong.

Vick was plagued by nagging injuries last season yet managed to play 15 games, and the Falcons still slumped to a record of 8-8 and missed the playoffs. Their run to the conference championship game the previous season looked more, in retrospect, like a reflection of just how weak the NFC had been in 2004 than a signal of a team reaching the status of annual Super Bowl contender.

The Falcons' response this offseason has been to focus on retooling a defense that ranked 22nd in the league last season. They won a tussle with the Seattle Seahawks for defensive end John Abraham, who had been given the franchise-player tag by the New York Jets to keep him off the unrestricted free agent market but was being shopped around the league.

The Jets wanted to trade Abraham to Seattle because the Seahawks were offering a late-first-round draft pick while the Falcons were offering only a second-rounder. But Abraham was adamant he wanted to go to Atlanta and refused to negotiate a new contract with the Seahawks, thwarting the Jets' bid to trade him to Seattle. The Falcons didn't initially want to offer a first-rounder because they had the draft's 15th overall choice and didn't want to surrender it. The Falcons' solution was to trade the 15th selection to the Denver Broncos, once an Abraham suitor themselves, for the 29th overall pick, plus a third-rounder in this year's draft and a fourth-rounder in next year's. The Falcons sent the 29th pick to the Jets for Abraham, then signed Abraham to a six-year, $45 million contract that included about $18 million in guaranteed money.

The net result was that the Falcons, instead of using the 15th choice in the draft, got Abraham and two mid-round picks. That's not a bad trade-off at all, at least in the short term. With the possible exception of top overall selection Mario Williams, who would have been long gone by the time the Falcons picked, there wasn't a pass rusher in the draft capable of matching the production of Abraham, who had 53-1/2 sacks in six seasons with the Jets.

In the long term, however, the Falcons are getting a player who turns 28 this weekend instead of one who's 22 or 23, and an expensive player instead of one who's comparatively cheap. Abraham also arrives in Atlanta with a reputation for being selfish and not particularly coach-able. The defensive line coach of one of the teams linked to him earlier in the offseason told his club's front office that he not only didn't want Abraham; he didn't even want the other teams around the league thinking that he might want Abraham.

But he at least gives the Falcons a proven pass rusher, and the free-agent addition of safety Lawyer Milloy could provide some veteran stability if he has anything left as a player. The loss of their first-round pick in the Abraham trade contributed to making the Falcons a virtual non-factor on draft weekend. But they did manage to get Virginia Tech cornerback Jimmy Williams when he slipped to them for the 37th overall selection, midway through the second round. Williams once was regarded as the top cornerback available, but his draft stock plummeted amid wariness by some teams that he might have to play safety instead of cornerback in the NFL. He was worth the gamble of using a second-round choice on him, but the Falcons could be left with a near washout of a draft if he doesn't pan out.

The Falcons did little to remake their offense. The biggest moves were the ones they didn't make -- or at least haven't made so far, rejecting trade offers for coveted backup quarterback Matt Schaub and tailback T.J. Duckett. The Pittsburgh Steelers, looking for a battering ram of a runner to replace the retired Jerome Bettis, were among the teams that tried to pry Duckett from the Falcons on draft weekend. The Falcons resisted. But if they like what they see in offseason practices from rookie running back Jerious Norwood, a third-round pick out of Mississippi State, they perhaps still could trade Duckett, who's eligible for unrestricted free agency next spring, and have Norwood complement still-productive primary tailback Warrick Dunn.

They lost their left tackle, Kevin Shaffer, to the Cleveland Browns in free agency but replaced him by trading for New Orleans Saints veteran Wayne Gandy.

The Falcons' ability to succeed on offense depends, as usual, on the play of Vick: Can he remain healthy enough to dominate as a runner, and develop some better accuracy as a passer? Yet even if Vick plays well, the Falcons no longer seem to be a top contender in a suddenly beefed-up NFC. They finished three games behind the Carolina Panthers and Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the NFC South last season, and the last-place Saints have done more to close the gap on the Falcons than the Falcons have done to close the gap on the Panthers and Buccaneers. Certainly the Falcons can be in the playoff race, but they no longer seem to be able to rightfully believe they're a team that's on the doorstep of a Super Bowl.