This is a pretty young team, and if it were not for that they might be considered legitimate Super Bowl Contenders. They have finished the last two regular seasons with a winning record and are looking to make a deep playoff run in 2010. The Sporting News is picking them to go 12-4 and win the NFC south, I don’t know if I am that high on them, but no question this is a very good football team. Owner Arthur Blank has built up a nice foundation that should keep this team winning for many years to come.
The offense will be led by QB Matt Ryan, and if they can stay healthy he has a very nice backfield behind him. RB’s Michael Turner and Jerious Norwood both have injury concerns, but they do have Jason Snelling who is a bruiser unafraid to go out and run fools over. The WR corps is pretty good with Michael Jenkins, Roddy White and TE Tony Gonzales. The O line is set, and has impact potential with LT Sam Baker, LG Mike Johnson, and RG Harvey Dahl.
This team will run a 4-3 base defense, and it should sport a lot of blitzing and be very aggressive. The D line may be aging but they did add Corey Peters in the draft. This group is not yet set as position battles will play out over the course of the pre-season. The LB corps got a big boost from the drafting of Sean Witherspoon and it seems likely he will win one of the OLB spots. The concern last year was the secondary and they did draft Dominique Franks but it looks like Dunta Robinson and Brian Williams will be the starting corners with Thomas Decoud and Erik Coleman will be the deep guys.
On Special Teams Matt Bryant will likely be the kicker, with Michael Koenen handling the punting duties. Their team will probably use Franks to return kicks and punts.
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