Uriah Wesson 
Are you ready? We told you that we had some great things in the works at Win Daily Sports and now that the dust has settled on the NFL draft, we can take a long hard look at all 32 NFL teams so that we can go into the fantasy draft season and week one DFS and destroy the competition right out of the gate. We are going to cover every possible angle so that nothing surprises you. So, without further ado here is the 1st of 32. Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Post Draft Fantasy Breakdown: Atlanta Falcons.
Atlanta Falcons:
2020 Record: 4-12
Coaching Changes
Arthur Smith: New Head Coach/Offensive Coordinator/Play Caller (Titans)
Dean Pees: Defensive Coordinator (Titans)
Offense: West Coast, Zone Run, Play-Action, 2 Tight-Ends
Defense: Multiple Base Packages, Heavy Blitz. Aggressive
Fantasy Targets (By National Fantasy Championship ADP): Calvin Ridley (22.15), *Julio Jones (46.99), Kyle Pitts (86.53), Matt Ryan (88.23), Mike Davis (104.67), Hayden Hurst (167.81), Russel Gage (177.70)
*Denotes Potential Trade
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Post Draft Fantasy Breakdown: Atlanta Falcons
Overview:
The first NFL team that we will be covering is the Altana Falcons and they are an interesting team from a real-world and fantasy perspective, so I am excited to lead off with these guys. Not only did they poach the Titans offensive and defensive coordinators in Arthur Smith and Den Pees, but it looks like a guarantee that Julio Jones will be going elsewhere so we have a lot to talk about. My very broad overview is that we will see a much more balanced offensive game plan with a ton of two tight-end sets, play action, and zone run concepts and while I do expect an improvement defensively, I still don’t know to what extent. I do know that Pees came out of retirement just to coach these guys up and he was the man behind the 2007 Patriots Defense and the 2012 Ravens Defense (Both Super Bowl Champions) and loves pressure which is something that the Falcons have been terrible at over the last several seasons. Let us take a deeper look below in Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Post Draft Fantasy Breakdown: Atlanta Falcons.
When it comes to coaching changes it can sometimes be a little tricky figuring out how they will translate to new organizations. I do not think that is going to be an issue for me here. By a wide margin I watched more coach’s films on the Titans than any other team in 2020 so I feel confident in my early assessment here.
Scheme
Offense:
If you go back to the film, you will see a few things that are prevalent in Arthur Smith’s offense in 2020. They rely heavily on the zone run, play-action, bootlegs, and 2 tight end sets or “12” personnel group. Not only did they lead the league in multiple tight end sets (35% 1 RB 2 TE “12”, 4% 2 RB 2 TE, 9% 1 RB 3 TE) with 48% of their offensive plays having at least two tight-ends but they ran the fewest plays BY FAR involving packages with at least 3 wide receivers (38% 1 TE 3 WR, 2% 0 TE 3 WR) totaling 40% of their snaps. There were a few packages combined with 3 or more WR but they did not even reach a percent, so I am leaving them out.
The Titans were also a very deliberate team averaging only 63.5 offensive plays per game which put them at 22nd slowest although, in situations where they needed to pick up the pace, they were able to do so finishing 3rd in pace at 25 seconds per play in situations where they were tied or losing and Matt Ryan has played almost his entire career in fast paced situations so while I think he wants to Davis wants to slow things down a bit I know that Falcons roster is well adjusted to playing at that faster pace.
Defense:
Dean Pees has chosen to come out of retirement to coach this Falcons defense and while they have not been good and I am being very generous, they are very young and they were the most injured defense in the NFL. So much so that they had several weeks where the entire secondary and I mean all safeties and cornerbacks both starter and backup came from practice squads or the house. He has no specific base package. He runs 3-4 and 4-3 depending on the situation. The one thing that is constant with Pees is pressure. It doesn’t always show in the numbers as with the Titans over the last several years, the Ravens in the mid-2010s, and the Patriots in the mid-late 2000s his defense has finished middle of the road but he runs a very opportunistic style that comes up big in big moments. And he has been called a Super Bowl champion, twice because of it.
So, what does this mean? Let us answer the easier question first. Do we expect a ton of scenarios where the Falcons will be ahead and therefore be able to slow down the pace? No? Good. Glad to see we are on the same page there. So since we can expect plenty of offensive opportunities it is time for the tougher question. Who will be the main beneficiaries of the new offensive scheme? We will be having this conversation assuming there is no Julio. If he stays and says he will play, adjust Gage accordingly although I do not think you really should as you will see below.
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Post Draft Fantasy Breakdown: Atlanta Falcons
Fantasy Targets:
Matt Ryan:
Matty Ice has been a guy that you can consistently count on year in and year out to give you a good floor/ceiling combination for a great value. Last year, which many consider his worst showing since his rookie year Ryan still delivered 4,581 yards passing, led the league in completions with 407, threw 26 TDs and 11 picks. He did that while being sacked 41 times (4th worst), and only having 2.87 seconds to throw, which was less time than Patrick Mahomes (2.89) got when we were giving him a pass last season. While they will not get nearly as many plays off this season with Smith likely slowing down the tempo, they will be running a lot of two and three tight end sets, bootlegging to get him away from pressure and using a lot of play-action to give him just a bit more time to throw. Expect his air yards to go down as he dumps off to Mike Davis, Hayden Hurst, and Kyle Pitts a ton but the YAC will undoubtedly go up with the scheming that HC/OC Arthur Davis will put in place, at least if the Titans results are any indication. I still think he is a fantastic value as the 14th QB off the board.
Calvin Ridley:
Beast. Moving on. OK fine, I will say something. I pretty much expected Ridley to supplant Julio last year and drafted as such. Calvin was on pretty much every fantasy team I drafted last year and the 1374 yards and 9 TDs in 15 games including a couple of games where he was injured and limited proved me right. Now we get him without Julio in an offense that will still be using play-action but in a way, I feel will be much more effective and his late second/early third ADP is honestly a bit low. I get it though, I have been in several mock drafts, and on numerous occasions, I have seen no receivers go in the first round. With a 17-game season, I would not be at all shocked to see this guy easily eclipse 1500 yards and double-digit TDs.
Mike Davis:
Mike Davis took full advantage of his opportunity when CMC went down and had he started all 16 games he would have finished with around 900 yards rushing, 550 yards receiving with around 70 receptions, and 10 TDs. At 5’9” 220-230 pounds he did extremely well in the spread-style offense that lends itself to smaller, quicker backs like McCaffrey. The zone run concepts that I am expecting Atlanta to implement fit him much, much better. He’s not the fastest guy in the world (4.61 40 yard) so a single cut, get downhill, inside zone will lead to improved run stats and we all saw how great his hands are. A little something else to consider is that everyone knew that the Panthers were not going to push more than they needed to downfield leading to 32.73% of his snaps seeing 8 or more in the box (7th most among ALL running backs). In contrast, Todd Gurley saw only 21.54% 8+ man boxes. If we split the difference and he sees a drop down to 26% with zone concepts he should have plenty more room to run.
Kyle Pitts:
Beast #2??? Whatever, you drive a hard bargain I guess. Kyle Pitts might break every single rookie tight end record in the NFL. The talking heads all told you how good he is and considering the Falcons took him fourth overall they feel that way too. He is fast, sure-handed, and is just as capable as a receiver as he is a tight end. I kind of hinted at it at the top when talking about the scheme but Davis loves leaning on his tight ends. We know Jonnu Smith had a big year with 40 catches for 448 yards and eight touchdowns but did you know that even Anthony Firkser was able to have a few good games including an 8 catch 113 yards 1 TD game. Not nearly as huge but a backup tight end with 39 grabs, 387 yards, and a TD is more than you would expect in this day and age of a thin tight end pool. I’m saying all of that to say this. If Jonnu Smith and Anthony Firkser can do that on a team with a 2,000-yard rusher in Derrick Henry and two 1000 yard receivers in AJ Brown and Corey Davis what do you think the ceiling is for a man with his physical gifts with no Julio Jones and Mike Davis as the primary ball carrier?
Hayden Hurst:
Love him as a late-round flier. Everyone has written Hurst off because the Falcons didn’t pick up his 5th-year option but he had a career year with 56 grabs for 571 yards and six TDs. How is Jonnu getting praise heaped on him with similar numbers and Hunter Henry to compete with targets with from a far less accurate QB and an offense that was hot garbage? I mean Jonnu’s ADP is 33 (134) spots higher and Hunter Henry (117) is 60 spots higher??? Do people think Cam Newton or a rookie QB Mac Jones is going to do better than a QB who averages a 65% completion percentage over his career? The Falcons will likely run almost exclusively two tight end sets and he is an afterthought. Do yourself a favor, If you are nervous about Pitts as a rookie you can get Hurst at next to nothing and benefit from people not realizing what the Falcons will do this year.
Russel Gage:
You better take him NOW before Julio moves. As the de-facto number two wide receiver for the Falcons, Russel Gage will be closer to 100 ADP than 180 once Jones’s move is official. And by the way, last season Gage had 41 more targets than Julio last year. Look it up. 68 to 109 targets in 2020. What do you think he will have without Jones in the mix drawing away targets in key situations?
Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Post Draft Fantasy Breakdown: Atlanta Falcons
Final Thoughts:
This is shaping up to be one of the more interesting teams in the early going of this NFL offseason. Between the coaching changes, style changes, big names potentially out, and future superstars potentially coming in they are shaping up to be a pretty competitive team in a division where Tom Brady is a year older, where Drew Brees will either be replaced by a 30-year-old hybrid player in Taysom Hill or the most turnover-prone quarterback in NFL history in Jameis Winston, and a Panthers franchise who just rescued Sam Darnold from Adam Gase. I’m not saying they turn the whole thing around in a single season but the NFC South is notoriously fickle so who knows what kind of craziness we will run into this year.
Hope you enjoyed my first of many Stoweby’s 2021 NFL Post Draft Fantasy Breakdown: Atlanta Falcons. Hopefully, you have learned something that you can make use of in your Dynasty, Best Ball, and Seasonal Drafts, and got the juices flowing a bit to help you take down a big one in week one when the time comes. I look forward to creating more content covering all 32 NFL teams. Any questions about the article, I will be available in the WinDaily Discord chat. Don’t forget to subscribe to the WinDaily Youtube channel and follow me @stoweby and @WinDailySports on Twitter to stay current and up to date on all of our fresh new content!
