Observations on Ryan Nielsen’s Defense

I watched two all-22 games of the Falcons defense to get an idea of what we can expect. I didn't put much thought into the games to watch, just wanted to watch fairly competent offenses – I watched Week 10 @ Arizona and Week 14 vs. TB.

Caveat I am by no means a film guy. I'm not going into much analysis, just simple observations. This is also nothing comprehensive, just some observations I had.

I'll link Relative Athletic Scores for relevant Falcons I mention to give you an idea of the physical profile and why I'd make a comparison to one of our current players.

For CBs it's pretty simple – the reputation for Nielsen's defense wanting press man is deserved. The majority of the time they're lining up close to the WRs and sticking with them man to man. They do other things but that's definitely their primary role. A.J. Terrell is their star CB if you're looking for a template of what they might be looking for in an early draft pick. Jeff Okudah is a similar player and played most of the snaps at the other outside position, but then there's Clark Phillips who's a completely different profile and played 337 snaps at outside CB. So hard to say for sure if Nielsen specifically wants his 6'1" 200lb guy at outside CB.

Their primary defense is technically a 3-3-5 but really just a 4-2-5. Their third starting "linebacker" was Bud Dupree, who lined up right on the D line just standing up. I would assume this would be similar to how they will use Josh Allen. I think it's just a matter of Dupree being more comfortable standing up, because when his back-up (Lorenzo Carter) came into the game, he usually lined up with his hand down.

For the rest of the defensive line, in their base D they have a traditional 1-tech and 3-tech, where I would expect to see Davon Hamilton and RRH.

The last starting lineman is our boy Calais Campbell. He would usually line up outside of the tackle. I imagine they would want Arik Armstead to play the Calais role. One thing that interested me is that Calais' backup was Zach Harrison who to me seems to be physically similar to Travon Walker – I wonder if we might see Travon in this role as well. Or maybe he could line up at either weakside or strongside DE? I would also expect to see Tyler Lacy in this role.

This kind of line-up would lessen the need for more depth at edge since Armstead is technically playing an "edge" role in the base defense.

Now that's only just base D. When I started I was trying to track how often they'd be in the same formation but I fairly quickly decided it wouldn't be that useful; there's plenty of formations that look like more traditional 3-4 or 4-3 looks, as well as 2 down lineman with 3 or 4 linebackers. So for example, you might see Calais and another DT (on our team, think RRH) with Allen and Travon on the edge and our two off-ball LBs (Lloyd and Foye).

There's also a speed package they did a few times a game in passing situations where Calais would be the only down lineman, lined up right over the center, and there would be 4 others standing up.

He's not a huge blitzer. He would send 5 fairly commonly, but sending 6 didn't happen much, and I'm not sure I ever saw 7+. In these funky 2-4 or 1-4 kind of formations that would be the time he'd send an extra guy.

It strikes me I didn't really spend much time watching safeties. I'd be curious about what they have in mind for Savage and Antonio Johnson.