Atlanta Falcons Signing Just Got A Whole Lot Better

Atlanta Falcons Signing Just Got A Whole Lot Better

All right. What is up, Hotlanta? How warm is it there? It’s been warm up here in Michigan. And you’re probably wondering, why is this dude from Michigan talking about the Falcons? Here’s the deal. This isn’t our first channel. We are Lions fans. We admit that. Me and my buddy Chris started this as our second channel. We’re up to multiple now, but this is our second channel where we wanted to focus on NFL teams that the national media seems to kind of forget about or ignore. Uh we were so used to it in Detroit for so many years. Nobody would talk about us. We love the Lions. Um Atlanta, similar similar to Detroit. All right. One’s south, one’s north, one has snow, one doesn’t as much. But hey, with all that being said, you guys have got yourself a surprise player that’s already balling out. And ESPN went out and singled out a single name as the biggest surprise from OTAAS. and Divine Diablo linebacker was one of it. Now, if you don’t know this, one of the other teams that we cover is the Las Vegas Raiders. So, we had spent some time watching seeing what this guy does, and I’m telling you, you got yourself a very interesting prospect here. Now, he’s been in the league for, I think, four years, but this is very interesting. All right, the the Falcons were quiet. They were had they had some salary cap stuff going on, as we all know. All right, they’re paying one quarterback a lot of money to not start. All right, but they were quiet during the NFL free agency. All they did was sign a handful of players. They got Leonard Floyd, which addressed their edge need. Then they went on and drafted a couple, and safety Jordan Fuller. Those were arguably the most notable signings. But don’t sleep. I’m telling you, do not sleep on Devon Diablo. All right, he’s 26 years old. Last year, he started 14 games for the Raiders. In fact, he’s had a lot of games that he’s played in for the Raiders over his four years as a pro. All right. Um, he had 63 tackles last year. He had a sack. The Falcons did not resign Nate Landman or Lorenzo Carter. So, at very least, he should be a guy who should get in there and play as a backup. But, I’m telling you, I think he might be more than just that. and you’re thinking about a guy as a linebacker and you’re thinking about like, all right, well, he’s four years in the NFL. He’s a he’s a wy vet and all that kind of stuff. Not so much. He came out as a safety. He came out as a safety and he switched over. But first, let me um I’ll read this to you what what the beat writer had to say, what Mark um Ramandi of ESPN had to say. He said, “The Falcons didn’t have the salary cap room to make huge splashes in free agency this off season, but the team thinks they really found something in Diablo, whose base salary is just 1.66 million this season. Head coach Raheem Morris has been impressed with Diablo’s size. He’s 6’3, length, and speed. Even more than that, Morris believes Diablo is capable of wearing the green dot as kind of the quarterback of the defense. Sounds like the former Raider has a solid chance at starting job at inside linebacker. Inside linebacker position when you watch him with the Raiders, he played a lot of outside linebacker. That’s where I saw him playing a ton. All right. So, he played in the box almost solely. He would line up last year the most he would line up on the edge. He lined up along the defensive line 158 times. So, this is a guy that you have seen do a lot of different things and they really started working at him on the edge. This put him in position as a former free safety to be guarding tight ends, running backs out of the back field. All right, and things like that. Now, I know what you’re thinking. As a former free safety, what kind of athlete am I looking at? Well, I’m so glad you asked. All right, let’s take a look at his relative athletic score here to see what kind of an athlete we’re looking at. This is him testing as a safety. Okay, so he has elite size as a safety, but he doesn’t have elite agility. His agility was still decent in the three cone, right? And still decent when it comes to the broad jump, but these other ones wouldn’t be so poor as a linebacker. his speed went from being okay to if he was a linebacker being much more elite, all right, very good to elite. So, making that switch over to the linebacker role um took him from being a good athlete to an elite athlete. These are one of the things that you want to talk about. All right, they’re saying the cap hit is just 1.66 million this year. That’s not what I found. I found it at four almost 5 million. Next year the cap hit is nine million. All right? And you can get out with three million dead cap if it doesn’t work out for him. This is the kind of money you pay a guy that is a fringe starter. This is fringe starter money. I just I want to be really clear on that. This is fringe starter money. This isn’t um th this this isn’t, hey, we’re paying you to come in here and just be a backup. That’s not what it is. So, when you look at your roster and you look at your linebackers, here’s what you have to know. All right. The only other guy that has played enough ball to be a proven linebacker is Kate Ellis. Yes, you have Troy Anderson in there. I get that. All right. I totally get that. And you want to see him continue. But Divine Diablo in the middle. Here’s what’s interesting about him. What I found he was the best at when he was with the Raiders was when he was able to sit back, read, and recognize. That’s the old safety roots coming in them. So, the type of things that he was phenomenal at and where you see him all over the highlight film are things like uh running back screens. He’ll sit back, he recognizes it early, and then it’s like he shot out of a cannon going for the running back. if he doesn’t get touched. In other words, if the defensive tackles do their job on the inside and he has a clear path, his sideline to sideline speed is tremendous, which you would expect it to be tremendous, right, with a guy that was a former free safety or a former strong safety. His work there is good. His coverage skills, surprisingly, aren’t as good as I thought they would be. He is much better when he has room to get that motor running and get up to top speed. As you saw from his RA score, he doesn’t have great short speed, he has great long speed. So, while his short speed isn’t as bad at the linebacker position, it’s still not elite, but his long speed is. So, when you get him running sideline to sideline, it is absolutely helpful. I’ve seen him run chase after quarterbacks from behind running backs. Um, when he gets an open lane, he is fantastic in that. I think this is one of those things that could be kind of a steal. we’ve seen teams do it. And one thing that you have without question in in in the ATL is a defensive-minded head coach where I think players can go there to be successful. Now that he’s been here a minute as a head coach, he’s working. He’s getting the players that he likes to be able to come in. not highriced, but in the draft bargain free agents like Divine Diablo, people like that that are able to come in that are able to work themselves into the rotation and probably have some of the best years of their career. There’s no reason not to. Divine Diablo, when you look at him, what he is best at over his career, all right, the two things he’s best at, believe it or not, are run defense and tackling. They go hand in hand. Coverage isn’t it. So, I think the idea is that you put him on the outside with the Raiders because he was a former safety. Hey, you can guard the, you know, the tight end. We can use your elite speed coming off the edge. Maybe the Falcons have a better and more efficient use for him. I think they might. All right. Wanted you know who he was. Thanks for watching. Hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already. We’ll see you on the next one.

Atlanta Falcons Signing Just Got A Whole Lot Better and it is a name that you need to know for this upcoming season.

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