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  • 2 days ago
Are the Atlanta Falcons in trouble on the offensive line? Should Falcons fans be panicking about the depth right now? Mike Johnson, Beau Morgan, and Ali Mac share thoughts, and reveal why keeping 5 tackles on the active roster might be impossible.

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00:00Even Oneonwa, who played the bulk of those snaps at right tackle,
00:04is probably at this point going to be your third string right tackle.
00:09Let's just call it what it is.
00:11When Jawan Taylor returns, I can't on one hand say,
00:14well, Bajon and Drake didn't play,
00:16and then not point to the fact that Jawan Taylor did not either.
00:19I think that's important to keep in context.
00:22Now, is Jawan Taylor lockstep going to be a great right tackle?
00:27I don't necessarily believe so.
00:30I think there's a lot of good points to be made from Todd
00:34because I think it is a huge fear,
00:37and we have gone back to this style of offense.
00:40But I do feel like there's a little bit of upside there, I guess I'm trying to say.
00:46Yeah, the Jake thing played a couple snaps,
00:49and so I can't really lean into that too much of what we did or didn't see.
00:54I do think based on the way they viewed Jarrell as he's your swing,
01:00based on what we saw Friday night,
01:03and Oneonwa is you're hoping that you want to develop him.
01:08That's why I was so shocked the other night at Lanier
01:13when we saw him taking first-team reps against probably the guy
01:16that looked like one of your best players on Friday night in James Pierce,
01:19who you won't have for eight games.
01:20But still, he actually, you know, he walked away probably feeling pretty good
01:28about his effort regardless of who it was against.
01:30But it does make a lot of sense that you've allowed Jawan Taylor
01:36to completely get healthy, hopefully, from this,
01:39and you hope that he shows something this week at joint practices,
01:43and then you get to see him in week three a little bit in the preseason,
01:48and you hope he's up to speed.
01:50I will be completely glued, as I know you will be,
01:53at roster cutoff time as to who makes this usually nine-man offensive line room
02:02because we've talked a lot about Wanye Morris.
02:05He played Friday night, which I was shocked to see.
02:07I did not expect to see Wanye Morris on the field
02:09because it seems like it's been forever since we actually saw him suited up
02:12and doing anything.
02:13So now you've got Jake and Wanye and Michael Drell and Oney Anwa
02:17and Jawan Taylor, and I don't know how they keep all five of those tackles
02:22as part of the active roster.
02:25So we'll see how that all pans out.
02:26The good thing about Oney Anwa is that he can play guard.
02:30And, you know, he's obviously not done it in the NFL,
02:33but he can slide in.
02:35And we always thought that's where he was going to be anyways
02:38when he was drafted.
02:40So he can slide in and kind of fill that void a little bit if needed.
02:44I mean, and I think Kyle Hinton can snap, I think.
02:50Well, yeah, and he's going to have to
02:52because if that's what's keeping Ethan Oney Anwa on there
02:55and then Kyle Hinton and then whoever's the backup center at that point,
02:59I don't know.
02:59It's just a tough – I won't talk anymore offensive line,
03:03but it's just a tough thing.
03:04There's a lot of other positions out there.
03:06I would get on to you if it wasn't –
03:09It wasn't a main focus walking away from Friday night is the trench play.
03:16I'm more worried about the offensive line, I think,
03:19than the defensive line right now,
03:20even though there should be some worries over there
03:23because they didn't generate much pass rush
03:25and they weren't overly good in the run game.
03:28But I thought there was a couple of guys that you might depend on
03:31in the run game that didn't get a lot of snaps,
03:33including Mason Smith who only played about 10 to 11 snaps.
03:37We will get back into the nuts and the bolts
03:39of the Falcons preseason opener on Friday night in a bit.
03:43Weigh in on Twitter at 929MorningShift.
03:45Was that just kind of a teaser Friday night
03:46for what your schedule's actually going to look like?
03:49Because you got to rest up the rest of the weekend.
03:52Yeah, and I think that –
03:53I think there's actually a couple of –
03:55Oh, correct me if I'm wrong.
03:57I think there's actually a couple of weeks like that
03:58coming up right after the start of the season
03:59where you do have a Thursday night game, right?
04:01And then you do have a Sunday night game,
04:02which is get some time off, and that's a little bit later starting.
04:05Then there's a Monday night game, right?
04:07Is that week three, four, five?
04:08I think it's Thursday, Monday, Sunday.
04:13Okay.
04:14Because I think that's the way it goes because I think –
04:18now, I could be off on that,
04:19but I thought that you started with that Packers game
04:21on Thursday night in week three.
04:24And then I want to say that you have the Ravens at home on a –
04:29the Ravens at home on a Sunday.
04:31That's a Sunday night, yeah.
04:32So maybe – I think it's the Saints on a Monday then,
04:34and then Sunday.
04:36But I'll double check.
04:37But, yeah, there is a Thursday, Monday, Sunday night action in there.
04:40Yeah.
04:40It's going to make the schedule a little bit different.
04:42To answer your question, yeah, like it's definitely different than normal.
04:45I mean, it was two years ago we had all Sunday 1 o'clock games,
04:48every single one of them.
04:49Right.
04:49Which was crazy.
04:50Yeah, the full Falcons routine is not in effect quite yet.
04:54No, and I mentioned this,
04:56and Bo and I did the countdown to kickoff from the booth on Friday,
05:00and one of the reasons we did that is because when's the next time
05:03you're going to be at the Benz?
05:05Like as Falcons people, it's like –
05:08The 20th.
05:09September 20th is the next time we're going to be at the Benz together,
05:13which is insane.
05:15And it is.
05:16You guys will be pen pals.
05:18It's Panthers on the 20th.
05:20You turn around and play the Packers the 24th Thursday night,
05:22and then you go to New Orleans for that Monday night game on the 5th.
05:28How about an extended layoff?
05:29That's nice.
05:30A little mini bye, and then you turn around and play the Ravens
05:32on Sunday night at home on the 11th.
05:35So you'll play twice at Mercedes-Benz Stadium between, you know,
05:43basically from the other night until October 11th.
05:47So you'll have two home games in that span, the 20th and the 11th.
05:51And then, you know, you pack up a couple of home games
05:53that kind of stack up in there.
05:56So, yeah, we'll start October getting settled in as we're the Falcons.
06:00Okay.
06:00Okay.
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