FanHouse Harry Douglas

The Atlanta Falcons are in St. Louis tonight to take on the Rams in week two of the NFL's preseason. Friday night is going to be a pivotal game to begin answering many questions that the Falcons have about depth chart issues and final 53-man roster considerations.

Here are three scenarios to keep your eye on.

Who is going to end up being the third wide receiver?
When Harry Douglas went down with a season-ending ACL tear, the Falcons had immediate openings for a punt returner (see later comments) and a third wide receiver. The team signed veteran free agents Robert Ferguson and Marty Booker soon after the Douglas injury and they are now competing with Brian Finneran and Eric Weems for that No. 3 spot.

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- The Atlanta Falcons head to Detroit to play the Lions this Saturday, August 15 for their first preseason game. The team has released a preseason depth chart to show an early glimpse at where players stand. You need to remember that the Falcons are less than two weeks into camp and the start of the regular season is still more then a month away. There are many things that can and will change between now and then.

Matt Ryan, Mike Smith, the rest of the Atlanta Falcons and their fans can now breathe a sigh of relief. Roddy White, their Pro Bowl receiver who had been holding out for a contract extension, has been granted the extension and significant raise he desired.

Sources told FanHouse the deal is for six years, $50 million, with $18.6 million in guaranteed money. No word on whether or not it helped, but the Falcons' receiving situation got a bit dire this past week -- as evidenced by the team's actions -- with White holding out and Harry Douglas going down with a season-ending ACL tear.

It happens every year at training camp, yet every year seems worse than the ones that preceded it: players get injured, sometimes seriously, and an offseason worth of plans suddenly become meaningless.

The Eagles will be without middle linebacker Stewart Bradley for the season, and things aren't looking good for Falcons wide receiver Harry Douglas (and this is while the club tries to negotiate an extension with Roddy White).

And on Sunday, the Ravens' No. 2 wideout, Mark Clayton, strained a hamstring that will keep him out 2-3 preseason games. Compared to Bradley or Douglas, that's good news, but Baltimore also doesn't have much depth at receiver. More than that, quarterback Joe Flacco is just in his second season. Spreading the offensive burden seems like the best strategy to build on the success he had last year, but that becomes problematic if Flacco doesn't have anybody to throw to. Or maybe it doesn't.

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- When Harry Douglas went down at practice on Wednesday, it looked as if he and cornerback Chris Houston just got tangled up. When Douglas stayed down for five minutes, and then had to be carted off of the field, fears grew around Falcons' camp.

Now, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter via Twitter, Harry Douglas will miss the entire 2009 season with a torn ACL.

Both head coach Mike Smith and quarterback Matt Ryan told reporters Wednesday that Douglas was having a great camp up until then. But, neither would speculate on the extent of Douglas' injury. This news is as close to worst-case scenario for the Falcons as you can get.

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FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. --With Roddy White working out on his own in Alabama while holding out from training camp, the last thing the Falcons needed was an injury to a wide receiver. Unfortunately, that's just what happened to Harry Douglas today in one-on-one drills.

Douglas was bumped at the line by Chris Houston and, as the two fought to break free from one another, Douglas went down. And he stayed down for approximately five minutes before a cart drove onto the field and took him to the trainers' room.

Douglas, who was scheduled to be the Falcons' slot receiver this season and maybe even compete with Michael Jenkins for time at the No. 2 spot, was seen after practice leaving the facility on crutches, putting next to no weight on his left leg.

Summer is heating up and so is NFL football, so FanHouse is at Falcons training camp to get you the rundown on the Birds as they get ready for the '09 season.

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- Spirits were high, the defense was buzzing all morning, and everything seemed to be locked into place as training camp kicked off for the Atlanta Falcons on Saturday .

The only thing missing? Pro Bowl wide receiver Roddy White.

White had a career year in 2008, catching 88 passes for 1,382 yards and seven touchdowns. Now he wants a bigger contract; one more similarly structured towards the top wide receivers in the league. Until he gets his contract renegotiated, he'll likely not show up for training camp.

With Fantasy Football season ready to kick in high gear, FanHouse is here to preview each and every team -- one per day until we've done them all.

Meet The ...
2008 From worst to first sensation of the NFC South. The Falcons won 11 games and earned a wild card berth in 2008 thanks, in no small part, to a breakout campaign by running back Michael Turner and Offensive Rookie of the Year efforts from quarterback Matt Ryan. Not only are the key players back on offense, but the team added 10-time Pro Bowl tight end Tony Gonzalez to the mix. With the ground game sizzling and Ryan's growth set to continue in 2009, the addition of Gonzalez should boost the fantasy value of everyone around.

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After his rookie season, Laurent Robinson looked like a nice third-round find, the kind of wide receiver who could end up being a very useful slot receiver. Not many rookies pull down 37 catches, even if you allow for the fact that Robinson was playing on an awful team.

A year later, he's been traded away for some magic beans, or the swap of the fifth and sixth round picks with the Rams to be more precise. Since the Falcons spent a third-round pick to acquire Robinson, it's safe to say that the Falcons got pennies on the dollar.

When you trade to move up in the fifth round during the draft, you're trading up to get a specific player, when you do it three weeks before the draft, you're just trying to get something for a player.

One of the lesser noticed aspects of the Falcons success this year has been the team's special teams play. Harry Douglas has proven to be a solid punt returner, while Jerious Norwood's speed make him a threat every time he returns a punt. And Jason Elam has missed only two field goals all season.

But the one you'll likely hear the most about this weekend is whenever the Falcons line up to punt, you'll hear the commentators mention how the Falcons gave up an NFL record 49 yards on punt returns all season. In 16 games, the Falcons allowed a total of 49 yards in punt returns. No opposing returner ever ripped off a return longer than 12 yards.To put it in perspective, there were 28 punt returns of 40+ yards this year and 119 punt returns of 20 yards or more. Atlanta allowed none of them. A league high 27 of Michael Koenen's 47 punts were fair caught.

But while all of that is true, this is truly a case of a junk stat. There's some value in the fact that Koenen's high arcing punts ensured that no team ever got a game-changing return. But at the same time, Koenen was only averaging 40.7 yards per punt, which was 34th out of the 35 NFL punters with 20 or more boots. His net average of 37.5 is 20th in the league.

So there are a lot of things to be impressed with about the Falcons special teams, but if you hear television commentators talk about how great their punting is, don't believe it. It's consistent, but the Falcons aren't winning the battle of field position.