FanHouse Jamaal Anderson

ATLANTA, Ga. -- Sunday Night, the Chicago Bears are in town visiting the Atlanta Falcons and fireworks could be in order inside the Georgia Dome. Both offenses can be prolific and they will be throwing against weaker defensive secondaries.

So expect the scoreboard operators to get a workout. When all is said and done, if the result is going to favor the Falcons, here's what they'll need to do.

• The Bears rank 4th in the NFL with 14 sacks. Adewale Ogunleye has 4.5 and Alex Brown has 2.5 to lead the pass rush, but seven other players each have a sack. The bring the heat well and frustrate the best of opposing quarterbacks. The Falcons, on the other hand, have the best offensive line in the league when it comes to protecting the quarterback as Matt Ryan has only been sacked twice this season. The offensive line must continue to protect Ryan on Sunday night, giving him time to find any of his plethora of receiving targets.

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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.

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- The Atlanta Falcons finished the 2008 season ranked 24th overall in team defense allowing 347.9 yards per game. In response to this lackluster performance, the Falcons used all but one of their 2009 draft choices on the defensive unit. That's brought a lot of youth and energy to training camp this week and it's created a different kind of atmosphere.

Third-year cornerback Chris Houston answered affirmatively as to whether or not the defense has a chip on their shoulder announcing they were, "hungrier than hungry".

Rookie cornerback Chris Owens spoke about linebacker Mike Peterson's monumental ability in the locker room to get the Falcons' defensive unit fired up before practices. Peterson, along with veterans Erik Coleman and Houston, has been, "getting in our ears, especially the rookies", Owens said.

Randy Moss is the best wide receiver in the NFL. For different reasons, Al Davis, Bill Belichick and Tom Brady have a lot to do with that. But before his professional football career, Moss was a legit basketball player, too.

He was twice named Mr. Basketball in West Virginia, and even contemplated the two-sport route at one point. So when he says LeBron James could play in the NFL, I believe him. And not just suit up George Plimpton style, either. Moss thinks LeBron, an All-Ohio wideout in high school, would dominate.

Jamaal Anderson may have been the Falcons' first-round pick in 2007, but over the past two years, he's been outplayed by his backup, Chauncey Davis.

That leaves the Falcons with a difficult decision as the offseason begins. Davis is a free agent who logically would like to land a starting job somewhere. The Falcons can't really afford to lose him with Anderson looking like a bust (even if they won't say that). But because of Anderson's presence, there is a good chance that the Falcons will lose Davis.

There has been a lot of good surprises for the Falcons this year--a surprisingly mature rookie quarterback, a surprisingly effective defense and a free agent running back signing that has turned into a Pro Bowl caliber player.

But today we got another nice surprise. First-round pick Jamaal Anderson tried to shed the bust label by picking up his first NFL sack in his 22nd pro game.

Now one sack for every 22 games is not exactly the kind of production you expect from a defensive end taken in the top 10 picks of the draft, no matter how well he plays the run. And Anderson's lack of production has come despite the fact that the Falcons have another defensive end, John Abraham, that draws constant double teams that should free Anderson up.

But maybe getting the first sack was Anderson's problem, and now he'll remember how fun it was to sack the quarterback at Arkansas (he led the SEC with 13.5 sacks his junior year). Something seems to have gotten into him today--he also has knocked down a pair of passes to start the third quarter.

More likely, he's still a big-time bust, but at least he has one sack to his name. And since Anderson's contract includes incentives based on his number of sacks, at least the Falcons protected themselves a little bit.

Training camps are underway, the NFL season is a month off, and to get you ready for 2008, FanHouse previews all 32 teams, "heat index" style. We'll rate each club in 10 categories on a scale of 1 to 10, high score wins.

Quarterbacks: If he develops as expected, and if he doesn't have a hidden dog-fighting hobby, the Falcons have their franchise quarterback for the next decade at least. Matt Ryan will be the team's starting quarterback by the start of 2009 for sure. The question is whether he'll be stepping in to replace Chris Redman early this season. Considering how bad Atlanta will be, the likelihood is he'll be under center by Week Eight, when the Falcons come off their bye. Heat Index: 4

Running Backs: If there is one position on the Falcons' roster where they compare favorably to the rest of the league, it may be running back. Jerious Norwood has been one of the most productive backup running backs in the league over the past two seasons (202 carries, 1,246 yards with a 6.2 yard per carry average), and was expected to step into the starting role whenever Warrick Dunn aged out of the position. Dunn finally left town to head back to Tampa Bay, but Norwood will still be the backup, as the Falcons signed LaDainian Tomlinson's understudy, Michael Turner, to a big-money deal. Turner's resume is very similar to Norwood's--he's been a productive backup for three seasons (228 carries, 1,257 yards with a 5.5 YPC average) who is looking to step into a larger role. The two should complement each other pretty well, as Turner is a bigger, one-cut home run hitter with good speed, while Norwood is a shiftier, smaller back with blazing speed. Together, they could be an outstanding combo if they didn't have to run behind such a brutal offensive line. Heat Index: 7

A year ago, the Falcons drafted Jamaal Anderson with the idea that he could be the long-term answer at defensive end--a stud who would be equally comfortable stuffing the run or rushing the quarterback.

Just one year in, there seem to already be some questions about how effective a pass rusher the former Arkansas product is. It's not Anderson's zero sacks in 16 games that's most troubling--it's how the Falcons coaching staff views him. It appears he's already being written off as a force off the edge.

"If we can find other fast guys, good pass rushers, then we could move him," defensive line coach Ray Hamilton said of Anderson. "We could use him as a first- and second-down defensive end and on third down move him inside where he could be like [Jacksonville's Stroud and Henderson] in there, beating guards upfield and batting balls down."

So let's get this straight. The defensive end the Falcons took eighth overall last year might end up moving inside so he can hopefully knock down some balls. It's safe to say that the Colts don't move Dwight Freeney inside on third down, and Jared Allen doesn't slide inside to hopefully tip some passes. Collapsing the pocket and knocking down passes are the jobs of run pluggers who have the size but not the speed to pick up sacks. The Giants have had success with moving Justin Tuck around inside, but that's a matter of necessity--Michael Strahan and Osi Umenyiora give the Giants a pair of elite defensive ends. Last I checked, the Falcons have no one else to book end with John Abraham.

We can throw out the standard stuff about it still being early in Anderson's career and how he may make adjustments this year, but if the Falcons are thinking about moving him inside in pass rushing situations, they don't believe that he can consistently win the one-on-one battle on the edge. It appears that the Falcons have some serious concerns about whether Anderson has the quick first step to ever become a big-time pass rusher. If not, he can have a long career as a run stuffer, but you don't take run stuffers wiht the eighth overall pick.

Hat Tip: The Falcoholic.

FanHouse's Michael David Smith touched on it yesterday: Jamaal Anderson, the Falcons first-round pick, has had a tough go of it through the first month of the season.

The defensive end, selected eighth overall, was supposed to bookend John Abraham nicely, and give the Falcons a formidable front four (front five if you count Grady Jackson twice). Things looked to be going well in preseason -- Anderson registered two sacks -- but once the games started counting, it was bupkes for the former University of Arkansas standout who tallied 13.5 sacks during his junior year. And it's starting to get to the rook a little bit:

"Now, it's been difficult," Anderson said. "A lot of the [veterans] on the D-line are like, 'When you going to get a sack? We need to see you do something. That's what we paid you to do.' I try not to let it get to me but at the same time, it's the fourth game and I haven't made a sack yet." ...

"It definitely hurts, mentally ... You try not to let it break your confidence, but that was something I was so accustomed to in college.

That's certainly understandable. Usually we only hear about the rookie skill position players who are floundering -- quarterbacks, running backs, wide receivers -- ostensibly because people, in general, are less interested in players who don't spend a lot of time with the ball in their hands.

Of course, the thinking changes when it's your team's first-round pick. Whatever, it's no surprise that at 1-3, the defense is struggling, particularly the defensive line. Things won't get any easier this week -- the Falcons face a rejuvenated Titans offensive line -- but on the upside, Atlanta has one less distraction to worry about. So there's that.

The first two defensive linemen off the board in this year's NFL draft were Clemson's Gaines Adams, chosen fourth overall by Tampa Bay, and Arkansas' Jamaal Anderson, chosen eighth overall by Atlanta.

Through four weeks of the season, neither of these two defensive ends has a sack. That might make them the early candidates to be labeled the two biggest disappointments of the 2006 NFL draft (it's far too early to judge Raiders quarterback JaMarcus Russell), especially considering that the third defensive lineman off the board, Amobi Okoye of the Texans, looks like an absolute stud.

A Tampa Tribune article says some in the Bucs' organization are disappointed with Adams, who has yet to start a game. And The Falcoholic calls Anderson "nearly invisible."

These are young guys with lots of time left to prove themselves. But for how much money Top 10 picks make, it's hard to have too much patience with them. If Adams and Anderson go much longer without a sack, the dreaded b-word may come into play.