Atlanta Falcons head coach Arthur Smith joined Dukes & Bell for his weekly appearance on the show and talked about how the team can create more explosive plays and just how much freedom Matt Ryan has at the line of scrimmage.
When asked about what dictates the team taking shots down field.
“You’re seeing more of this around the league. There was a great article written about a week ago give or take in the Wall Street Journal just about what’s old is new again, how shell coverage. People saw it in the Super Bowl last year the way Tampa played Kansas City, so even if you’re not seeing a lot of shell you’re seeing people play soft coverage because they want to take away the play action game,” Smith said. “Doesn’t mean you can’t get explosives going down the field.
"We’ve taken plenty of shots to try and get that. And if then if they’re going to sink out of there we’ve checked it down. We’ve been decently efficient the games that we’ve played well with keeping the ball, that’s what they’re gonna give us and we’ll take the check down which is essentially a run, we’ll find creative ways.”
Smith also talked about how much freedom Matt Ryan has at changing plays at the line of scrimmage.
“I think there’s a lot of old conventional wisdom about quarterbacks just calling the play at the line, I think as offenses have evolved most teams usually package plays. When you see guys doing stuff rather they signal or doing something with their helmet, that’s pretty common. Very rarely does anybody ask the quarterback to go up there and say hey here’s the whole menu you call what you want. I know people use to do it in the seventies when probably the call sheet wasn’t as many calls, and the nuances with the motions and what not but the old audible you audible, most people are packaging plays.”