Matt Bryant Rumors & News

The Falcons were pretty quiet after the first rookie mini-camp, but it was always obvious that a lot of those young players were going to get the axe. Momo Thomas and Casey Barth were the first two to go, though they're unlikely to be alone for very long. Barth was unlikely to crack the final roster because Matt Bryant is on board, and he must not have impressed enough to linger. He'll try to catch on elsewhere on one of the many kicker-starved rosters in the NFL. Thomas was an undersized, athletic cornerback on a roster suddenly awash with young options. Again, he must have been the ...

We come to the end of our series, pre-draft. The Falcons received a few C's, one D, several B's and a couple of A's, which tells you they're in generally pretty good shape. We'll cap this off with another fairly strong unit, and then it's time for the draft. You all like the draft, right? Special teams has been a strength in recent years, primarily due to Matt Bryant and Matt Bosher. Kick and punt returner used to be a strength before a disastrous 2012, but we're hopeful we can get back to those heady heights of yesteryear in 2013. Let's break down the unit. Kicker Matt Bryant 2012 sta...

With Matt Bryant making it rain field goals every Sunday and Matt Bosher booting punts like he has a gunpowder-loaded leg, the Falcons' special teams was more or less a strength in 2012. I say more or less because Dominique Franks was returning punts. We've spent a lot of time kicking Franks while he's down, but i'd like to move on to discussing the options to replace him at punt returner. The Falcons have more than one player in-house and more than one option outside of that to handle punt duties. Without further ado, here's a few potential options: Harry Douglas The Falcons aren't c...

Kicker performance has been shown, over and over, to be essentially random from year to year. All but the most elite kickers tend to have good seasons followed by lesser seasons, and so on and so forth. A classic example of that would be David Akers. He was one of the more consistent kickers in the NFL for a long time, consistently nailing over 80% of his kicks. Then he went into a funk from 2005-2007 where he only converted about 75%. Last year for the 49ers at the ripe old age of 38, he converted an awful 69%, and he's not guaranteed a gig in 2013 because of it. I bring this up for a...