The Falcons have terminated the contract of Ra'Shede Hageman, and so begins the day of predictions in the NFL on my page. I want to talk about how every team might do this season because I know full well that I will not be right by the end. However, it will be good to have something that I can look back on as I make predictions for the future. I want to ensure that this is a place that I can have some kind of catalog what I have said, and I want you to know that I am thinking of what the predictions were when I wrote them. Terminating this contract means The Falcons are solid on defense.
How solid are they, though?
They are not beholden to him
The Falcons could have easily thought that they spent a fairly high draft pick on this guy, and they could have tried to keep him around while leaving him on the exempt list. That would have been easy to do, and we would have forgotten all about it. The simple fact is that they decided to get rid of him because they are not going to be beholden to any one player. I think that is really smart, and I hope that he can go out and get some help. Now we have to decide if the Falcons can come back to their winning ways. Based on their division, their roster, and their schedule, we will see what happens.
The offense
They will score a million points this season without even trying, but I have to know if the Falcons will be as good as they were last year.
I want to see them come right out of the gate with a big first game, and I want them to show us that they are no worse than they were last year. Give me a circus catch from Julio Jones, and give me a much better offensive line. These things will tell me that they will be hard to beat again this season.
The defense
The defense has to improve because they were only OK last season without being great.
The offense carried the Falcons, and the defense is what gave up the late lead in the Super Bowl. We could all see that they were to blame for much of that massive collapse, and they have to be much better than they were last season. They could lose the first game, but they should lose it while their defense looks great. They need to lose because of bad breaks and not bad play.
If the defense looks bad, you need to be afraid as a Falcons fan.
I believe the Falcons will make the playoffs, but I am not sure if they will win this division. For my money, I will say they win the division, but only just so because they will be competing with another resurgent team near them that could make a repeat division crown very hard to win.
