{"id":1670,"date":"2009-09-03T06:00:04","date_gmt":"2009-09-03T11:00:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2009\/09\/03\/tough-falcons-schedule-features-four-teams-coming-off-bye-weeks\/"},"modified":"2010-06-05T05:16:29","modified_gmt":"2010-06-05T10:16:29","slug":"tough-falcons-schedule-features-four-teams-coming-off-bye-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2009\/09\/03\/tough-falcons-schedule-features-four-teams-coming-off-bye-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Tough Falcons schedule features four teams coming off bye weeks."},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I am sure everyone else has noticed that the Falcons 2008 Playoff run was rewarded with a much tougher 2009 schedule.  Making matters worse, is that the Falcons face four difficult games in a six week stretch where Atlanta faces teams coming off a bye week.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chicago Bears (Oct 18)<\/li>\n<li>at Dallas Cowboys (Oct 25)<\/li>\n<li>Washington Redskins (Nov 8th)<\/li>\n<li>New York Giants (Nov 22)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I think the Falcons are going to be in for a rough time if you consider (A) the schedule is difficult (B) the schedule features four teams that get extra time to prep and heal up before facing the Falcons (C) the secondary sucks (D) the defensive line does not have anyone to compliment John Abraham.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe (C) the secondary sucks \u2013 will change with the <a href=\"http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/nfcsouth\/post\/_\/id\/2371\/analyzing-the-hill-trade-by-the-falcons\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'http:\/\/espn.go.com\/blog\/nfcsouth\/post\/_\/id\/2371\/analyzing-the-hill-trade-by-the-falcons', 'acquisition of Ty Hill');\" target=\"new\">acquisition of Ty Hill<\/a>, but until I see him in action, I do not have high hopes.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Hill is a guy who still has some upside. In fact, Hill is the kind of first-round talent the Falcons haven\u2019t had on their roster since \u2026 well, DeAngelo Hall, but that\u2019s a bad example. Atlanta went through last season kind of patching things together at cornerback and they seemed destined to do the same thing this year.<\/p>\n<p>They didn\u2019t have any blue-chip corners and appeared ready to go into the season with Chris Houston and Brent Grimes as the starters and rookie Chris Owens and second-year pro Chevis Jackson as the backups. Houston\u2019s been good at times, but not so good at other times. He came into the league as a second-round draft pick and Grimes came in as an undrafted free agent. Owens and Jackson were third-round choices.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>So now the questions are \u2013 can Hill perform and what did the Falcons have to give up?<\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a>\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\nif(wpa2a)wpa2a.script_load();\n\/\/--><\/script>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am sure everyone else has noticed that the Falcons 2008 Playoff run was rewarded with a much tougher 2009 schedule. Making matters worse, is that the Falcons face four difficult games in a six week stretch where Atlanta faces teams coming off a bye week. Chicago Bears (Oct 18) at Dallas Cowboys (Oct 25) &hellip; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/2009\/09\/03\/tough-falcons-schedule-features-four-teams-coming-off-bye-weeks\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Tough Falcons schedule features four teams coming off bye weeks.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"addtoany_share_save_container addtoany_content_bottom\"><div class=\"a2a_kit a2a_kit_size_ addtoany_list a2a_target\" id=\"wpa2a_2\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share\" onclick=\"__gaTracker('send', 'event', 'outbound-article', 'https:\/\/www.addtoany.com\/share', '');\" class=\"a2a_dd addtoany_share_save\"><img src=\"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-content\/plugins\/add-to-any\/share_save_171_16.png\" width=\"171\" height=\"16\" alt=\"Share\"\/><\/a><\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,29],"class_list":["post-1670","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-nfl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1670"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2731,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1670\/revisions\/2731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.calvertgames.com\/cgblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}