The Falcons Offense Might Be More Worse Off Than We Think

In 2016 the Atlanta Falcons offensive unit took the NFL by storm, leading the league in points scored under Offensive Coordinator Kyle Shanahan.

Things are set to change this coming season for the Falcons, as Shanahan is now Head Coach for the San Francisco 49ers, and will be replaced by Steve Sarkisian. But that’s about where the changes for the Falcons stop.

The Falcons offense has retained every cog that helped it run from last season, apart from the retirement of Guard Chris Chester. This offense has every tool available to it to succeed – especially that extra-terrestrial creature named Julio Jones.

In Shanahan’s outside zone blocking run game and west coast centric passing offense, the Falcons earned the highest offensive DVOA ranking from profootballoutsiders.com last season. They held the number one passing DVOA and sixth rushing DVOA if anyone was wondering.

With achievements like that, many pundits expect the Falcons to be right back in the mix to dominate on offense even with the loss of Shanahan. But replacing Shanahan with Sarksian isn’t a small matter to be overlooked.

For one, Sarkisian doesn’t even run the same offensive scheme as Shanahan. Sarkisian is more of the new school offensive mind, incorporating option concepts and running his offenses mostly out of gun and pistol formations.

Shanahan on the other hand, borrows from his father Mike Shanahan, and former Broncos Head Coach Gary Kubiak, running an offense that is a steady mix of gun and under center formations.

The run game under Sarkisian will be a different beast entirely than with Shanahan. Looking back to Sarkisian’s last meaningful coaching stint at the Uninveristy of Washington, he had a dominant run game in the form of Bishop Sankey.

But the way Sarkisian employed Sankey is much different to how Shanahan employed Atlanta’s duo of Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman. Atlanta’s favorite run play was the outside stretch play. They lit up the NFL running it last season:

But those types of plays don’t’ fit in Sarkisians system. Sarkisian banged Sankey up the middle, and ran pre-snap read option plays to keep defenses on their toes at Washington:

Here’s the thing – I know that Freeman and Coleman are worlds better than Sankey. Hell, I probably am. But Sarkisian’s scheme is probably one of the worst in the league for the tandem for one simple fact – it relies on having a mobile quarterback.

Now hold your horses, I know Matt Ryan had a pretty agile scramble in the NFC championship game this year:

but let’s be honest – it’s not like he’s Russell Wilson or anything. But in all fairness Ryan was a triple option quarterback in high school.

Ryan was lights out for the Falcons last year, and deservedly, he was rewarded the MVP. But a lot of his success came off the fact that the Falcons had one of the most efficient rushing offenses in the NFL.

I’m not saying Freeman and Coleman are bad by any stretch, or Ryan won’t succeed with the weapons he has. I’m just very skeptical that they’ll be able to be anywhere close to where they were last year offensively.

Only time will tell how Sarkisian will handle the offense, but I don’t think it’ll end up very well.