The Falcons and Dolphins were two of the biggest surprises in the NFL last season, but it is Atlanta that will come closer to duplicating that success this year. Atlanta covers here.
Last season's two biggest surprise teams start of the regular season in 2009, but the Miami Dolphins appear to be headed downward this season more than the Atlanta Falcons do.
The Dolphins' Wildcat formation surprised the Patriots in week 3 last season and Miami's offense became a better than average unit the rest of the season, but quarterback Chad Pennington played at a higher level than he normally does (even after accounting for the fact that he's always played better in warm weather or indoors than he did in the cold of New York).
Pennington will still be a better than average quarterback and Miami's offense should still be better than average overall, but the defense could be a problem spot this year. The Dolphins were a slightly worse than average defensive team last season (5.4 yppl allowed to teams that would combine to average 5.3 yppl against an average team) but losing top cornerback Andre Goodman to Denver is a big blow to the secondary.
Goodman was among the better cover corners in the NFL last season, allowing just 6.4 yards per pass thrown to the man or zone he was responsible for and he broke up 21 passes and intercepted 5 balls. Former Arizona CB Eric Green was signed away from Arizona, but Green allowed 9.4 ypa last season. I expect Miami's pass defense to be a problem this season and Atlanta's Matt Ryan is certainly capable of taking advantage of that.
Ryan was great as a rookie, completing 61 percent of his passes for an average of 7.2 yards per pass play (against teams that would allow just 6.0 yppp to an average quarterback). Ryan has the luxury of having a good set of running backs in Michael Turner (1699 yards at 4.5 ypr) and Jerious Norwood (489 yards at 5.1 ypr) and the Falcons added the NFL's all-time greatest receiving tight end in Tony Gonzalez, who had another good year in Kansas City last year despite bad quarterbacking.
Atlanta's defense was 0.2 yppl worse than average last season and was horrible defending the run (4.9 ypr), and that unit should be just as bad in 2009. The Falcons should be better against the run but losing CB Dominique Foxworth (allowed just 5.1 ypa) will hurt the pass defense.
I still rate Atlanta as a better than average team overall, but Miami is likely to be worse than average from the line of scrimmage this season (they were only 0.1 yppl better than average overall last year) and the Dolphins aren't likely to be as lucky as they were in a 2008 season in which they led the league in turnover margin at +17.
Atlanta 27, Miami 20
Free Pick: Falcons -4 (-110)
© Copyright 2009. Reprinted with permission of the author