Mike Smith does not find Jack Del Rio's kicker joke very funny.

The Atlanta Falcons travel to EverBank Field to play the Jacksonville Jaguars this evening. It is the last preseason game and the end of the road for 20 or so Atlanta Falcons. The last chance to change – or enforce – a coach’s opinion of you. The Falcons are loaded at the key positions but let’s take a peek at the bubble guys we should be keeping an eye on in this one.

Dust off that old “Rudy” DVD and hit the jump for more.

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In today’s edition, the Atlanta Falcons’ special teams take center stage. Matt Bryant is on the hotseat and Sports Illustrated and The Falcoholic dissect what that means for Today’s game against the Jaguars.

Hit the jump for the linky goodness.

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Since 2000, the number of starting quarterbacks each NFL team has had. Enjoy.

Can Dunta bring an NFC title to Atlanta? Football Outsiders thinks so.

In the NFC, the Atlanta Falcons will be crowned in 2010. At least, according to Football Outsiders, via ESPN. Let them explain how they reached that conclusion:

Who’ll wrangle their way into Cowboys Stadium next February? The Mag eyeballs the NFC candidates below, and Football Outsiders adds graphs that chart the percentage of times each team finished with every possible regular-season win total over 10,000 FBO season simulations.

Hit the jump for all the juicy details.

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I mentioned last week the inspiration for this column was from fellow Fansided blogger, Arrowhead Addict. Lead blogger, Patrick Allen, calls his feature The Morning Fix. I’m still trying to find the right name and hope I do before too many of these run. Today, we’re calling it, “The Falcons Around the Web.”

Hope you enjoy.

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And that’s what Falcons do! I’ll have my quick hit observations on the game up later but in the meantime, enjoy a spin around the web via the Falcons.

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“I thought we did a nice job attacking the ball,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said.

Middle linebacker Curtis Lofton was the strong, finishing with 11 tackles. So was Lawrence Sidbury, who had a sack, two hits on Dolphins QB Chad Henne and a fumble recovery. And Erik Coleman intercepted a pass in the end zone

Key stat: The Dolphins were 1-of-9 on third and fourth downs. That’s a good sign for a Falcons defense that is targeting improvement after finishing 23rd in the NFL last season.

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Lawrence Sidbury had a sack, two quarterback hits and a tackle for a loss. The Falcons (2-1) are hoping for defensive improvement after ranking 23rd in the NFL last year in yards allowed per play despite a 9-7 record.

Atlanta’s Matt Ryan threw his first touchdown pass of the exhibition season. He led scoring drives of 60 and 54 yards, the second of which took more than seven minutes.

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NO THIRD DOWN WOES: The first-team defense, mostly blitzing out of a 3-3-5 nickel package, was stout on third down in the first half. The Dolphins converted only 1 of 7 third down situations.

Improving on third downs has been a point of emphasis after the Falcons led the league in allowing teams to convert on third down 45 percent (97 of 214) of the time. Indianapolis (104 of 231) and Jacksonville (94 of 209) were also at 45 percent.

The Dolphins only first-half conversion came on a 20-yard pass to Brandon Marshall in the last drive before halftime.

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The lead blogger over at Arrowhead Addict, Patrick Allen, has a great feature called “The Morning Fix.” In it, he links to a collection of different articles from around the web. In his case it’s focused on the Chiefs. In my case, it will, obviously, be focused on the Falcons.

My goal is to run this each day and hopefully give everyone a wider perspective on the Falcons from around the web. Hit the jump to head down the rabbit hole.

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In Week 1 last year. the Falcons defeated the Dolphins, 19-7.

The Atlanta Falcons travel to Sun Life stadium on Friday to play the Miami Dolphins in the third week of preseason football. Brian Miller of the Fansided blog, Phin Phanatic, offered to give some insight into what we can expect from the Dolphins and which players to keep an eye on. I returned the favor the Falcons which you can find on his site.

Hit the jump for five questions of insight.

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I'm not beneath using pictures of cheerleaders to drive traffic.

As is the case with anything these days, there are many ways to communicate with Blogging Dirty. You can leave a comment on any post, find me on Facebook, send an email direct or interact via Twitter. For those who frequent only the site or stay up to date through your RSS reader, you might be missing some of the extra content I deliver through Twitter.

Hit the jump to read some the unique statistics and facts I’ve posted. To stay up to date on future tweets, you can follow me @FalconsTroy. If you already do, thank you and feel free to review any of the following you may have missed.

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Forcing turnovers can define success.

We’ve all heard the old adage that offense sells tickets but defense wins championships. What if it’s neither? Sure offense and defense and special teams are all important but there’s something that affects all three aspects: turnovers.

An NFL team cannot expect to win on a consistent basis when they turn the ball over more than their opponent. Since 2008, teams that win the turnover battle are 340-96-1. That’s a winning percentage of 78%.

So which teams have been consistently winning the turnover margin? Not surprisingly it’s the same ones who finish the year near the top of the standings. Hit the jump for all the turnover goodness.

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