Former Falcon great Terance Mathis might be looking over his shoulder.
(source: YardBarker)

Terance Mathis, Steve Bartkowski and Gerald Riggs. Those three names have been the all-time leaders in all the major offensive categories for the Atlanta Falcons.

With Roddy White, Matt Ryan and Michael Turner in tow, how long can their records stand? With the Falcons first regular season game less than 100 days away, we are a little more than three months away from seeing Tony Gonzalez become the seventh player – and first tight end – to catch 1,000 passes. In addition, he’ll likely move into the top 10 in touchdown catches (he’s currently 18th).

White needs only 511 yards to reach 5,000 for his career. With those milestones in mind, I thought it would be interesting to see what Falcon-specific milestones could fall. Hit the jump to see which records could fall.

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Matt Ryan wonders if he'll make this team someday. (source: Yardbarker)

I’ve been a fan of the NFL for more years than I haven’t. The 2010 season will be the 24th season I have real, actual memories of watching football. It dates back to my first memories of the 1987 season that concluded with the Redskins dismantling the Broncos in Super Bowl XXII.

This will be the 10th year I’ve written about sports, in some capacity or another. I say all that to say, I am a relatively new Falcons fan. In the past I’ve followed the Falcons as I would any other team in the league but recently I have come to define the term fanatic.

In March I started writing for a tremendous fantasy football site and was assigned the Atlanta Falcons beat. The following month I took over this blog. During that time I have spent every waking hour learning the history of this franchise – the struggles, the triumphs and all the in-betweens.

Now that I am a full-blown, red-and-black, dirty bird dancing fool, I wanted to pay respects to the players who’ve come before. That’s the genesis of this project. To determine the greatest players ever to put on a Falcons uniform.

This list will probably cause disagreement among some or vehement outrage among others. There may be cheers and parades thrown in my honor – or more vehement outrage. You get the idea.

If you are a Falcons fan, if no one else can understand, and if you click the jump, maybe you can read… The All-Time Atlanta Falcons Team.

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