Mid-Season Falcons Grades – Wide Receivers and Tight Ends

This is the final installment of Blogging Dirty’s mid-season grades. We have already graded the Defensive Line,Linebackers, Defensive Backs, Offensive Line and QBs/RBs.

Now it is the turn of the Falcons Wide Receivers and Tight Ends.

• WR Julio Jones (A-) – Julio has made an incredibly promising start to his Atlanta Falcon career. Snagging 25 catches for 358 yards in only four and a half games. His only slight issue is he hasn’t got into the endzone yet. However I don’t expect to be waiting long for that to happen, as he is now healthy and back at practice.

• WR Roddy White (B+) – The drops is what is holding back Roddy’s grade. He had two opportunities to make key catches in the Tampa game, which would have arguablly won the game for us. Even so through 7 games he has 39 catches for 425 yards and 3TDs. However he is still a very dependable WR that Defenses must double team. It should also be noted he has been suffering from a thigh injury, that has put out the timing between him and Ryan somewhat. He is now 100% healthy and should be back to his all-pro best during the second half of the season.
• WR Harry Douglass (B) – While he hasn’t broken out and had an incredible season, like i was hoping. HD is still carving a decent season (17 catches 199 yards) for himself out of the slot. He has impressed the most in the past two games filling in for Julio Jones. The pass play against the Panthers, where he caught Matt Ryan’s incredible pass was one of the plays of the season for me.
• WR Kerry Meier (C) – Another receiver I was expecting to take a bigger role. Unfortunately it just hasn’t happened I expect the knee injury that put him on IR last year is still plaguing him. A full training camp, should get him up to speed next season.
• WR/ KR Eric Weems (C) – Although he hasn’t took a kick or a punt back for a touchdown he has done ok in return yardage. His poor decisions early in the season in the punting game, was very frustrating for the Falcons, giving up valuable field position by not opting to fair catch the ball, and letting it bounce closer to the endzone. His production on offense has been awful considering the amount of snaps he has played recently. He has 1 catch for 4 yards, despite getting quite a few snaps. In the Panthers game alone playing about 35% of the offensive snaps, so you are expecting a lot more production than he has given the Falcons so far this season.
• TE Tony Gonzalez (A) – What a terrific season Tony G is having. Despite his age he has still remained a very dangerous weapon on third down and every other down come to think of it. He has also been the Falcons main redzone passing threat so far with 4TDs.  He has 35 for 380 yards so far this season and is now 2nd all time on the NFL receptions list.
• TE Reggie Kelly (B) – Although he is no more than a run blocker for this offense, he deserves a B because of the level of his play. Reggie is also a great character guy, that the Falcons love to have around.
• TE Michael Palmer (B-) – Another Falcons’ pass catches i was hoping for signs of improvement from. On the year he has had 3 catches for 18 yards, which is not great at all. However in his defense he is still young and has got good potential, he also hasn’t had that many opportunities to run routes this season.

This was the final installment in the mini series on Blogging Dirty. We really value your feedback and want your input. If you would like to get in touch and send us some feedback, send an email to jamie.bloggingdirty@gmail.com.