Injury bug has made an eventful return to the Atlanta Falcons

The success of the Atlanta Falcons will depend on two things happening: the offensive line protecting our franchise quarterback and the health of the defense.

If you watched the Atlanta Falcons preseason game Thursday night against the Jets, you witnessed Matt Ryan get hit 11 times in the four series that he appeared and some key players left in the first half with injuries.

Damontae Kazee and Kendall Sheffield both went down with injuries that don’t appear to be serious, but as a fan of the team, you can’t help but think “Oh no, not again.”

Kazee suffered an injury to his ribs and was later revealed he had no broken bones, which is a great, but if he has to miss any significant time during the season, that would severely hamper the secondary.

In the case of Kendall Sheffield, he was in the game to replace Kazee and ended up injuring his hamstring which is not something to play with and can be one of the trickier injuries to have.

The Atlanta Falcons had to release Stephone Anthony, a signing that lots of fans were excited about to make room for another cornerback, former Jaguar Jalen Myrick.

Make all the fun you want about the 0-3 preseason record for the Falcons and the 11 straight preseason losses altogether but at the end of the day, it’s time for the Falcons to chill on playing our key players in the preseason.

The NFL is not a place where you can just go sign someone to fill a void left by your star players. At the end of the day, the only record that matters is the regular season.

The Falcons already lost Kurt Benkert for a significant period of time and there was no doubt he was going to win the backup quarterback spot. There are teams already losing key players and Falcons need to play it safe and smart and not let our key contributors play a lot; if not at all during the preseason.