New Recruits work with Seasoned Veterans to build excitement and Anticipation for 2024
Interviews by April Miller, Brian Weiss | Photos by Tim O’Brien, Angela Veugeler, Tyler Veugeler, & Alyssa Kang
Football is back, and nobody does it better than we do here in the South. The Atlanta Falcons are set to kick off their regular season against the Steelers on September 9th, and with new head coach Raheem Morris and the addition of veteran quarterback Kirk Cousins, the excitement is through the roof. We recently had the opportunity to attend training camp and speak with Morris and Cousins, along with key players Grady Jarrett, Chris Lindstrom, and Jessie Bates III, to learn more about what fans can expect this season. Buckle up — Sundays in Georgia are all about the Dirty Birds, and with these new additions, it looks like we’re in for a great season.
Q&A:
QB KIRK COUSINS
How is your relationship with Jessie Bates developing? As with so many teammates, I need to get to know him more. There is a lot more to go, but I have a lot of respect for him as a football player. There are guys in this league that are great players, but they don’t really impact anybody else around them. I feel like Jessie goes beyond being just a great player; he affects the whole secondary, the whole defense. I think that’s when you feel like you have a guy that’s going from a good player to a great player because he’s affecting the whole unit. He also has a humility to his work. He certainly has a swagger but it’s not like he’s always “look at me.” He’s just going to do his job and be a pro and try to help people along the way. He also asked to watch film together which tells you something. Just the fact that he would ask and in doing so, I felt like I learned maybe more than he learned from me. So, we need to do more of that. He’s also going to be a bit of a thorn in my side during training camp because of the disguises, because of the messy looks.
I stopped trying to discern the coverage during the play a long time ago during OTAs because it was that muddy. I felt like I’m better off just looking for open spaces and going through my progressions because if I try to figure out what these coverages are, I’m going to be waiting a long time. I could talk a long time about Jessie, but I’m excited to watch him in games this year. And the last thing I’ll say about him is- I’m going to buy his jersey for my kids. I’m probably going to buy a Grady Jarrett jersey for my boys. If that gives you any idea of who I want my kids to be like, who I want them to wear jerseys of, it will be Jessie Bates and Grady Jarrett.
What can the Go-Pro camera do for your continued development as a player? I think it’s a great tool for the coaches to be able to hear the play come into my helmet, so they know what was communicated. They can hear me communicate it to the huddle. They can hear anything else said in the huddle, and it’s just one more tool to provide information and feedback for me. I can better feel how I come across. I’ve got to tell you; I’ll say a joke that I thought was pretty funny at the time. Then, I’ll go back and listen to it [on the GoPro] and think, “Don’t say that.” I thought I was cool, but after watching the video I’m like, “I’m a nerd.” I joke and say that it’s kind of like the KGB because you guys listen to everything I say. The huddle used to be my time but now you guys are in there listening, and the huddle’s bugged. So, I tell my teammates, “You know, you guys are not getting let off the hook. If you say, ‘Hey, check, check, what’s the play, what do I have here?’ Now the whole building knows.” So, it’s probably more like a spy technique than anything else, but feedback is feedback and it’s just one more tool.
Working your way back from a major injury, where are you mentally? I’ll be okay, the strength is there. If anything, I feel really good, because you’re wondering if you’re going to have to do it with your heel on the ground or not being able to get on your toe. Now that you can, you say, “This is gravy, I’m back to my athletic self from before.” So that’s a real positive. I expect to be able to go and make the throws and by doing that, that’s how it’s going to get stronger, and that’s how I’m going to be able to keep closing the doors, just by playing football.
What are your thoughts on the locker room and upgraded facilities? It’s very nice. The cafeteria is outstanding. The weight room is outstanding. It’s just a good-looking facility. It’s a privilege to come to work here. They asked the veterans where you want to be in the locker room. And so, it’s kind of a big decision. It’s like, “Who are my neighbors and how close am I to the refrigerator?” So, I tried to get the best real estate I could. I got Nate Landman, Darnell Mooney, and Grady Jarrett. So, I got some good neighbors, and I told them we’re kind of out in the suburbs, but it’s a good neighborhood.
What’s it like adjusting to a new city and team? I think it’s the football, you know? I think the off-the-field stuff is, well, there’s a lot. My wife handled it ell. We were familiar with the city. It’s more that, I used to run this play in my sleep but now we call it something different. There’s a bit of a change in the depth of this guy. We have a little bit of a way of reading it different. And so, you have to not only learn the new stuff, but you have to unwire the old. That change is always challenging. But it comes with the territory, and I did it once before going to Minnesota as a new player and I’ll do it again.
Safety JESSIE BATES III
How does the first day of training camp feel? Everything is almost like a fresh start. For me, I woke up this morning and it was almost like a game day. With the nerves and this being my seventh year and seventh training camp — it still feels like my first. Mentally, we are excited… every year stuff changes but you just never take this for granted. Being able to walk into this building with great people and a great organization, it’s a new beginning with new opportunities this year. It’s a very exciting time.
What is your favorite book? Coach Jerry Gray gave us a book called The Twin Thieves, it talks about the fear of failing and the fear of judging. And I think that is pretty big this season and my goal of leadership. There are multiple books I read to continue to grow myself as a person and so I can pass that along to my family.
What’s it like watching film with Kirk Cousins? To get to see what Kirk is thinking and how he processes things, I think that will help not just myself but our defense and other guys in our DB room as well. That time is very helpful for me, and I can pass that on to DeMarcco (Hellams) or Richie (Grant) or any of the other guys on our defense. Kirk’s value as a person for this team is going to be huge.
Guard CHRIS LINDSTROM
What are you most looking forward to with this training camp? The culture here is really fantastic and that’s one of the best parts. There are so many people pulling in the same direction. There is energy in the building. I don’t know if you guys feel it as well. It is an exciting time, and I think that’s the part I’m looking forward to most. I know there are expectations, that’s the best thing. You play this game to win and I’m really looking forward to it.
Do you have any advice for parents on specialized training for young kids? I’m a huge proponent of playing other sports. Some sports are different, you can’t go into gymnastics at 18 years old, but football is a sport where you can see how many success stories in the NFL are people picking it up at 16 or 17 years old, or guys who were in the NBA or college basketball players who figured it out. It’s really fortunate that football is one of those things where obviously there is the genetic aspect of it to play at the high level, but a lot of it is determination and hard work, and the way you play can make up for a lot of it. I think cross-training is one of the biggest things. For me, I was a multi-sport athlete. I didn’t play football until 6th grade. I played basketball, baseball, and wrestling growing up.
I feel that especially in the offensive line there is cross-training and body mechanics. There are so many applicable skills. In basketball, you are playing a good position, moving your feet, not wasting motion. That translates to offensive line. There are technique differences, but all those motor skills are the same. I couldn’t be a bigger proponent of playing multiple sports, especially at a young age.
Defensive End GRADY JARRETT
What can we expect this season? We want it to be dynamic. We want to attack the quarterback. We want to get the ball off the quarterback, and we want to disrupt the pocket. However we do that — whether it’s four-man fronts, five-man blitzes, whatever it takes — that’s what we are willing to get done. I think there’s going to be a lot of different plans of attack, but everybody here in the building is capable of getting the job done.
Do you have any advice to young men looking to follow their dream and play in college? First and foremost, you have to believe in yourself wholeheartedly because to chase a dream and make it come true, there’s going to be a lot of obstacles. Whether that’s from another person or from circumstances from where you’re from, there’s going to be a lot more nos than yeses. But to achieve a dream, you can have 1,000 nos but all it takes is one yes. When that yes comes you need to be prepared, because some people get discouraged early if they get a no and they might not be prepared for that time when they get a yes. If they miss that opportunity, it might not come back ever again.
You got to have that self-belief and know that your time will come even if it doesn’t come when you think it’s going to come. You have to be ready for when it does because if you give up too early, you could be just about to strike gold and turn back the other way. So just self-belief, hard work, perseverance, and [knowing] nothing worth having comes overnight and the harder that you fight for it, the harder it’s going to be to let it go. If you get something too easy, too early, you won’t fight for it and it’s hard to keep it.
The hard work doesn’t go unnoticed. You have to trust the process, but also you need to push through. It ain’t going to be easy. You got to go above and beyond and take the steps that others aren’t willing to take to be able to achieve a dream, because no matter what industry you’re in, nobody chases something by themselves. You always have competition; somebody else is coming and you have to want it more.
If you want to run a business, you have to be willing to do the job of whoever the “lowest ranked” person at the building is, and you must be willing to do that 1,000 times over. You can’t expect anybody to be willing to do something you aren’t willing to do. You can’t be too good for anything — no entitlement, nothing. Everything is earned, hard work every day. You just got to grind it out and believe in yourself.
Head Coach RAHEEM MORRIS
What will Grady Jarrett returning from being injured add to the team? It makes me feel better seeing Grady. Grady lights up everything that he does, whether it is the meeting room, practice, the game- day situation, or a community event. Grady is Atlanta; he embodies everything that we are about. He defines our ethos. He’s what I want you guys to write about when you write about an Atlanta Falcons player. We got a couple guys with examples like that.
When you look at the factors you have on this team and are trying to determine what the most effective run game will be, what does that look like? Without giving away anything crazy, we have had a lot of success running the outside zone. You always have to be able to sprinkle in some of your other runs. Whether that’s gap schemes, some of your downhill runs, inside zones- some of those things. You’re always going to have a bread and butter, that’s what you rely on, and then we are always going to have our change-ups. And I think we always need to be open-minded to our change-ups. They need to evolve because you have to stay ahead of people because the people in this league are very smart. They do a great job of scanning you up. They do a great job of taking your strengths away, and you need to have your change-ups to keep people honest and keep people in place. That’s what we’ll do. We sit down in these rooms, all these beautiful minds upstairs together, and we come out of that room with a plan that we must be able to execute our run game. We come up with a plan. At the end of the day, sometimes you design a great play, and someone just makes it happen.
