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Falcons to interview linebacker Manti Te'o
By D. Orlando Ledbetter


INDIANAPOLIS – The Falcons, who played last season with five linebackers, plan to interview Notre Dame linebacker Manti Te’o at the NFL scouting combine, general manager Thomas Dimitroff said Friday.

Te’o, the player who was involved in an intricate internet dating hoax, is considered one of the top inside linebackers in the draft and likely will not be available with the Falcons pick with the 30th overall pick.

“What I’ll saw about the Manti Te’o situation is that it’s about us and our responsibility as team builders to break down the situation and determine what truly is the truth,” Dimitroff said. “Let’s do our research on him. Let’s not all over react and start throwing darts at him.”

Te’o is scheduled to speak to the media on Saturday. He will be heavily scrutinized like Ohio State’s Maurice Clarett, Florida’s Tim Tebow and Auburn’s Cam Newton were when they spoke at the combine.

“In this situation, this player is a good football player,” Dimitroff said. “He’ll potentially have a long future in this business. It’s up to us to determine what is right for us as a team.”

Dimitroff has given his instructions on how to conduct the interview.

“I discussed this with our guys,” Dimitroff said. “He’ll be interviewed by someone from our team. We have a massive congregation here. We have our scouts and our coaches here. We’ll get an opportunity to talk with him and break down the situation. . . .It’s up to us to drill down and get to the specifics.”

The Falcons will not request his phone records.

“I think that would be out of the ordinary,” Dimitroff said.

okay, if he falls to the fourth round, do you take a chance on the Polynesian Amnesian?

(In typical Falcons fashion, we will trade up to get 'Keith Brooking 2.0'. Just imagine the boner Arthur would get with this guy running point on 'community involvement' )

He's a better football player than Dent, thus would be an upgrade. The question is how good a player Te'o would be in the Falcons offense to merit the Top 50 pick that he probably will be (assuming he doesn't have a terrible Combine).

Due diligence, probably not legit interest.

I would hope not. I would hope that the Falcons are looking at TE's, OLB's, DT's, and OL's. Hopefully, they are not looking to trade the farm for one of the top DE's.

Ran the 40 in 4.8 seconds, his stock is sinking fast. To think that he was actually thought of as a top ten pick. When he sees where he goes he will be madder than a Alabama Catfish nailed to a Georgia pine tree (Too much Lizard Lick towing ).

I dont think using the first pick on a DE is necessarily a bad idea. I do think using that pick on a TE is a bad idea, as even if Tony DOES decide to bail, it's not like the cupboard is bare. If Tony does return, using that pick now when our clear issue last season was outside rush seems wierd to me. I feel we did 'okay' in secondary and front 4 on the D: we just didn't have anything on the outside. And with the QB guys we played against the last two games that would have made a difference, IMO.

But: Manti stinks. Better then Dent? Really? Im not so sure....

I don't want to see us reach for a DE late in the 1st and end up with another JA98.

Picking so late in the first round, we need to be drafting BPA that fits our scheme. There will be plenty of talent that will drop, talent that would make an impact for our team. But if we get our hearts set on a DE, and all of the good DE's are gone, we'll just be digging a deeper talent hole. We are not that far off from being a superbowl team. We need to be getting impact players with our top picks.

We might have to get creative to fix the pass rush issue. We're certainly not going to fix it where we're drafting.

well, I see your point. IMO, the biggest issues are : DE,OL and RB (or TE if Tony goes ). In that order..

here are the FA:


http://www.theredzone.org/showposition.aspx?position=DE

here are the draft prospects:

http://walterfootball.com/draft2013DE.php

Lets see what kinda rabbit TD pulls out of his hat

I'm hoping we can somehow land either OG Cooper or OT Fluker (and push Clabo to RG). Even if it means trading up a few spots. That should solidify the OL.

LT - Baker (although I'd like to see someone else..)
LG - Blalock
C - Konz
RG - Clabo/Cooper
RT - Fluker/Clabo

This would mean that Lamar Holmes was a wasted pick if he is not in the mix to start somewhere on the O-line.

It's hard for me to judge Holmes... He hasn't seen the field. I guess we'll know soon enough what the team thinks of him.

If he becomest the next Mike Johnson I will be pissed seeing that we passed on players like T.Y. Hilton, Jayron Hosely, Brandon Thompson, Lamar Miller, Bernard Pierce, and Frank Alexander.

James Laurinaitis.

Going into his senior year, some people had him No. 1 overall on their draft boards. But Laurinaitis was also exposed in the championship game vs. LSU in '08 (when he was a junior). But after a solid, but unspectacular senior year, he fell on draft boards. Didn't test particularly well, and they kept debating leading up to the draft whether he deserved to be a late 1st or early 2nd. Remember, there was even a point where the Falcons were linked to possibly drafting him late in Round 1 before they ultimately went out and signed Mike Peterson.


Not necessarily. It depends on how the Falcons structure Baker's deal. Thomas DeCoud got a 5-yr. deal from the Falcons last off-season, but the way it was structured was that the cap hits in Years 1 & 2 were pretty low, with a significant hike in Year 3 which would remain about the same for Years 4 & 5. If Baker gets the same, which basically means that instead of signing a 5-yr. deal, he's in essence signing a 2-yr. "prove it" deal, where he's going to have to prove that 2012 wasn't an aberration and that he can maintain that play for 2013 & 2014, thus to merit whatever the pay hike that is to come in 2015. Guess what? Lamar Holmes final year on his rookie deal is 2015, so it could be the opportune time to toss him the keys.

In the meantime, Clabo's deal also runs through 2015. But guess what, his cap hits for 2013, 2014, & 2015 are all the same: about $6 million. And none of it is guaranteed. So if Clabo's age starts to catch up with him and he starts to take another step or two back after this year, then the Falcons have no obstacle to cut him and plug in Holmes. LIke, the Falcons could cut Clabo after this upcoming season and save nearly $3 million in cap space against the 2014 cap.

So Holmes will still have options even if the Falcons retain Baker and Clabo. The key for him is that he has to keep improving and working everyday and if the coaches are aware of this, eventually they'll give him his shot sooner rather than later.