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http://twitter.com/DOrlandoLED/statuses/19654790888

And FYI, Welker was placed on the PUP today: http://twitter.com/MikeReiss/statuses/19656014513

Well, that's a relief! Here's hoping they can stay relatively healthy with no further injuries!

This is great news, hopefully Smith works them along slowly and gets them into at least one pre season game. These three men will be an essential part to the team this year, well at least Douglas and Jerry will. Williams might not make the team, although I doubt it as Smith really likes him.

Williams will eventually take Coleman's spot.... Its just a matter of how much time IMO.

Williams? Or Moore?

I don't think Williams will even make the roster: http://falcfans.com/?p=2566

My mistake I of course meant Moore.

I was the one who loved Williams last year and thought he was going to have a career year, but I don't see
him bouncing back from bad surgery at his age or position.

Cyril, I'm curious - what has Moore shown you that makes you confident he will be better than Coleman?

I realize my name isn't Cyril, but I'll just pretend that it is.

And your skepticism is understandable Steve, because I'm assuming you didn't see Moore at Mizzou. And he's done next to nothing as a Falcon. He played in 1 preseason game (1 tackle), and 2 regular season games only on special teams (1 special teams tackle).

Some Mizzou highlights to wet your whistle:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tITCKN_Iogs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCGLk4mKnho

And then when you consider that Erik Coleman isn't a great fit at SS and is a much better FS then you understand that the team would like to see another player in that role. That player is Moore because IMHO, he fits very well in what this team asks its SS to do which is to play deep zone, cover TEs (mostly), and play the run up near the box.

He's bigger, faster, and stronger than Coleman, which means he should be a better matchup in coverage and a better run defender as well.

Not to mention that every 1st and 2nd round pick taken so far in TD's short tenure has been counted on to be a starter, one expects they will give the same opportunity to Moore in the near future.

Thanks Pudge, we've talked enough about Moore that I know you are high on him because of what he did in college, and that you're not concerned that he was kept off the field by multiple minor injuries.

Personally, after watching draft picks bust out for several decades now (for all teams, not just the Falcons) I tend to throw a player's college career out the window after he's been drafted. Instead, I give weight to how he performs on the field, and I watch closely how the coaching staff treats him as a rookie. By those 2 criteria, Moore hasn't impressed, and in fact he was a disappointment as a rookie, in that the coaching staff gave up on him and put him on IR when he hadn't suffered a major injury.

This doesn't mean that Moore won't turn things around - it's not uncommon in the NFL, especially for 2nd round draft picks, since there is some implicit pressure to get them on the field. I just haven't seen anything that makes me think Moore is going to displace Coleman anytime soon, so I was wondering if maybe Cyril has seen something I haven't.

Put another way: I'm significantly less confident that Moore will become a solid starter for the Falcons than I was at this time last year.

Yeah, but I'm sure you (and many others including myself) had similar feelings to Thomas DeCoud, who played like 2 total snaps on defense as a rookie, was a 3rd round pick, and was expected to compete with an incoming 2nd round pick (Moore). All the signs a year ago pointed that DeCoud wasn't going to be anything special, and look how that turned out.

You're right, that plenty of good, talented players have come into the league and fizzled.

Personally, I don't think that the coaches "giving up" on him last year is as glaring a negative indicator as you think it is. They needed a roster spot. And at the time were getting fairly solid play from their starters: DeCoud & Coleman. The Falcons don't rotate their safeties, so unless one of the starters got hurt, Moore wasn't going to play much of anything besides special teams even if they kept him on the roster.

So I don't think it was as much as the team giving up on him, but taking a calculated risk that the potential value Moore may have provided in December (assuming that he would have missed most/all of November recovering from the injury) didn't outweigh the immediate value/need for another RB (Stecker).

Don't forget... Pudge has a man crush on Moore as well. His opinion is strongly skewed!