How Steve Sarkisian fits with the Atlanta Falcons

Despite the departures of Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur this offseason, this Atlanta Falcons offense won’t skip a beat under new offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian.

The departures of assistant coaches Kyle Shanahan and Matt LaFleur put a lot of pressure on the Atlanta Falcons. After a great campaign that saw a league-leading offense, they needed to find someone who could match the level of production from a year ago.

Without wasting much time, the Falcons hired Steve Sarkisian, who had called only one game at Alabama a year after being fired at USC.

Sarkisian runs a hurry-up, no huddle, spread offense that places an emphasis on packaged concepts. This type of offense is advantageous to teams that have superior cohesion and talent, an apt description of the Falcons current roster.

Philosophy-wise, this is right along the lines of what Shanahan was building during his time in Atlanta. As the offense has players mostly in their primes, it was important to have a smooth transition to make sure their championship window stays open.

Even though Sarkisian is primarily known for developing quarterbacks like Cody Kessler and Jake Locker into NFL prospects, every season he was a head coach he produced a 1,000-yard rusher at the college level.

Using comparative stats, we find that in his first year at Washington, Sarkisian inherited a run game that was 32 yards below average. In just one season, Sarkisian took that deficit and brought his average to -1.6, an astounding leap.

With the run game successful, the play-action pass becomes key. Sarkisian is a master of this according to ProFootballFocus, Sarkisian used play action on 35.8 percent of his passes, the sixth-highest rate in the country during his 2014 season at USC.

During his time in Atlanta, Shanahan had balanced the offense beautifully. With Sarkisian, this should continue if his college days are an indication.

An earlier term that some may not be familiar with are packaged plays. Packaged plays allow a team to run a simple offense in the hurry-up that attacks multiple parts of the field. For those Falcons’ fans that were happy that the Falcons didn’t pick up Chip Kelly, you didn’t get the guy, you got his concepts.

On any given play, Matt Ryan will have three to four options at his disposal. He can hand the ball off, throw a screen, or hit someone down the field. It will be up to Ryan to read the alley defender, determine where he has the numerical advantage, and hit the open man.

With this offense, Sarkisian made Locker look so good that he was drafted with the eighth-overall pick in 2011 while Chip Kelly guided Nick Foles to the second best TD/INT ratio of all-time in 2013. With all of the weapons that Ryan has at his disposal, he is going to put up serious numbers.

An important thing to note is that Sarkisian is not coming into the same situation that Shanahan had last year. Yes, he has some massive shoes to fill, but he will not face the same pressure to score as often as Shanahan did.

Next: 2017 NFL Draft: Atlanta Falcons final grade

With the return of Desmond Trufant, and the additions of Dontari Poe, Takkarist McKinley, Jack Crawford, Damontae Kazee, and Duke Riley, this defense will be able to handle the increased responsibility that comes when your offense plays fast.

Opposing defenses beware, these Falcons are no one-hit wonder.