The hurdles the Falcons have to overcome this year are the kind that can’t necessarily be fixed by any one day on the practice field.
But they’re hoping they built enough of a bond last season that carries over as they try to recover from their disastrous Super Bowl collapse.
Toward that end, they had much higher attendance in the past for last week’s “Camp Brotherhood,” which began as a typical passing camp with quarterback Matt Ryan and his receivers working together for a few days, but has branched out to include linemen and other players.
“I think it’s a little bigger than a passing camp now,” Ryan said, via Matt Winkeljohn of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “We had a lot of guys from different positions down there. We got some good work in on the field, knocked some of the rust off. I thought guys had a good time.
“It was good for everybody to come together, kind of connect on where they’ve been, kind of get our minds right to get started on the offseason. We changed some venues, etc., but for the most part it was pretty similar, . . . pretty casual couple of days, not as intense and organized as it is once we get back here.”
For what it’s worth, coach Dan Quinn liked what he saw as his team reassembled for offseason conditioning work this week.
“That was the main thing,” he said. “To a guy, it’s not just the on-the-field time, but the time away that they spend together, going to dinner and doing stuff together, that type of connection that you can have as a team.”
Even if it borders on corny, Quinn sells the teamwork stuff enthusiastically, and it seems to have worked. The Falcons have a solid base of young talent, and if they can push through the psychological trauma of the end of their last game, they are positioned to contend for the next few years.