Thursday marked the end of the season for the Falcons.
No, not the 2013 regular season, but the non-game playing season of the year ended with the final day of minicamp. And Falcons coach Mike Smith could not have been more pleased with the way his team worked throughout the last nine weeks.
“They have been very focused,” Smith said. “I thought we had a good practice on [Tuesday], had a good practice yesterday and they came in today and finished off strong.”
The end of minicamp marked the end of the Falcons nine-week program that started in April. The team began the program with a voluntary condition program followed by OTAs and ended with this week’s minicamp.
But with end of the offseason program, it also marks the beginning of the preseason. Just because the Falcons have some time off before training camp doesn’t mean that they can be in full-relax mode.
“You can’t win games in the offseason, but you sure can lose them,” Smith said talking about the message he gave to his players at end of the Thursday practice session. “You want to make sure you have everybody healthy. We got to continue to be diligent in our workout program. We need to be as strong as we can at the start of the season because it’s a long season for the players mentally and physically.”
The goal for the coaching staff during minicamp was to evaluate as many new faces as they could in a short amount of time. But Smith knows that they will have a better chance to do the evaluation process when training camp begins.
“It’s very difficult to make a true evaluation when you are not in pads,” Smith said. “We can evaluate what are players know mentally in the offseason.”
And when training camp begins, which will be Thursday Jul. 25, the Falcons will only have 10 padded practices in all. For the rest of the practices, the Falcons will be in what they wore today during minicamp with is a jersey, shorts and helmet, and it’s something they will have to get used to for the regular season.
“We are very limited,” Smith said. “We got to have a very good understanding of how to do it and I think our guys do. Our No. 1 goal at training camp is to get as many guys prepared because it’s a long season. We got to have depth across the board and to make sure we are as healthy as possible.”
As mentioned earlier, the Falcons have some time off before training camp begins and the veterans mini vacation started as soon as practice was over. As for the rookies, they will stay at the facility for another half week before they are let go.
The first training camp practice starts at 3:30 p.m. on Jul 25. Also, the Friday Night Lights event is back at it will take place at City Park Stadium in Gainesville. On Aug. 5 and Aug. 6, the Falcons will host a combined practice with the Cincinnati Bengals before both teams face each other in the first preseason game of 2013 on Aug. 8.
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