Falcons
- Falcons OLB Bralen Trice is going full speed for the first time since his season-ending injury last year. (Tori McElhaney)
- Atlanta QB Michael Penix Jr. on the Falcons’ offensive capabilities this year: “The potential? We should be the best in the league. We should be unstoppable. That’s our goal. We want to be No. 1 in all the categories.” (Josh Kendall)
Panthers
Panthers head of football analytics Eric Eager discussed how the team was reviewing a draft day trade with the Rams which would’ve seen them trade down from pick 8 to 26.
“There’s just a lot of trying to balance the risk, and talk about the size of the decision we’re about to make,” Eager said, via Mike Kaye of the Charlotte Observer. “And I think that doing that is sobering in the sense of making sure that we know that the gravity of the kind of time we put into it versus sort of the shiny object in the moment, which is a trade offer.”
Panthers VP of football operations Brandt Tilis said that team ownership placed a strong emphasis on being analytically-driven.
“That was something I knew was important to the Teppers — was being data oriented but not necessarily like data driven, and so I knew I needed a strong analytics group,” Tilis said. “I’d had a lot of experience with analytics. … So I knew what I wanted and I knew where I wanted to be, and I just knew I needed a lot of help to get there.”
Tilis knew that he would bring Eager with him to headline the department if he ever got hired in a prominent position.
“I thought to myself, if I ever get a chance to build a real analytics department, I would bring Eric with me,” Tilis said. “And Eric kept on ascending (elsewhere), so the more he was ascending, the more I was like, ‘I’ve got to get some real juice in a building to bring in somebody like Eric at this point.’ So, I just kind of waited for the opportunity and that was it.”
Saints
Saints CB Alontae Taylor talked about the demeanor of new HC Kellen Moore and how he can connect to the locker room.
“He’s funny man,” Taylor said, via Saints Wire. “I think coming into it, he’s a younger guy, so I kind of felt like it was gonna be more like ‘my best friend’ type of head coach. But you know he has a serious side of him, and I think that’s good to have as a head coach, because we can take him serious, and you know he’s had success within the league so far.“
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