Despite suffering a heartbreaking loss to the Seahawks on Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons' focus is solely on the San Diego Chargers.
Among players they are impressed by on the Chargers roster, Head Coach Dan Quinn made a point to single out the team's rookie class.
The head coach has been a fan of Hunter Henry ever since he worked him out at Arkansas and said the combination of Henry with Antonio Gates is a "real weapon". On the other side of the ball, Quinn admires the play of Joey Bosa and Jatavis Brown, and believes the two are greatly contributing to the success of the Chargers defense.
"(Joey Bosa is) really settling in to this defensive end spot," Quinn said. "He's really active with his hands. I've always thought he's played really strong, but I think he moves a little better than I even thought. His quickness looks to be on point. Jatavis is another one coming out of Akron that we really had high hopes for. We were very interested (and) we knew he had speed so we were looking at him at safety as well. I was not surprised to see him really hauling. I saw him match up on running backs and play that well. I love his speed that he plays with (and) the tackling. We were not surprised that when he got selected (San Diego) had a real find there."
Freeney spent two seasons as a Charger from 2013-2014. Although the offense has changed since he last donned the blue and gold, he knows the Falcons defense is in for a fight.
"I think they still have weapons and can still throw that ball even though they have some injuries over there. Philip (Rivers) can still do what Phil does and manage the game the way he knows how. (Gates) is still over there doing his thing, but it's going to be a tough challenge. I don't care what the record is, a lot of those games that the Chargers lost had been really close matchups and could have gone either way."
"They're very explosive," added Quinn. "Offensively, knowing the weapons they have and how they feature the players, they could very easily have a flipped record knowing they had some close losses. Defensively, they have a package where they are able to feature different guys whether it's pressure or man-to-man. That really jumped out to us. And third, I'd say the speed on special teams (is impressive), especially in the return game."
