FALCONS ADD TO PLAYER PERSONNEL DEPARTMENT
Posted by Michael David Smith on May 7, 2008, 5:51 p.m.

The Atlanta Falcons announced today that they have named Lionel Vital, who has spent the last three years in the Ravens’ front office, the assistant director of player personnel.

It’s the latest in a series of front-office changes the Falcons have made since the disastrous 2007 season. The most significant change was Thomas Dimitroff replacing Rich McKay as general manager; more recently the Falcons hired David Caldwell as director of college scouting.

As Baltimore’s national scout, Vital is credited for playing a big part in the Ravens’ personnel moves, including the decision to draft safety Dawan Landry in the fifth round in 2006.

Last year Vital was given the inaugural Fritz Pollard Alliance Scouting Award, which goes to the top African-American scout in the NFL.

From 2000 to 2004, Vital was the Patriots’ assistant director of college scouting, where he worked closely with Dimitroff. He has also worked as a scout for the Jets, and he played running back for the Redskins in 1987.

Is it just me or does it seem like we're hiring many more people involved with scouting than we ever had in the past?

Dunno. Or are we just hearing more about office hires in general now?

We have hired 2.
Those hires make the org. stronger in an area that needed to be improved IMO.

My question is why are we just now hiring this guy? If his presence is supposed to make our organization stronger, and his speciality is collegiate scouting, than why in Odin's blue fuzzy hell did we wait until AFTER the draft to hire him? How about the new head of college scouting or whatever his title is, that we hired 2 weeks ago? Why wasn't he hired before the draft? I'm all for hiring all the FO personnel that they believe is needed, but it just seems fishy to me that we hire 2 guys who specialize in college scouting, AFTER we have what many experts say is one of the worst drafts out of all 32 teams in the NFL. Hopefully this is nothing more than SOP, but it "feels" like we're trying to cover up for mistakes that our new GM and staff may have made in this draft... :unsure:

Ton, show me some of the many experts reports that claim the Falcons had one of the worst drafts in the league.

Why wait until after the draft to hire?
The Falcons were not given permission to interview them until after the draft was over.

Pay attention, that was covered last week. 8DRTV75

I don't consider the TATF crowd at the OMB to be (experts), FWIW nr6 b667ur

Exactly. Hopefully no one really believes the teams those guys worked all year scouting players for would just let them leave right before the draft.

And it's impossible to realistically grade a draft 2 weeks after it ended. Give it 2-3 years then decide.

BT...your experts are on ESPN and FSN. They write for SI and even the AJC. And as for what was covered last week...do me a favor, call your boy Dimitroff, and find out why they didn't seek permission to interview these guys until the week of the draft... :)

Really Ton, maybe you should check you`r sources before you speak. :D

Here is what the NFL draft Czar at FSN had to say about the Falcons draft.

Atlanta
First-year GM Tom Dimitroff favorably compared first pick Matt Ryan to New England's Tom Brady when it comes to taking a team on his shoulders and having the character to not make excuses. There is no question that Ryan is smart and has the arm to throw the out pass. Dimitroff downplayed Ryan's 19 interceptions because he viewed them as Ryan attempting to make plays to help Boston College win. This kid should start by midseason, if not sooner. To protect Ryan, the Falcons used several picks to return to the first round for USC tackle Sam Baker, whose play last season wasn't worthy of this round. But Baker is a tough kid who should improve. Louisville WR Harry Douglas may be small in stature, but he is nifty getting in and out of breaks. He should develop into a huge target for Ryan. Oklahoma LB Curtis Lofton has a chance to start on the inside where he should be a run stuffer.
Grade: A

I happen to know that all the pundits (except maybe Terrence Moore) that had actually talked to Dimitroff came away impressed with him and the job he did on the draft.
Even Peter King of SI dot com explained and approved of the Falcons draft..he is their NFL editor.

Dimitroff had identified 2 areas of critical need (QB and OT) and 3 other areas of important need (LB, CB and WR) addressed them all with the first 5 players they had selected...contrair to what you think, he had a plan and acted it out.
Keep in mind that the procees was scheme specific needs, evaluations of how possible available players graded out on their board.

Ton, I know you don`t want to accept this but as I have said before.
What you read here, on the OMB, ESPN, FSN is only partial and often poor information...alot of it`s good though.

You would have to live in metro Atlanta and listen to the 2 good sports talk radio stations on a daily basis (as I and others have but I do it all day everyday) to hear all the interviews with all the coaches, managers, experts, the owner and lots of current and former players to get a complete grasp of what has transpired in the 6 months within the Falcons Organization.

This is not to put anybody down or go tit for tat but I have a very strong sense for where this team was, what they are now and where they are ultimately trying to go. 7i87,m7t8

That's funny BT...ESPN's Draft Pundits, Todd McShay and Mel Kiper weren't impressed with the Falcons' draft. McShay likes Matt Ryan, and he still graded the Falcons' draft as the 3rd best in the NFC South...only Tampa had a worse draft than we did. Kiper's criticisms were even harsher. Peter King's comments that I heard the monday after the draft regarding the Falcons were simple...he didn't understand what Dimitroff was trying to do...he especially criticized passing on Dorsey for Matt Ryan...now maybe he's changed his tune since then, not sure, don't really care. My info from FSN actually came from their Best Damn Sports Show recap, which wasn't all that complimentary of our draft. I did read where their "draft expert" gave us high marks on some of our picks, and questionable ones on quite a few of them. The scouting group that FSN uses, Scout.com also gave us a solid B-.

Then I read various other draft report cards that rated us anywhere from F to B, with very few if, any A's. All in all, from what I can tell, the consensus is that, at best, we fall somewhere in the middle of the pack...not somewhere you want to see an organization that has gone out and completely restructured their FO.

Do I believe our draft was good? Not particularly. I like a few of our picks, but I feel overall, we made some really boneheaded decisions. Sure, only time is going to tell what was a great draft and what wasn't...that's a period measured in years. However, I would caution everyone from jumping up and down about this draft right away, as so many have been doing, because the Falcons received high marks on previous drafts under McKay, immediately after those drafts, only to have those "expert" opinions shift drastically a year or two later.

As I said before, it's not that I hate our FO, but I do find some of their decisions here lately to be very curious...history will either point to these decisions as being genius or utterly and completely assanine...it's going to be interesting to see how it all pans out. 8DRTV75

You`r correct on a lot of points Ton, it all depends on who you listening to and when you heard them say it.
Yeah, I saw McShay`s grades, he rated all the NFCS teams as good or better.
Fuck Mel, he looks at grading overall talent in terms of measurable quanity or quality and ignores specific scheme and team needs.

That said, I`m not jumping up and down because I know this team has a long way to go to recover from the total disaster that was in 2007.
It really is starting a fresh about like an expansion team but with some odd 40 years of mostly BS under the belt.
Still, I like the pieces we are starting with and the mindset the Org. has taken in their approach to re development.

Will there be errors and adjustment made along the way?
Sure, there will be and nobody knows how it going to work out as far this draft class for several years.
It really is a 2 or 3 year process getting to where we want to be and that`s if everything goes real well.

All I can say now is, ''In Dimitroff I trust.''