TJ Yates: Good Enough to Be Falcons' Backup QB?

Just before 2014 Training Camp, the Atlanta Falcons made a trade with the Houston Texans sending LB and former Georgia Bulldog Akeem Dent to the Gulf Coast for backup QB and Marietta, GA native TJ Yates. Yates starred at Pope High School, in Chapel Hill for the North Carolina Tar Heels, and led the Texans to their first playoff victory in franchise history over the Cincinnati Bengals in 2012.

The previous coaching in regime in Flowery Branch grew tired of underwhelming backup quarterback play, opting to trade for an Atlanta native who has won as many playoff games as franchise QB Matt Ryan. While I admired T.J. Yates from a far during his days in Houston, we never got to see much of Yates play for the Falcons last year. Not that I don’t want to see Matt Ryan carve up secondaries with his Pro Bowl arm, but I would have liked to have seen Yates attempt more than four passes in his first year with the team.

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Atlanta has had some decent backups the last decade and a half or so (Matt Schaub, Chris Redman, even Michael Vick backed up Chris Chandler for a year). But I’m starting to wonder if Sean Renfree will eclipse TJ Yates on the Falcons QB depth chart. I liked Renfree coming out of Duke, helping establish HC David Cutcliffe’s Blue Devils program in the ACC. Part of me believes that he can become a solid career backup in the NFL.

The reason I’m so overly concerned with our backup quarterbacks heading into 2015 is that I’m still a bit nervous about the offensive line’s ability to pass protect. Matt Ryan has taken nothing short of a beating the last two seasons. With the amount of times he’s been hit, I’m shocked hasn’t gone on IR at some point. He’s as tough as they come, but Atlanta cannot afford to let its on-field general miss any time to injury. If that were to happen (please don’t happen, please don’t happen), can the Falcons tread water with either TJ Yates or Sean Renfree under center?

I would like to believe that Yates is still ahead of the curve of Renfree entering 2015. While in Houston, TJ played for a former John Elway backup Gary Kubiak. Kubiak, now in Denver, even had new Falcons OC Kyle Shanahan part of his staff, albeit before Yates’ time in the league. I have to imagine that similar passing concepts exist between Kubiak and Shanahan’s systems. All Renfree has played the last seven plus year’s is Coach Cut’s in Durham and Dirk Koetter’s in Atlanta.

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Do the Atlanta Falcons have a Top 10 backup quarterback option in the League? I don’t think so at the moment, but there certainly are worse options than either Yates or Renfree. If something bad were to happen to Matt Ryan, I feel okay about sending TJ Yates out to start games for the Atlanta Falcons.

He has shown a proclivity to game manage in the NFL. I think he play conservatively for Kyle Shanahan if he had to, handing the ball off to Tevin Coleman and Devonta Freeman, executing short to mid-range passes in a deep WR corps. But I’m going to need to see more snaps out of both Yates and Renfree for me to have a ton of faith in the Atlanta Falcons’ backup quarterbacks. Let’s hope Shanahan’s zone blocking scheme helps establish the run so Matt Ryan doesn’t have to drop back to pass 80% of the time in 2015.

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TJ Yates: Good Enough to Be Falcons’ Backup QB?

By John Buhler | Jul 20, 2015

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