Will Ashley Lelie Drop the Ball?

As a Falcon fan I welcome Ashley to Atlanta with a clean slate and I hope that he excels this year while catching bullet passes from Mike Vick. It would be great if he could match his 1,084 yards he gained in 2004. He would be the best deep threat we've had since Tony Martin was arrested for money laundering (he was later aquited). Getting a wide out for Duckett became necessary once Finn went down and Norwood stepped up, but trading for a top receiver when teams know you need one is never easy. Plus, the 'Coons are cap-strapped. Having said that, there's a lot about the WR we got that doesn't sit well with me. So here goes some negative. . .

First and foremost, Ashley Lelie has unreliable hands. WRs dropping balls have always driven me crazy because drops end drives and they hurt momentum and morale. Plus, you never want the QB to have to think, "will he catch it?" And Vick's velocity might not help matters.

Lelie caught just 48% of the 88 passes thrown his way in 2005. That made it the 2nd time in 3 years Lelie had the worst percentage out of the top 50 receivers in the NFL. Yikes! In 2003 his percentage was 46%. In '04 it was 54%. Lelie's teammate Rod Smith's number was 68% in 05. Finn's was 62%. Jenkins was 51%. That percentage includes balls thrown over his head and into the dirt by the QB so a lot rests on Plummer and the difficulty of the pass, but under 50% is a bad number. Plus, 2 out of 3 years he was the worst out of the top 50 wide outs and his division has some weak secondaries.

Lelie has "Alligator Arms." He has long been considered a player who was "soft" and who didn't want to catch many balls over the middle of the field. He started 13 Gs, played in 16 Gs, but only had 1 TD in '05. In '03, he started 10 Gs, played in 16 Gs, and had 2 TDs. The Alligator Arms probably have a connection to him leading the league in yards/catch the past two years, along with him being fast. And the inside info says is that last year teams realized how to counter his one-dimensionalism by bumping him at the line of scrimmage to knock him off his fly pattern.

Lelie seems to also have some character issues. Lelie fell out of favor with Shannahan early. Later, Lelie sat out of training camp and offseason workouts because the Bronco's traded for Javon Walker. He felt he no longer had a chance to start with Rod Smith and Walker on the team so he elected to hold out to force a trade. Lelie was fined $14,000/day. The total fines for his camp absence came to $378,000. Lelie also lost a $100,000 for not participating in offseason workouts. But what had he done to deserve the #1 spot? In 2005, Ashley started 13 games plus he caught a pass in ALL 16 games yet only had 42 catches (2.6 avg), 770 yards, and 1 Touchdown. He broke the 81-yard plateau only ONCE and had NINE catches on 3rd down all year long. Plus he played in a weak secondary conference last year with Kansas City, San Diego, and Oakland. Hopefully he will be catching enough balls to stay happy in Atlanta.

Shanahan on Lelie's choice to hold out,

"If you want to compete to be the number 1 guy, why not be here...If you're afraid of competing against a number 1 guy who's 3[6] years-old, I don't think you're going to find a better scenario...It would be different if people were beating down the walls to get him," Shanahan said. "But they're not."

"Our guys aren't going to worry about someone that doesn't want to be here, because they know that guy's not going to win you a championship." The Broncos stopped believing Lelie was tough enough to be a champion. You could hear the contempt in Shanahan's voice, when he dissed Lelie for failure to embrace competition. In the coach's mind, winners never back down from a challenge. "I think that's the way men do it,"

Fellow receiver Rod Smith tried to contact Lelie,"I just want to win games," Smith said. Smith recently tried to telephone Lelie. Lelie did not return the call, "So when I see him, I'm going to SMACK him," Smith said.

Don Banks, of SI.com had the following to say regarding the Duckett-Lelie trade:

While Denver didn't get a player for its 2006 playoff push in the deal, the Broncos might be the trade's biggest winner thanks to the old addition-by-subtraction theory. In ridding themselves of Lelie, a player who had obviously burned his bridges in Mike Shanahan's fiefdom, the Broncos lanced a boil that threatened to fester all year long until it was dealt with. Make no mistake: Denver didn't lose a great player in Lelie, who at times has struggled with his maturity level. His Broncos tenure had some highlights -- namely his 1,000-yard receiving season of 2004 -- but he had UNRELIABLE HANDS and wasn't ready to challenge veteran Rod Smith for the role of the team's No. 1 receiver any time soon.

Well, hopefully all of that is in the past now. Often proffesional athletes are better, especially their first year, after a fresh start, so hopefully Lelie will help the Falcons reach the playoffs and beyond. He will probably only be here one year anyways. Finneran, Jenkins, and White are the future 3some and with a tight cap and a training-camp holdout attitude from Lelie I do not foresee us resigning him. But athlete's tend to produce numbers above their averages in their contract years so hopefully he will feel that extra inspiration. Also, with Vick's arm strength Lelie's deep routes could be more dangerous than with Plummer. Mike Vick can zing it about as deep as anyone, he just isn't very accurate on throws from the pocket. Lelie's also is 6'3, which would be better if he would use to his advantage in the red zone or over the middle, but again maybe he will be willing to sacrifice his body more in that contract year. Plus, as MIKE mentioned in the comments before, Crumpler will be our top target and Griffith, Dunn, and Norwood will have a lot of catches too. Lelie may be faster, but I think Finneran (6'5) would have been more helpful to the Falcons this year. So many of Atlanta's plays are broken ones, and Finneran and Vick had developed a relationship to the point of familiarity and I'm not sure how well Lelie will perform on broken down plays. Remember he will not have the luxury of even going through one full training camp with Vick and he will get in only two preseason games with a QB who is quite unique. Was Lelie the best WR to be had by the Falcons via trade? Probably or else they would have traded for Jerry Porter, for example, if they were able too. Again, when teams know you HAVE to trade a player there are not going to give you a stud receiver with no issues in return. So hopefully he will catch everything, risk his body, and get double digit TDs. Who knows, it is a contract year.

Duckett (18th), Lelie (19th), and Walker (20th) were all drafted in a row. The small Ed Reed fell to 24. WRs Randle-El and Deion Branch went in the second round. WR Eric Crouch went in the 3rd. WR David Givens went in the 7th round.

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