Falcons’ line hurt offense from start

In our season report card, the offense’s main struggles began with the blocking up front,

The Falcons entered the season with five former first-round draft picks starting on the offensive line.

They had high hopes for the group, but things went south really fast, and the offense never got its footing. The Falcons’ preferred starting offensive line played only 45 of 1,189 offense snaps (3.7%) together.

The Falcons were scrambling at the guard position as prized rookie Chris Lindstrom suffered a broken foot in the opener against the Vikings after playing 48 snaps and the second first-round pick, Kaleb McGary, tried to make his way back from heart ablation surgery. He played 45 snaps in the opener after missing most of training camp. Free-agent signees James Carpenter and Jamon Brown did not perform well, and McGary struggled against elite pass rushers. Carpenter tried to play through an assortment of injuries while Brown underperformed and eventually lost his spot to Wes Schweitzer.

“Obviously, in this league, there are a lot of injuries along the offensive line,” Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff said. “Of course, we were fortunate to have the numbers (depthwise) we had along the offensive line we did. We’ll continue to work in that area.”

The offense couldn’t run the ball.

“It’s always good when you can run the ball,” offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter said. “It opens up everything else.”

The Falcons were finally able to unleash wide receiver Julio Jones and tight end Austin Hooper over the second half of the season.

Here’s position-by-position look, with grades, on how the offense performed in 2019:

PHOTOS BY CURTIS COMPTON / CCOMPTON@AJC.COM The Falcons were hoping first-round draft picks — offensive tackle Kaleb McGary (left) and offensive guard Chris Lindstrom — would solidify their line, but injuries and inconsistent play hampered the unit in the run game and pass protection.