How the dichotomy of JD Bertrand intrigued the Falcons

In Finding Falcons is a series that goes a step further than Atlanta’s choice of selecting a particular player and identifies why it did so. Different interviews with Falcons position coaches and area scouts and decision-makers at the top give descriptions of the crucial moments that perfectly sealed the decision to draft each of the men that forms their 2024 draft class. Over the next few weeks the cultural narratives of this City, the giants of our society, are stories we will share.

It was in the dog days of August camp life when Falcons area scout Ryan Doyal made his way to South Bend, Ind. He was doing what scouts are known to do during this time of year: Look out for that and get back to me.

In his visit to Notre Dame, Doyal did exactly that which formed the initial blueprint of the Falcons’ latent affinity for their draft choice at the 143 rd pick in the 2024 NFL Draft, JD Bertrand.

Doyal was starting to acquire some notes on Bertrand already. Based on the performance of the Fighting Irish linebacker that Doyal got a chance to watch the previous season, he approved. But it was not until that August that Doyal got into practice with Bertrand and truly felt the sale was complete.

This scout could not agree more with what Doyal said, he was flying around the football field in a practice as if it was mid season, before the season even started.

“He’s just moving at a different tempo and certainly at a different velocity,” Doyal quoted.

Anything Bertrand did for the game was good enough for Doyal and there was a certain passion he saw in Bertrand that he could not explain. It was a feeling that never left no matter the situation, it was always burning and alive. That same intensity that Doyal saw from Bertrand in that August was there from the first Saturday of the year to the last.

More than that, this intensity remained well beyond the moments when the players removed their pads and left their helmets on for the rest of the year.

‘I saw it the entire way through the (pre-draft) process,’ Doyal said. “Right the way to the end – proper. ”

At that very time, Falcons inside linebackers coach Barrett Ruud has a pile of player material to go through, as he finally gets his new office in Flowery Branch, Georgia established. Bertrand was in the first cab rank.

The first aspect that was conspicuous to Ruud when he was scouring JD was his rounded game as stated here; “He did not have weak spits in his game. ”

Oh, there were likely many more physically active players chasing each other around the hedwall then, Ruud said. But it’s when it comes to natural instinct and a consistency that can be appreciated? It would have been very difficult for the writer to find any other person who outcompeted Bertrand especially in those aspects.

Undoubtedly, Bertrand could do whatever was expected of him and he could do it perfectly. Run the management plan of the run, run the management of the pass, call the defense, get after the passer, play the entire series, and run the proper angles for the course of ball carriers. In the case of walking a balanced line, Ruud says that Bertrand benefited from Notre Dame’s production because of this diversified experience.

He recorded total tackles of 260 (23 of them solo) and half-dozen sacks the last three years after being leading his team in tackles each of those seasons.

‘JD is a very complete football player Ruud said. “I suppose ‘football player’ is going to become his new MIC for the season But he enjoys the game, plays vigorously every day, and is particular about his performance levels. ”

Doyal: That is what I think instinct is all about for him, it is about winning the game, the ability to read the game fast than anyone can is what instinct stands for to me football wise, while one would be running behind the ball chasing it in one corner of the field, this kid, he sees it, analyses it, identify it almost immediately.

Well, and the character stock is there, too.

Having the luxury not to have to work the effort into guys makes the life of a coach a lot easier Ruud elaborated.

JD_ND This is a stain Doyal was eager to say has always been associated with Bertrand to the best of his knowledge.

There should be a process of maturing among some of the guys when they join college, explained Doyal. “This guy was not that. This guy probably came out of the womb fully developed strictly in the sense of things that you look for strictly in tangibles. ”

And that brings to the final contrast of the novel, Bertrand, the man who cannot choose between two worlds.

He is serious when it comes to football yet friendly. He's meticulous. In college level he was thinking one step ahead, and was never reluctant to let his aggression come out when he reduces his pads against a running back. As for the man off the field however, people claim that this man is as close to a paragon of humanity as one is likely to find.

This was supported by the words of Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman that were said in Dane Brugler’s scouting guide: Bertrand sets the standard for everyone else on the roster” Listening to Doyal, I understood that it was because of him that this happened.

‘’He’s just an amazing guy in people’s eyes in the community, in the locker room but, you give the guy a football field and the man is a psycho in the best manner possible,’’ said Doyal. ’He has that split to him which is really cool to see because when you sit down and talk to him, he’s that marry your daughter kind of guy. ”

He’s a people galvanizer, Doyal said, and that means they naturally attracted to the individual. But on the field, it is Bertrand’s duty to meet people and start conversations, which he does pretty actively.

Raheem Morris was one of the first to call Bertrand ‘Captain America’ the night the Falcons drafted him to Atlanta followed by Terry Fontenot and Doyal. It is a moniker with such assumptions that the Falcons have the belief Bertrand can grasp the role. That is precisely why the two groups of women worshipped him in the way that they did, and why, at the end of the day, none could actually resist him and something he had done in the past.

“There’s nothing you can contribute right in what this guy does,” Doyal said.