FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. -- For the second year in a row -- each of which seemed like the final season of his NFL career -- Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez will be excused from mandatory minicamp next week, head coach Mike Smith said Friday.
Last year, Gonzalez, who said that he was 95 percent certain at training camp that the 2012 season would be his last, was excused because of a death in the family. Clearly, the absence did not affect the future Hall of Famer’s production: he went on to catch 93 passes for 930 yards and eight touchdowns while playing in all 16 games.
Based on that production and the fact that Gonzalez is one of the best-conditioned athletes on the team, Smith must have had no compunctions about allowing Gonzalez to skip out this year, as well.
Gonzalez, who enters his fifth season in Atlanta, has rarely attended OTAs, which are voluntary. Mini-camp begins on Tuesday.
Wednesday marked the first session of offseason team activities attended by fourth-round pick Levine Toilolo, the team’s projected tight end of the future.
Owing to rules in the collective bargaining agreement, Toilolo was prevented from participating until his college, Stanford, had completed its academic year. Smith said Toilolo would return to Stanford over the weekend for graduation ceremonies. With Gonzalez out, that should mean plenty of reps for Toilolo, who stands 6-foot-8.
The Falcons did not make players available to the media on Friday but Toilolo will be available next week.
“I think you can see (Toilolo) creates some issues with his size, especially there in the red zone," Smith said on the final day of OTAs. "We look forward to seeing him compete next week in our minicamp where we’ll have everybody here.”
Perhaps because of his unusual size, Toilolo appears slightly thin from a distance. Smith was asked if his physique is something that Toilolo needs to work on.
“Believe it or not, one of the things we are most impressed with is his ability to bend at 6-foot-8, at the ankles and the hips and the way he fits up his run-blocking,” Smith said. “A lot of times you think guys that big are going to have trouble winning the leverage battle. You always say in run-blocking (that) low man wins, but he has very good flexibility in the ankles and the hips.
“He’s a big man. He’s just so tall that it looks like he’s 205 but, believe me, he’s not.”
The Falcons list Toilolo at 265 pounds.
Holmes benefits
While offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter said recently that Lamar Holmes, last year’s third-round draft pick, is behind in his position battle for the starting right tackle job with Mike Johnson, Smith said that OTAs were a productive time for the 6-foot-6, 333-pounder.
Last year, Holmes missed virtually the entire offseason, including most of training camp, because of an injury. Smith is very big on what he calls “the learning sequence” -- how the players learn the installation of the offense and defense. It’s a system that Smith and his brother-in-law, Brian Billick, had discussed over the years before Billick was named Baltimore’s head coach in 1999. As a low-level assistant, Smith helped to implement the sequence on the defensive side in conjunction with then-defensive coordinator Marvin Lewis, now Cincinnati’s head coach.
“Oh, yes, Lamar’s really got his first time to get coached,” Smith said. “He didn’t have an opportunity to participate in training camp last year so he lost a lot of time. We were just trying to get him ready for games and this was the first opportunity for us to take him through the whole sequence, the learning sequence, not only in the classroom but also on the field.
“Sometimes it’s more advantageous when you take a guy out on the field. He gets to learn from physically going out there to do it. I think Lamar’s done a really nice job. I think there’s going to be a lot of competition on the offensive line. We, as a coaching staff and as an organization, we’ll get together after the completion of minicamp and really sit down, have a real long, hard evaluation and discussion about our depth chart and about how our roster’s coming into place after our offseason program.”
High school coaches clinic
Smith hosted a group of Georgia high school coaches on Friday, something he has done in all six of his seasons. While Smith has coached in the NFL since 1999, he did spend the first 17 years of his coaching career in the college ranks, which gave him plenty of interaction with the high school game. He is open-minded enough to say that he could learn things from the high school coaches.
“High school football is the pipeline for the NFL and here in the state of Georgia I firmly believe this: it’s got the best coaching in all of the United States. They take it very seriously. The clinics I’ve attended are not only well attended but the coaches are very attentive and they’re always learning and wanting to learn new things and, believe it or not, at the NFL level I enjoy listening to the high school coaches talk because you can learn from them as well.”
It’s worth noting that in 2002, Smith was a member of the Ravens staff with Mike Pettine, who made the jump straight from coaching North Penn (Pa.) High School to working in the NFL. Pettine is now the Buffalo Bills’ defensive coordinator.
Signing
The Falcons announced that they had signed second-round pick Robert Alford, a cornerback, late on Friday. Alford could compete for a starting job.
First-round pick Desmond Trufant remains unsigned.
