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FLOWERY BRANCH Tytus Howard Jersey , Ga. (AP) — The Atlanta Falcons are mostly healthy and don’t want to risk getting an important player injured when they close out the preseason this week.Coach Dan Quinn wouldn’t say so for certain, but it’s unlikely the Falcons will play any starters or key backups Thursday against Miami. The depth chart is nearly full, so Quinn and his staff will use the exhibition to evaluate the last available spots on the 53-man roster.“There will be some who are competing to be practice squad and developmental and some still battling for the 53,” Quinn said Monday. “The goal is also if it’s not here, it’s somewhere, so those guys can put out tapes to get other opportunities.”Atlanta opens the regular season Sept. 6 at Philadelphia, the defending Super Bowl champion that knocked the favored Falcons out of the playoffs seven months ago. Quinn wants to keep everyone as healthy as possible.Star receiver Julio Jones and running back Devonta Freeman have been held out of all the preseason games for precautionary reasons given their injury histories, but neither has missed practice.Linebacker Deion Jones, cornerback Desmond Trufant, and free safety Ricardo Allen were nicked up in earlier exhibitions and didn’t dress for last week’s preseason loss at Jacksonville.Quinn sees plenty of areas for the Falcons to clean up. Against the Jaguars, the first-team offense failed to convert its five chances on third down and allowed Matt Ryan to get sacked twice.The first-team defense wasn’t stout enough against the run and gave up Leonard Fournette’s 21-yard score.“I thought in this game there were too many leaky yards on some of the runs,” Quinn said. “They had a long touchdown run. Those two explosive runs were uncomfortable for those guys.”Quinn likes what he’s seen from running back Tevin Coleman in the preseason. The No. 2 running back has worked exclusively with the starters and is averaging 5.4 yards on 18 runs. Quinn also was pleased that the defense looked sharp on the opening drive when cornerback Robert Alford tipped the ball on strong safety Keanu Neal’s interception.Though the third- and fourth-stringers will take most of the snaps when the Falcons (0-3) face Miami (0-3), Quinn still wants his front-line players to improve.He called out rookie receiver Calvin Ridley in a team film session Monday after the first-round draft pick dropped two passes with the ball in his hands and no contact from the Jaguars.“Nobody escapes that,” Quinn said. “That’s part of the process we go through to say, ‘Hey Rock Ya-Sin Jersey , man, we expect you to own that moment.’ It wasn’t just him. There were other people.”Quinn used the film session as a teaching moment for Ridley, who likely won’t play this week, and a reminder that the Falcons led the NFL in drops last season.“I think to be a true team, you have to show all the examples — the one where he really lights ’em up good and the ones that he had a drop,” Quinn said.“Probably his first taste. Last week he was on his way to becoming the next rookie Pro Bowl receiver and then he had a drop. Welcome to the NFL.“He’s a really detailed and prideful guy. There’s an intensity he brings in practice is past maybe his age. I really respect that part of his game. As mistakes happen, which they’re going to, I generally want to see how a guy rebounds.” PHOENIX (AP) — Next to torn ACLs, the most time lost for injured NFL players is due to hamstring and lower extremity problems, of which there are far more than the major knee issue.So the NFL will place even more emphasis on examining hamstring, groin, foot, ankle and other such injuries, along with its heavy concentration on the knee.While reducing concussions remains the most critical player safety initiative — they were down 29 percent in 2018 — Dr.Allen Sills, the league’s chief medical officer http://www.coltsauthorizedshops.com/authentic-ben-banogu-jersey , this week stressed the need to target the lower extremity injuries “the same was as with concussions.”“We are thinking about injury burden,” Sills said. “Not only how many injuries but how long a player missed. We plan by the end of year in hopes of making substantial savings of time lost (for players) with those injuries,” Sills said.Some of those injuries occur because players push too hard when they aren’t in the shape to do so, particularly those who report late to training camp — or not at all, and then come aboard during the season. That’s particularly true of hamstrings; it’s not unusual for observers to wonder how soon, not if, such players will struggle with such problems.“It’s how you train and when and how much intensity you bring to specific times you train,” Sills explained.The league will talk with team trainers and doctors, with exercise experts and researchers in a push to reduce what often are termed “nagging injuries.”Sills and Jeff Miller, the NFL’s executive vice president of health and safety initiatives, spoke about a variety of injury and player safety topics at the owners meetings. They were most encouraged, not surprisingly, by the decrease in the number of concussions, with one exception: Things were static during preseason practices, when 45 occurred in 2017 and 45 happened against last year. Many of those were incurred by offensive linemen Khari Willis Jersey , Sills said, and were specific to blocking.“We’ll be meeting with position coaches to look at how linemen are training in camp,” he said. “We will make all the teams aware of the data we collect.”Factors for the reduction in concussions include enhanced rules prohibiting lowering the helmet, fewer kickoff returns (also due to rules changes); players making adjustments to the new or stricter regulations; and players switching to the highest-rated helmets in a survey conducted by the league and the players union.Miller noted that half of the league has changed helmets and 74 percent of the players now wear helmets in the highest-approved (green) region of the survey and accompanying poster that is hung in every team’s facility. He credited training staffs, medical personnel, players, coaches and team owners.“The posters certainly were able to change player behavior,” he said.Same thing, Miller added, regarding lowering the helmet; the number of concussions were down from that act.Concussions on kickoffs were down 38 percent in 2018 compared to the previous three seasons’ average. Indeed, Sills said all injuries on kickoffs went down, and his staff is now doing deep research into injuries on punts, which have been the second-most dangerous play. Ten percent of all major injuries, termed as eight days or more missed, came on punts.The league banned blindside blocks on all plays on Tuesday Josh Allen Jersey , a short while after Miller and Sills made their presentation to the owners. There were as many as a dozen concussions annually due to that technique.“As a former player and father of two that play ball, and having the opportunity to coach (youth football),” football operations chief Troy Vincent said, “this particular play, the blindside block, it ends careers, puts people on the shelf.“That particular technique, I was taught that. To have that removed out of our game is significant.”The NFL’s medical and research staffs aren’t limiting their work to what happens within the league, either. They are looking at data from other organizations such as the new spring league, the Alliance of American Football, plus the Canadian Football League and college teams.“With more opportunities to learn and collect data,” Miller said, “it will yield a better outcome for everyone.”