Roddy White wants to change a few things about last year.
First, as a team, he wants to see the Falcons not just in the playoffs, but winning. Of course he'd like to be a factor in that. Second, he wants to drop fewer passes.
When you're one of the most targeted players in the NFL, you're going to have your share of dropped passes, but White knows where he stood last year and he is seeking to make sure he doesn't end up on such a dubious list again.
"I led the league in drops last year so I've got to fix that problem," White said Thursday. "There are always things in your game you can fix, especially when it comes to route running. I talk to Coach and if he doesn't know what I'm doing on certain routes, I try to change it up. That's what I'm doing right now and I'm trying to get better."
White said his approach to the 2012 season is all about consistency. It's a theme among the Falcons this year, head coach Mike Smith has said often one of the things he wants to remove from last year's team to this one is the lack of consistency that they sometimes brought to the field.
"I just come to work and try to be as consistent as possible every day I get on the field," White said. "That's what I pride myself on, waking up every morning and try to find a way to get better. Just be more consistent."
Smith said catching so many passes will often result in dropped passes, but he's happy to hear White is thinking about that area of his game.
"There's no doubt when you're at the top of a statistic that you don't want to be at the top of, it's going to motivate you," Smith said. "Roddy's a very proud guy. He knows what the statistics laid out last year. He's going to be a guy that is going to work at it. There's going to be drops, I'm not trying to defend any of our players, The more targets you have, the more opportunities you're going to have to catch it or drop it. It's good that Roddy is taking a good hard look at what he needs to improve on and if he feels that's an area he can address."
