HOUSTON – The Atlanta Falcons are in Super Bowl LI mostly because of their offense.

They might back it back to another Super Bowl sometime soon because of their defense.

Defenses this young aren’t supposed to end their season in the Super Bowl. The Falcons start four rookies, if you count slot cornerback Brian Poole and his nine starts. They start four second-year players, including NFL sack leader Vic Beasley.

The Falcons’ defense got better as the season went on, and that’s an overlooked reason whey they’re in the Super Bowl. There’s also no reason to believe the young defense won’t continue to improve. They’ll also get back 26-year-old cornerback Desmond Trufant, a 2015 Pro Bowler who is out with a pectoral injury.

Assuming the offense stays productive – it’s not that old, either – then maybe the Falcons are just at the beginning of a nice run.

“Honestly, all of us are far from our full potential,” Campbell said. “We still have a lot of room to grow in terms of becoming professionals and learning how to prepare better.”

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The last two drafts for the Falcons have been defense-heavy and a lot of the picks have paid off. In 2015 they got a much-needed pass rusher in Beasley (first round), a physical corner in Jalen Collins (second round) and nose tackle Grady Jarrett (fifth round). Safety Ricardo Allen, a 2014 pick who spent most of that season on the practice squad and didn’t play until 2015, is the other second-year starter.

Then the 2016 draft gave the Falcons another huge boost. Safety Keanu Neal was drafted in the first round, to play the Kam Chancellor strong safety role in Dan Quinn’s defense. Deion Jones gave the team a fast middle linebacker in the second round. Outside linebacker De’Vondre Campbell was picked in the fourth round and Poole was a surprise as an undrafted free agent.

That’s how you quickly build a defense. And it’s a group that will be together for a while.

“This whole journey is going to be amazing,” Jones said. “It’s going to be a good thing to look back on and laugh about the hard times we had when we didn’t know anything.”

It’s not ideal to start so many young players on defense, and the Falcons weren’t great early on. They gave up at least 20 points in nine of their first 10 games, and at least 30 points five times. The Falcons’ offense scored 71 more points than any other team this season, but it needed some help from the defense.

The defensive help came late in the season.

The players said the bye week was a turning point, and that’s easy to see in the results. The Falcons have alllowed more than 21 points twice since their Week 11 bye. One was a 29-point game by the Kansas City Chiefs, in which eight points were scored on interception returns by Chiefs safety Eric Berry. There was a 32-point game by the New Orleans Saints in which New Orleans had 13 points through three quarters before a meaningless surge in the fourth quarter. Atlanta’s defense turned a corner late and it carried into the playoffs. The Falcons played very well in convincing wins against the Seattle Seahawks and the Green Bay Packers. It’s not bad for a defense full of rookies and second-year players to shut down Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers on back-to-back weeks.

The Falcons had to know the defense would improve rapidly as the game slowed down for the young players, and it did. Quinn used the example of Jones. Quinn said five or six weeks ago he could see a noticeable improvement in Jones as he started to figure out the game.

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“Not only did he have his assignment down, but he could get the communication out to other players,” Quinn said. “That’s when we saw a shift take place.”

It’s a process for all young players, and the Falcons are developing quite nicely.

“It’s tough, but week by week I’ve been getting better – recognizing formations, getting everyone lined up, communicating,” Jones said.

“The biggest thing for me is my understanding of the game, understanding how offenses are trying to attack me,” Neal said. “I knew a little bit, but now I kind of really have an understanding of it. At the end of the day, it allows me to play faster.”

It takes time for young players to mature like that. The NFL is hard for most rookies, and most second-year players are still early in their development too. Maybe the Falcons didn’t exactly think that starting eight first- or second-year players would lead to a Super Bowl this season, but they’re here and there’s no reason to believe there should be regression going forward.

The Falcons have a big task this week, trying to slow down the New England Patriots and Tom Brady. They’re not focused on what might happen after that. But when you take a step back and look at it, the next few years look pretty promising.

“I haven’t thought about that; I don’t really think too much about the future. I kind of focus on the present,” Neal said. “But thinking about it now, it’s pretty cool thinking about it.”

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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