[JRL]

By Chip Towers | Tuesday, August 19, 2008, 10:18 AM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
This just in: A.J. Green will play this season. Probably in the first game. Probably a lot eventually.
OK, that’s probably not breaking news. It has been pretty evident since Green committed to Georgia nearly two years ago that he was probably going to see the field the first time he trotted through the gap in the hedges the day of a game. But coach Mark Richt removed all doubt yesterday when asked about the long, tall wideout from Summerville, S.C., who has been sidelined much of the preseason with a hip flexor injury.
“He’s just missed so much, you know?,” Richt said at first, making you think he was about to say something different. Then …
“All I can tell you about him is we’re going to get him in the game. I don’t know when but we’ll get him in the game.”
Here’s the deal: Green has struggled a little with grasping the offense. The thing is, in Georgia’s system, when Matthew Stafford calls a pass play in the huddle, it’s not as simple as the split end (Green’s position) runs a deep post on said play. Once they get to the line of scrimmage, the coverage that the secondary is in will dictate the route. Both the quarterback and the receiver have to recognize that and agree on it silently. Often, the quarterback may check out of one play and into another based on the defense. Now another whole set of options is introduced.
Said Richt: “[Green’s] still got a long way to go. There’s still some things he just does naturally extremely well. But there’s still that learning curve to try to understand the offense, a particular route, how we want it run, how we want it run against different coverages. There’s lot of nuances he’s got to get comfortable with. But it’s good to get him back going.”
That said, it’s still just football and there’s nothing stopping offensive coordinator Mike Bobo from just calling specific plays for Green on occasion. You can pretty much count on the Dogs, trying to hit him deep a couple of times in the first couple of games. But by the time they get to South Carolina in game three, the sophistication of the defenses will jump 10-fold. It’ll get more complicated.
But something tells me you’ll see the Dogs go to Green a lot in Columbia. The Gamecocks went after Green hard, especially after he committed to Georgia. I’m sure the Bulldogs would love to showcase him.
We’ll see soon enough.
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