It's not uncommon for Atlanta Falcons free safety Ricardo Allen to be lectured about his play while eating dinner. In fact, it's the norm.

This is not a reference to nightly sessions inside the training camp dining hall alongside veteran teammates. This has nothing do with lessons learned from defensive pass coordinator Raheem Morris or secondary coach Marquand Manuel, either.

The person most likely to critique Allen's footwork or tackling technique after hours is the same person who dissects film with him regularly, and the same person who quizzes him about formations drawn up on a grease board: his wife, Grace.

"It was a new extreme getting the whiteboards, but it's pretty much like a date night," Grace said. "And we'd be like, 'All right, let's have some dinner, and we're sitting down at the table, so let's study some film.'"

Ricardo Allen, the second-year, once-cut player who continues to make a seamless transition from cornerback to safety, became an avid student of the game during his sophomore year at Purdue. He would pluck clips of Charles Woodson off YouTube and meticulously dissect them. Now, he's ramped up his study habits in preparation for an unexpected starting role in coach Dan Quinn's defense.

As the Falcons move closer to their Sept. 14 season opener against the Philadelphia Eagles, Allen is the first to single out Grace for aiding his preparation.

"She studies just as much," he said. "She can tell me what I do wrong before I even notice. One time I overran a play, and she was like, 'The reason you overran that play is because you crossed your feet.'

"I sit on the ground and draw every formation, every coverage known to man. She'll be like, 'In this formation, who travels with the tight end?' I'll be like, 'The strong safety travels with the tight end.' Then she'll be like, 'Where's the nose tackle at?' And I'll say, 'The nose tackle is away from the tight end.' Where's the 3-technique at? 'To the tight end's side.' When she's quizzing me and we're going through defenses, you just naturally learn it."

Ricardo and Grace Allen sit on a hill overlooking the field at training camp. Courtesy Grace Allen

Ricardo and Grace started dating at Purdue in 2012 and got married in April. Grace played soccer and ran track in high school, but her passion for football evolved while watching Ricardo blossom into an NFL prospect and an eventual fifth-round draft pick.

"He's always been smart," Grace said. "He's always studied. That's been his craft. But this year, it's not like we were just going to study. We were going to draw it out, too. And we were going to write everything out, and be very specific. It would be abnormal if we didn't do it."

The primary focus of their film study these days is Earl Thomas, the All-Pro free safety who thrived in the Seattle defense Quinn previously coached. Ricardo, who is 5-foot-9 and 187 pounds, actually went to a Colts-Seahawks game two seasons ago to get a closer look at how the 5-10, 202-pound Thomas plays. That trek took place well before Allen found out he would be asked to play a similar role in the same defense.

"I had already watched all of his film from 2014, but I had to go back and watch 2013 and 2012, too," Ricardo said of Thomas. "He's amazing in the open field. He erases all bad plays. Anything that goes wrong, he's there. He never stops his feet. He knows how to close as much ground as possible, and he gets the shot on them and gets them down. I don't like to jinx people, but he very rarely misses tackles."

Grace noticed something, too.

"I don't really follow a lot of teams other than Ricardo and the Falcons, but (Thomas) has that dog in him," she said "I want to be careful saying this because everyone's trying to compare Ricardo to Earl, but I see a lot of that same heart. Something they always say about Ricardo is his size and he's not big enough, bad enough. And I always say to him, 'If size is what mattered, the elephant would be the king of the jungle, and he's not.'

"It's about that heart, and that's the same thing I see in Earl."

Ricardo continues to impress his teammates and coaches daily with his rapid maturation. He'll have the pressure of being the team's last line of defense, but he looks capable of covering plenty of ground.

"I train hard in practice," he said. "I make my mistakes in practice so when I get in the game, I know what's going to happen. I know what the running back is going to do when he tries to push my cushion. I know if I'm already pushing to my leverage, it's very rare that he's going to try and cut back into me because he's most likely going to try and bounce it. You've got to learn to see things before the play even happens."

Studying with Grace has made him see things that much clearer.