Falcons failing on pass defense

Flowery Branch — In the past two games, the Falcons’ pass defense has been lacking.

Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers passed for 313 yards Sunday, and Carolina’s Jake Delhomme passed for 294 yards the Sunday before.

“That is a concern is terms of passing yards,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “That’s something that we as a staff have to address and we’ll be addressing it.”

More disturbing to Smith are the big plays that the secondary has given up.

Green Bay had touchdown passes of 44 and 25 yards. They also had pass plays of 37 and 36 yards. Against Carolina, the Panthers’ Steve Smith had a 56-yard touchdown catch, and Muhsin Muhammad had a 44-yard touchdown catch.

Anything over 20 yards is what Smith and his staff consider “explosive” plays.

“Teams are going to move the football, but you can’t allow them to have passes in big chunks,” Smith said.

Safeties Erik Coleman and Lawyer Milloy play key roles in the Falcons’ varied zone defenses.

Coleman said there hasn’t been just one thing going wrong.

“That’s just something that we have to work on, is finishing plays,” Coleman said. “I think that we are getting better as a group. We are trying to shut down those explosive plays and keep things in front of us. It’s just something that we’re going to have keep working on.”

Against Green Bay, Rodgers made a near-perfect throw on the 44-yard touchdown pass to Donald Driver, who was in tight coverage by Coleman and cornerback Brent Grimes.

Rodgers made another nice toss on Greg Jennings’ 25-yard touchdown with Domonique Foxworth draped all over Jennings.

“We are there,” Smith said. “We have to make those plays. That’s something we’re going to address. We are a young secondary in terms of our corners. It’s not just the secondary. The linebackers are dropping back in coverage as well.”

When in zone coverage, the defenders have areas to patrol. When the ball is in the air they have to pick up the receiver in their area and break on the ball.

“Part of it is being disciplined,” Coleman said. “Guys on the whole back in the secondary have to be disciplined. When we see routes, we have to get to the correct drops.”

By design there are going to be holes in zone defenses.

“Aaron Rodgers did a great job of finding holes, and the receivers did a great job of catching the ball,” Coleman said.

One of the zones, out of a 3-3-5 alignment where linebacker Stephen Nicholas is in the game, paid off. Nicholas can either rush or help out in coverage.

The Falcons were in that alignment when Michael Boley made a key interception in the fourth quarter against the Packers.

“Our coaches do a great job of mixing up our looks,” Coleman said. “Boley did a great job with his eyes. He saw the route and jumped the ball. He made a big play at a key moment in the game.”

The Packers were running a lot of three- and four-receiver sets. The Falcons countered with the 3-3-5 and dropped as many as eight players in coverage.

“We have different personnel groupings and we felt that was a grouping that we felt was advantageous to get more speed on the field,” Smith said. “When you have Stephen out there, he can rush the passer and he can also drop into coverage. It gives us some flexibility.”

The Falcons’ secondary will get tested again Sunday when they play the Chicago Bears and quarterback Kyle Orton, who’s on a hot streak.

Orton passed for a career-high 334 yards last week in a victory over Detroit. Over his past three games, he’s averaging 267 yards passing.

“He’s definitely a guy that’s controlling the game,” Milloy said. “He’s not losing the game; he’s keeping them in every game. As the weeks go on and he progresses, they will be taking more shots with him. We just want to be able to control him and control their offense.”

The Bears have some talented receivers in Marty Booker, Brandon Lloyd and they use return specialist Devin Hester at wide receiver in some formations. Running back Matt Forte and tight end Greg Olsen are also good pass catchers.

“They are very capable of making big plays,” Milloy said. “Booker had one of the best catches that I’ve seen last week. They’ve shown that they can go after balls when the quarterback tosses them up.”

Smith wouldn’t say if playing more man-to-man coverage would help the secondary.

“We can’t talk about how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to work on it,” Smith said. “We’re going to work on defending the pass a whole lot better.”