Turner’s 3 TDs lead Falcons past Chiefs

Falcons running back Michael Turner could not put a number on how many Kansas City defenders that he ran over, through or around Sunday.

Early in the new regime, his bruising running style has been the team’s trademark. It’s the physical brand of power football that the re-made Falcons want to establish under general manager Thomas Dimintroff and head coach Mike Smith.

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Curtis Compton/ccompton@ajc.com

Falcons defensive end John Abraham beats the double team to sack Chiefs quarterback Tyler Thigpen on the Chiefs’ first offensive play of the game — a 7-yard loss.

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Turner had several key runs and three rushing touchdowns to help the Falcons defeat Kansas City 38-14 at the Georgia Dome.

The Falcons improved to 2-1, while the Chiefs dropped to 0-3.

Turner, who rushed for 220 yards in the season opener, finished with 104 yards on 23 carries. He was bottled up last week against Tampa Bay, rushing for only 42 yards on 14 carries.

“We committed ourselves to running the football,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “We talked all week about how that’s what we were going to do and our guys went out and executed it. It’s really enjoyable as a coach to see a game plan executed like they executed it today.”

The Chiefs, after giving up 300 yards rushing last week to Oakland, were determined to crowd the line of scrimmage on Turner.

“We just had a better plan for it,” Turner said. “Last week kind of took us off guard. We really weren’t sure how teams were going to try to defend against the run.”

The Falcons were not able to run the ball against the Chiefs early. They were stopped on their opening three possessions and forced to punt.

“We weren’t panicking when they came out playing great defense,” Turner said “We had to be patient with the run and big things were going to happen.”

After the offense misfired early, the Falcons went to Turner, who became the fifth Falcon to rush for at least three touchdowns in a game, to get things going.

Backed up to their 7-yard line after a special teams penalty, Turner slipped off the left side of the line and through five tackles on a 38-yard gain. It appeared that he carried Kansas City linebacker Pat Thomas for about five of those yards.

When asked how many people he ran over during the brutish run, Turner said, “I have no idea. I have to see it on film” and started smiling.

“It’s a great thing to see when your running backs are bouncing off three, four or five guys,” quarterback Matt Ryan said. “That wears on a defense. When they are running through the first and second tackle and getting to the secondary play-in and play-out. That’s takes a toil on the defense.”

The Falcons used Turner’s 38-yard run to score 24 unanswered points, that included touchdown runs of four and one yards by Turner.

On the possession following the key run, Ryan tossed a 70-yard touchdown pass to Roddy White. With the safeties creeping up to the line of scrimmage looking for Turner, White just took off up the right side and ran past Kansas City cornerback Dimitri Patterson and safety Jarrad Page. He caught Ryan’s strike in the middle of the field at the 20-yard and ran in for the score.

“We are not one dimensional,” Turner said. “When we can get that big start, it shows that we can run and pass and keep the defense on its heels.”

Ryan tossed a 62-yard touchdown pass to Michael Jenkins against Detroit. For a team that wants to establish the run, it must show that it can effectively connect on deep passes.

“It’s part of football, if they are going to protect against the run,” Turner said. “They have to worry about the deep ball. We can hit those plays. If we can show teams that we can hit the deep ball, there’s no telling what we can do this year.”

A week after Ryan was hit 18 times — four sacks and 14 quarterback hits — the offensive keep his uniform clean against the Chiefs.

“They played phenomenal up front,” Ryan said. “I don’t think I got hit all day and that’s credit to those guys up front.”