Jennings held out of punt return duties

Oakland — Wide receiver Harry Douglas, who returned punts at Louisville, moved ahead of Adam Jennings as the team’s punt returner.

The Falcons also used Brian Finneran on one return in the game and had cornerback Brent Grimes, also a collegiate punt returner, warming up before the game.

“We made a change,” Falcons coach Mike Smith said. “Anytime you make a change, you go through an evaluation process. We felt like for us and where we are at right now that we needed to make that change.”

Going into the bye week, Smith had the entire punt return unit self-scouted by the coaching staff. Coming out of the bye week against Philadelphia, Jennings had retained his job.

But his failure to field a punt in the fourth quarter with the game on the line likely cost him his job. The referee ruled that the punt touched Jennings and it was recovered by Philadelphia. Jennings was inactive for the game.

Douglas fielded two punts and returned them for 13 yards for an average of 6.5. He let two others be downed and let one roll out of bounds. Finneran’s one return was also downed.

“I thought Harry did a nice job,” Smith said. “There were not a whole lot of opportunities. I thought he did a nice job.

Gandy plays

With the Falcons up 24-0, Wayne Gandy took over at left tackle for Todd Weiner in the second quarter.

“I think for two days of practice, with something that I have no clue about, it was OK,” Gandy said. “This is training camp on the run. This was a good day.”

With rookie left tackle Sam Baker out indefinitely with lower back surgery, the Falcons signed Gandy, a 14-year veteran on Wednesday.

“We’ll continue to develop Wayne and get him into shape,” Smith said. “I know he wasn’t in game shape, like he would like to be.”

No huddle

The Falcons went with their no-huddle offense on their second possession of the game. The drive ended with Jerious Norwood scoring on a 12-yard run.

“This is the fourth time that we’ve had the no huddle in our game plan, but it’s something that we started back in OTA’s [organized training activities],” Smith said. “As soon as Matt was drafted he had an opportunity to get into the process. It’s something that we work on all the time. The learning curve has really accelerated with him.”

— Staff writer Carroll Rogers contributed to this report.