DEL.ICIO.USFalcons fall to Saints on road
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, December 07, 2008
New Orleans — In this season of thrilling comebacks, surprising victories and unmatched togetherness, some things started to unravel for the Falcons here in the Big Easy.
With a chance to put a stamp on the season and keep marching toward the playoffs, the Falcons couldn’t hold two fourth-quarter leads and fell to desperate New Orleans 29-25 before 70,011 fans Sunday at the raucous Superdome.
Bob Andres/bandres@ajc.com
Falcons wide receiver Roddy White finished with 10 catches for a career-high 164 yards receiving.
“We definitely took a step back as a team today,” Falcons safety Lawyer Milloy said.
The Falcons dropped to 8-5. They will be two games behind the winner of Monday night’s NFC South Division showdown between Tampa Bay (9-3) and Carolina (9-3) with three games to play. The loss also dropped the Falcons behind Dallas (8-5) for the final Wild Card spot in the NFC. Dallas currently has a better conference win percentage.
A division title will likely require a sweep and some help, while making the playoffs as a wild card would likely require winning at least two of the final three games.
The Saints were on life support, but put air back into their playoff hopes by improving to 7-6.
Milloy, a 13-year veteran, knows about these playoff marches from New England days.
“It’s all about controlling your own destiny,” Milloy said. “At the end you never want to be looking at who’s winning and who’s losing. … Most of the times that I’ve been in that situation it has never turned out. To be able to control your own destiny is the way you go about it.”
Now, the Falcons will be fighting with a group of teams, which includes Dallas, Washington, Philadelphia, Chicago and Minnesota for the two NFC wildcard spots. The field is crowded now.
“Every game is crucial from here on out,” Milloy said.
Wide receiver Roddy White, who turned in a spectacular game with 10 catches for 164 yards, concurred with Milloy.
“We felt like we could beat this team,” White said. “We started out good. It was nothing they did. We just did little things to stop our selves today.”
White admitted that the defeat, in which the defense couldn’t stop the run, the special teams allowed an untimely 88-yard kickoff return and the offense couldn’t execute on a key fourth-quarter drive, was not playing well in the locker room.
“We can’t let this linger, because if we do it’s all downhill from there,” White said.
Smith was not happy with the run defense, which gave up 184 yards on 30 carries. Saints running back Pierre Thomas ran for 102 yards on 16 carries and Reggie Bush added 80 yards on 10 carries.
“We’ll have to definitely take a good hard look at that,” Smith said. “After our film evaluation, we have lot of things that will have to get corrected.”
The Saints were 0-17 when trailing entering the fourth quarter under coach Sean Payton. The Falcons led 17-16 going into the final period.
Saints quarterback Drew Brees threw a 7-yard touchdown pass to Thomas. The two-point conversion was stopped to make it 22-17.
Riding the hot passing of Matt Ryan — who passed for a career-high 315 yards — the Falcons had scrambled back to take a 25-22 lead with 7:51 left. Ryan scored on a 12-yard scramble and tossed a two-point conversion pass to Michael Jenkins.
On the ensuing kickoff, the Saints slipped Thomas into the game. Courtney Roby had been returning kicks.
Thomas hit a seam to his left and then broke back to the middle. Eric Weems, Thomas DeCoud and kicker Michael Koenen all had shots at him, but whiffed.
“Yeah, I had a shot at him,” Weems said. “I just missed the tackle. I had a clear opening toward him. … It’s tough, letting one out at the end.”
DeCoud and David Irons hustled back to keep Thomas from scoring. But the Saints had the ball at the Falcons’ 16-yard line.
“I came from the left side,” DeCoud said. “He tried to bounce it and then he cut back inside through the middle. Then I just had to go run him down.”
Smith was not pleased with the return.
“It’s very disappointing that we weren’t able to cover that kick more efficiently and make them, at least go a long way,” Smith said. “We put ourselves on a short field.”
Thomas would later score from five yards out for the 29-25 lead.
The Falcons had the ball with 5:47 to play but were stopped. When faced with a decision to punt or go for it on fourth-and-5 from their 35, Smith elected to punt.
“You have to play the odds there,” Smith said. “They get one first down and they are kicking a field goal. The way we approached it was that we were going to go back out there, punt and try to get the stop.”
The Falcons had not stopped the Saints, but once on their six previous possessions.
The Saints ran out the clock and put a dent in the Falcons playoffs hopes.
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