Playoffs?!? Falcons look dead in that department
TAMPA --To read my take on the Falcons' 23-19 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, click this link.
Below are my three "short takes" on the game.
1. Playoffs?!? You kidding me?!? Playoffs?!? You can almost hear the famous Jim Mora quote echoing off the walls in the Falcons' Flowery Branch headquarters. What once looked like a certainty at 5-0 is now unlikely. Here's why: After five straight losses and six in the last seven games, the Falcons are 6-6. The best they can finish is 10-6. They still have to play Carolina twice, and it will be a challenge to beat the Panthers once, let alone sweep them. The Falcons' other games are at Jacksonville and home against New Orleans in the season finale. The other problem is tiebreakers. With the NFC South Division race decided, the Falcons will need to scramble for a wild card berth, but they are 0-3 in the division and 4-5 in the conference. So they likely would have to win the spot outright. The two wild card spots right now are owned by Minnesota (8-4) and Seattle (7-5). The Falcons and Tampa Bay each are one game back, but the Falcons lose any tiebreaker to the Buccaneers, having been swept in the season series.
2. Ryan wasn't awful but wasn't great: Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan (30 of 45, 269 yards, 1 touchdown, 1 interception) has been dreadful of late but I don't know how much blame to assign to him for this loss because pass protection was poor (three sacks) and he had at least three passes that were dropped, including a crucial one by Nick Williams in the fourth quarter that would've gained a first down when the Falcons were leading 19-16. But Ryan did not do enough to beat a mediocre team, and in the end it was a rookie quarterback Jameis Winston who accomplished something Ryan didn't: The Bucs' QB won the game with a 20-yard scramble and a six-yard touchdown pass to Mike Evans. After five interceptions in the previous two weeks, Ryan didn't throw one Sunday until the end. But "Matty Ice" used to come through in those situations.
3. Arthur Blank can't be a happy man: This is a big season for the Falcons' owner, not so much on the field as off of it. Blank is desperately trying to sell Personal Seat Licenses (PSLs) in the new stadium, which is scheduled to open in 2017. But the team is coming off a 6-10 season and this is looking like a non-playoff year. There's an obvious sales ripple effect from the lack of enthusiasm suddenly around the team, a contrast to the first six weeks of the season. The last thing Blank wants to do is put PSLs on Groupon.
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