There are times when it appears the Atlanta Falcons' offense cannot be slowed, let alone stopped. These were their first six plays from scrimmage against Kansas City on Sunday: Matt Ryan-to-Julio Jones for 11 yards; Ryan-to-Jones for 16; Ryan-to-Jones for 17; Devonta Freeman 9-yard rush; Freeman 5-yard rush and Ryan-to-Freeman for 12. Six plays, five first downs, 70 yards.
The seventh play should have yielded another first down -- Ryan-to-Gabriel for 10 to the K.C. 1 -- but was nullified on a holding call against Jake Matthews. (Iffy call.) Undeterred, the Falcons scored their touchdown anyway. They wouldn't score another until they trailed 27-16.
As hard as it is to criticize an offense that has been the best part of this team -- the best by far, we stipulate -- it would be hard to pin Sunday's 29-28 loss on the defense. The Chiefs' offense last scored with 7:05 remaining in the second quarter, at which point the game was tied at 13. Here were K.C.'s possessions thereafter: Punt, touchdown off fake punt, punt, punt, end of game. The Chiefs had 17 first downs; the Falcons had 32.
It's hard to lose a game when you have 32 first downs. (The Falcons' previous high was 31 in their victory at Tampa Bay; they had 43 points that night.) But the Falcons failed to score touchdowns in half their six red-zone excursions, and two Ryan interceptions -- both by the Atlantan Eric Berry -- yielded nine points, including the game-winning deuce on a 2-point conversion try after they'd taken a one-point lead.
The only thing the Falcons' defense did wrong was fail on third-and-6 with two minutes remaining. (Albert Wilson, who'd scored on the fake punt, beat Ricardo Allen on a slant.) The raging offense rang up 418 more yards but fell one point short. Ryan is discussed at much greater length elsewhere , so for the purposes of this post we'll leave it at this: Don't go wishing Matty Ice a Berry Christmas.
The Falcons are now tied for first in the NFC South with the aforementioned Buccaneers, whom we'd all left for dead a month ago. The Falcons do have the softer schedule from here on -- Tampa Bay has to play at Dallas -- but this is no longer a walk in the park.
The Chiefs entered the game with an even lower-ranked defense (28th) than the Falcons' (27th). The offenses weren't even close -- Falcons were third, Chiefs 27th. But Andy Reid's crew keeps inventing ways to win, and this time K.C. prevailed with a fake punt and nine points' worth of Berry-pickin'. The Falcons, alas, invented a way to lose. Several ways, actually.
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