Weekend Reflections: Falcons should feed Bijan like 49ers feed McCaffrey

Christian McCaffrey versus Bijan Robinson inspired the “Sunday Night Football” crew to declare Oct. 19 as National Running Backs Day. They gave an award to McCaffrey after the 49ers beat the Falcons. It was meaningless fun, but it did highlight a real difference between the two star running backs.

Falcons coach Raheem Morris calls Robinson the best player in the NFL. He could be right. So then why does Robinson have significantly fewer touches than McCaffrey, the 2023 AP offensive player of the year?

For the season, Robinson has touched the ball on 27.4% of the offensive plays to 38.6% for McCaffrey. Different game circumstances might explain a small difference in usage. A gap that large suggests 49ers play-caller Kyle Shanahan is more deliberate than Falcons counterpart Zac Robinson about getting the ball to his best playmaker.

It makes no sense for the 23-year-old with 40 career games played to have a much lighter workload than the 29-year-old with 102 games played. The difference was obvious during Sunday’s game.

Before garbage time, McCaffrey produced 186 yards and two touchdowns on 31 touches (50% of the offensive plays). Robinson was limited to 92 yards and one score on 20 touches (38% of the offensive plays).

Like McCaffrey, Robinson is a threat catching the ball in space. But his targets per route run this season are about a third less than McCaffrey’s. The Falcons have a seemingly endless number of ways to hand off the ball to Robinson. I haven’t seen the same creativity to get him passes.

Against the 49ers, Penix’s penalty for intentional grounding scuttled a scoring chance near the end of the first half. The Falcons were driving for a tying or go-ahead score in the fourth quarter. Cornerback Chase Lucas had little trouble anticipating Penix’s throw-by-numbers pass on fourth down.

It also didn’t help that Falcons right tackle Elijah Wilkinson looked overmatched for the first time this season. He’s filling in for Kaleb McGary, who suffered a season-ending injury in August. Penix was hurried most of the night. The Falcons were neither explosive nor efficient enough to take the pressure off.

It was the kind of game that screamed out for more touches by Robinson. Yes, the 49ers were keying on him. The Falcons were keying in on McCaffrey, and he still made plays. As usual, he also got more chances than the guy whose head coach declared him the best player in the game.

Georgia defense continues decline

One noticeable difference this year: Georgia’s linebackers group isn’t speedy. That’s a major reason why Auburn and Ole Miss did damage with mobile quarterbacks running high-tempo, short passing attacks. The Bulldogs figured it out after halftime against Auburn. That almost happened too late Saturday versus Ole Miss.

I didn’t see many blown assignments or bad angles by Georgia linebackers in those games. There were a few missed tackles. More often, they just weren’t fast enough to close space or cut off angles against catch-and-run ball carriers and quarterbacks escaping the pocket.

Smart is right about Georgia still having a good pass-rushing group. The Bulldogs get push in the middle and pressure on the edges. The containment could be better, but it’s hard for linemen to consistently keep nimble quarterbacks from getting to the corner. The linebackers have to clean up more of those plays.

Smart and his staff will have to figure out how to work around the defense’s weaknesses. One answer against Ole Miss: lots of man pass coverage. That helped close the space against pass-catchers, but Smart said it contributed to two pass interference penalties that set up an Ole Miss touchdown.

“We won the game (playing) man to man, so I’ll live and die with that sword,” Smart said.

Smart’s defense played at an elite level even as an unprecedented number of top prospects went to the NFL from 2022 to 2023. It has been in decline the past two years. If the increased parity of college football has something to do with that, then that also means the opposition has less talent to work with.

Top college coaches like Smart are getting a little taste of what it’s like to coach in the NFL.

Georgia Tech sill doesn’t control destiny for ACC title game

Georgia Tech (4-0) leads the ACC with half the schedule played. The seventh-ranked Yellow Jackets aren’t in control of their destiny for the ACC championship game. That might still be true if they finish undefeated in the league (only ACC games count for title-game consideration).

There still are countless permutations for how that tiebreaker can turn out. Obviously, the best outcome for the Jackets is to win out and have one of the other two teams lose. Tech has a reasonable chance of holding up its end.

The Jackets are good and getting better. They are no worse than the third best team in the league. They don’t play the other two, No. 9 Miami and No. 19 Louisville. Pitt will be a challenge for Tech, but that game is here.

SMU should have the hardest time finishing undefeated in the ACC. The Mustangs will play home games against Miami and Louisville. Virginia’s toughest remaining game is at Duke (3-1) in November.

By the way: Virginia lost to the ACC’s North Carolina State, but it didn’t count as an ACC loss. North Carolina State officials said league officials encouraged them to add a power conference opponent to the schedule. So, they replaced Appalachian State with Virginia.

It wasn’t the first ACC versus ACC nonconference game. Wake Forest and North Carolina played nonconference games in 2019 and 2021. The rivalry would have gone stale if the teams played only when matched in the rotation for the 17-team league.

Isn’t conference expansion great?

Florida will aim higher than Billy Napier

Florida fired Billy Napier on Sunday after he beat Mississippi State the day before. Athletic director Scott Stricklin cited the coming bye week to explain the timing. He didn’t need to bother. One lucky victory by Napier did nothing to change the big picture.

Napier’s Sun Belt background meant he faced headwinds from the start in Gainesville. But he got a fair shot to prove he’s a big-time coach. Napier’s winning percentage (.489) ranks second lowest among the 12 men to coach 45 games or more at Florida. Only Tom Lieb (1940-45) did worse.

Florida has won three national championships and eight SEC titles. They won both in 2008, but haven’t won either since. It’s still a premium job. The patience shown with Napier can be a selling point.

There’s also the huge football budget (SEC rank: fourth, per USA Today). Florida is surrounded by a high concentration of blue-chip recruits. Bonus: Miami’s Mario Cristobal currently is the best power-conference coach in the state.

The Gators are desperate to be elite again. They won big for nearly 20 years with Steve Spurrier and Urban Meyer. None of the four coaches who’ve followed Meyer made it past Year Four.

Will Muschamp’s magic wore off as soon as there was space between him and Meyer. Jim McElwain was only a slight upgrade. Dan Mullen had his moments before the losses and wackiness piled up.

Napier occasionally provided evidence he could do better. Terrible almost always followed the good. He started that habit as soon as he got there. The Gators beat No. 12 Utah in Napier’s debut game. The next week, Kentucky won at The Swamp for the second time in 43 years.

That pattern continued as Napier put his full stamp on the program. The recruiting was good. The coaching wasn’t. Napier lost too many games. Now he’s out of a job with a reported parachute of $20 million.

Weekend Predictions were 6-4 after Sunday