Tagovailoa ‘disappointed and frustrated’ after Falcons preseason showing
His back against a wall, literally, in the Falcons’ locker room, Tua Tagovailoa couldn’t get the second play from scrimmage out of his mind.
The 28-year-old quarterback liked the look for running back Brian Robinson Jr. to make something happen on a screen. He liked the potential to get his first drive off the ground. Then, he dropped the snap. To save a fumble, he jumped on it.
He lost 4 yards, but in his mind, he lost something else. He lost the chance to build a rhythm — and over the final seven plays of his Falcons debut in Friday night’s 27-7 loss to the Denver Broncos at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, he never found it.
“Definitely not up to standard. Not even up to par,” Tagovailoa said postgame about his performance. “What we put out there is not a reflection of the hard work that we’ve put in the first two weeks in training camp and it does no justice for the work that our coaches have implemented.
“It starts with me, and I got to be better. That’s it.”
The Falcons initially planned for Tagovailoa and the first-team offense to play one drive or 10 plays, whichever came first. But they went three-and-out on their opening possession, which included a run for no gain, a botched snap and a 6-yard completion from Tagovailoa to tight end Kyle Pitts.
Falcons coach Kevin Stefanski scrapped his initial plan and kept Tagovailoa in the game for another series. The results improved, but only marginally.
Robinson gained 6 yards on a run, then Tagovailoa hit Pitts for an 11-yard catch-and-run on a bootleg to the left side. But a penalty on left tackle Michael Jerrell and two incompletions, aided by pressure from the Broncos’ front against rookie right tackle Ethan Onianwa, ultimately thwarted the Falcons’ transgressions.
Tagovailoa completed another short pass to Pitts, but his two-drive night ended with an unspectacular 3-for-5 passing for 22 yards. The Falcons gained only one first down and 28 net yards of offense.
Entering the day, Tagovailoa knew he wasn’t going to play much, and he knew he needed to capitalize on the small window of opportunity presented. He feels he didn’t make the most of the moment, which left him displeased by night’s end.
“With this being preseason, that gives you no excuse to be able to go out there and put a performance like that out there on tape,” Tagovailoa said. “So, not satisfied, not happy at all whatsoever.”
The usually low stakes of the exhibition slate don’t inherently apply to Tagovailoa, either. The Falcons have refrained from naming a starting quarterback, and with Michael Penix Jr. still not cleared for 11-on-11 while recovering from a torn ACL suffered last November, Tagovailoa gets the vast majority of first-team snaps under center.
That Friday night’s performance won’t affect the Falcons’ regular season fate matters little to Tagovailoa. He views everything as an evaluation, and he feels he fell short of the mark.
“I’m competing, I’m wanting to go out there and put points on the board,” Tagovailoa said. “Not go out there and go three and out and not be able to perform to the level that I know I’m able to do. So, always looking at everything as a competition.”
The small sample size offers a bit of grace, too.
Stefanski said it’s difficult to grade an offense, let alone an individual player, on nine snaps. But he knows the Falcons “didn’t move the ball well enough” as a collective, and he cited Tagovailoa’s dropped snap as an area to clean up moving forward.
“Our standard for our football team — offense, defense, special teams — remains the same, whether it’s the first quarter or the fourth quarter of the preseason game,” Stefanski said. “So, not good enough, really, across the board. And again, that’s why we’ll get back to work.”
The Falcons’ coaching staff will grade every play from Friday night. Their offense — which mustered only 192 yards, converted just four of 15 third-down attempts and committed two turnovers — doesn’t figure to earn high marks.
“We have a lot of stuff to clean up,” left guard Matthew Bergeron told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution postgame. “That’s what preseason is for.”
Bergeron gleaned a few positives from Friday night, largely from an operational perspective.
“Communication was great,” Bergeron said. “I think Tua did a good job. I think we’re all on the same page and we just got to clean up the little mistakes we had. But I think that’s what preseason’s for, and we’re going to take full advantage of that.
“The mentality of Stefanski and the team is just roll up our sleeve and go.”
The Falcons won’t have to wait long to wash away their frustration from Friday night. They have joint practices with the Indianapolis Colts on Aug. 19 and 20, giving their starters a chance to get extensive snaps against another team once more.
Bergeron called it a “big week,” one he believes will be pivotal to the Falcons’ offensive growth.
“It’s going to be good,” Bergeron said, “and help us kind of work on the details of our offense.”
Tagovailoa said he would “love” to play in the second and third preseason games if the coaching staff allows. Stefanski previously said he’ll likely rest the starters for the exhibition game against the Colts since they’ll bank enough reps in practice.
No matter, opportunity awaits Tagovailoa and the Falcons’ offense in Indianapolis. He hopes to seize it better than he did Friday, a night he feels he didn’t do enough to build momentum toward the regular season.
“Both frustrated and disappointed at the way things happened tonight as we went out there,” Tagovailoa said. “We’ll come in tomorrow, we’ll see the film and we’ll move on.”