‘It hurts’: Defined by run game, Falcons’ identity falters at Buccaneers
TAMPA, Fla. — Kevin Stefanski has largely stayed away from catchphrases and mottos in his first year as the Falcons’ coach, but his steadiest slogan has become the team’s identity: How the Falcons run the ball, and how they defend the run, defines who they are.
As Stefanski stood behind a lectern Sunday afternoon in the bowels of Raymond James Stadium, he intently listened and nodded to the 225-yard discrepancy between his team and the Buccaneers on the ground.
Asked if it’s upsetting, Stefanski chuckled.
“Listen,” he says, “the results are tough in this league. Week to week, you give everything you’ve got. Give credit to the other team. They did a better job.”
The Falcons (3-5) saw their identity crumble in a 16-0 loss to the Buccaneers (3-5) in conditions ideal for asserting their style. It was rainy, muddy and windy, an ugly slugfest unlike anything few Falcons players have ever seen.
Physicality wins those games. Tampa Bay left little doubt Sunday. The Falcons rushed for 99 yards and averaged 3.5 yards per carry. The Buccaneers set a franchise record with 324 rushing yards, and, according to Next Gen Stats, they’re the first team to have two running backs — Bucky Irving and Kenny Gainwell — reach 140 rushing yards in the same game since 2008.
There were no chuckles from the Falcons’ players, only long, blank stares and frustrated responses.
“I mean, that sucks,” running back Bijan Robinson said. “That’s all it is, man.”
“It hurts,” defensive tackle Brandon Dorlus told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “You don’t want to see that on the scoreboard.”
“It’s hard to hear,” defensive end Zach Harrison told the AJC. “We just got to be critical. That’s the result we got, and we got to own it, and we’re gonna be grown men about it.”
The week before, while meeting with his players in the locker room after a 29-20 upset win over the previously unbeaten San Francisco 49ers, Stefanski called it an “identity game.” The Falcons have played, and won, a few of those this year. Sunday was another.
The Falcons and Buccaneers both ranked in the top six in the NFL in rushing offense and defense. Weather conditions — the ball was wet, the field was slippery, the wind forced flags to whip quite aggressively — were suboptimal for quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and Baker Mayfield.
Penix threw 24 passes Sunday. He completed only eight. He threw a career-worst four interceptions. Mayfield, meanwhile, attempted only three passes. He didn’t complete any.
The Buccaneers became the first team since 1974 to win a game without completing a pass. They didn’t particularly need one — they dominated the line of scrimmage. And in a game that, on paper, featured two front-line heavyweights, Tampa Bay won the match in a unanimous decision.
“You got to bring your hard hat and be able to stop the run, and we didn’t do that,” safety Jessie Bates III said. “And I thought their defense did a good job of stopping our run. So, that’s what it comes down to at the end of the day.”
Dorlus said the Falcons knew Mayfield, after only two pass attempts in the first quarter, wasn’t going to throw the ball much in the second half. He attempted just one pass. In the fourth quarter, with rain mostly stopped but field conditions still challenging, the Buccaneers didn’t have a single drop-back pass.
The Falcons were well aware running plays were coming. They just couldn’t consistently stop them. And after three quarters where Bates felt Atlanta largely kept Tampa Bay’s rushing game contained, the wheels fell off.
Across 56 attempts, the Falcons recorded only four tackles for loss. They struggled creating penetration. They missed tackles. The Buccaneers entered Sunday with the second-best average of yards before contact on rushing plays, according to Next Gen Stats, and the Falcons struggled mightily making plays at the line of scrimmage.
Rookie linebacker Kendal Daniels, who wore the green dot and communicated play-calls to the rest of the defense, paced the team with 13 tackles. But the fourth-round pick felt he jumped out of his gaps too often, and he took the blame for the defense’s collective struggles in slowing the Buccaneers’ ground game.
“We’ve just got to be better. I got to be better, mainly just being able to stop the run as the Mike linebacker,” Daniels said. “It’s me versus the running back, and I should be able to get him down more times than I did. But we just got to do an all around better job just containing the run when we know it’s a run.”
The Falcons’ run defense has taken on a different form after a dominant first four weeks, during which Atlanta paced the league in rushing yards allowed at a minuscule 48.3 yards per game. That’s flipped over the past four games. The Falcons gave up 208 yards to the Baltimore Ravens in Week 5, then 98 to the Chicago Bears and 123 to the 49ers.
Internal expectations haven’t changed. The Falcons go into games hoping to limit teams to under 100 rushing yards. The Buccaneers eclipsed it in the second quarter. And they merely kept pounding until the Falcons finally broke.
“That’s our job. It’s what we get paid to do,” Harrison said of stopping Tampa Bay’s run game. “So, I mean, this is literally what our job is, so.”
“At the end of the day,” Dorlus said, “upfront, you don’t do your job well enough, that’s the result.”
It may be time to sound the sirens on the Falcons’ run game, too. After back-to-back 200-yard rushing games in Weeks 3 and 4, Atlanta ranked second in the league with an average of 181 yards per game on the ground. In the four weeks since, the Falcons have averaged 88.5 rushing yards per contest, and they haven’t eclipsed 100 rushing yards in each of the past three weeks.
The Falcons’ offense starts, and centers around, running the ball. They haven’t done it well enough the past month.
“We do pride ourselves on running the football,” Robinson said. “And they did a good job on their side, but now it’s on us to go back to the drawing board and, like we always say, (it’s) our identity. And it takes all 11 of us. When you run the ball successfully, it takes some pain off the defense, it helps your whole team.
“So, for us, it’s our job to figure out how we can get back on track with it and make sure we’re doing all the right things to help this team win in the run game.”
Iden-ti-ty: the distinguishing character or personality of an individual; who someone is.
Perhaps the Falcons forgot to remove their Halloween costume Sunday and took on the form of a team that wasn’t them. No matter, the Buccaneers beat them at their own game. And the Falcons, given the way they’ve run the ball — and defended the run — the past four games, have left room for questions about just how strong their identity is.
“We feel really good about the guys we got,” Stefanski said. “They outplayed us. They outcoached us.”