CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Here’s what Falcons coach Arthur Smith had to say after the 25-15 loss to the Panthers on Thursday:
On if he considered going with Desmond Ridder: “No, I was trying to win the game. We got the ball back with a chance to go win it or tie it at the end. Our guys keep swinging. So, there are a lot of things we have to do better. It starts at the top with me. A lot more goes in to quarterback play than just stats. We’ve got to protect better. We have to do everything better. You have to give Carolina credit. They came out, they got the lead. They won both lines of scrimmage. It wasn’t pretty. At times, we had things going, but we has some pretty ugly penalties that moved us back. We were off track for much of the night. At the end of the day, we got the ball with a chance to go win our tie. That says about about our guys. But clearly, it wasn’t good enough.”
On if he’s going to look at playing Ridder: “I know that’s a popular narrative, and those are the easy questions to ask. As a whole football team, we have to do a better job, starting with myself. We look every week to make sure that we’ve got the right guys in the right spots. So, we have to protect better. We have to play the run better. Chicago is going to come in here and try to run it 500 times. So we’ve got a lot of work ahead of it.”
On if he’s going to at least look at Ridder: “Guys, you can make it about the quarterback. How about (making it) about the team. We had our opportunities at the end of the fourth quarter the last two weeks. There are a lot of different ways and a lot of different phases. We’ve got to get better. I’m thankful that we’ve got an opportunity to go and do that with seven games left.”
On the issues with the run defense: “They cut back. When you’re some of those zone schemes and they cut back and we’re out of a gap, they had some decent runs there. They kind of grinded it out. It was a great day on third down, but they had more than we did.”
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Atlanta Falcons 2022 schedule
Sept. 11: Saints 27, Falcons 26
Sept. 18: Rams 31, Falcons 27
Sept. 25 Falcons 27, Seahawks 23
Oct. 2 Falcons 23, Browns 20
Oct. 9 Buccaneers 21, Falcons 15
Oct. 16 Falcons 28, 49ers 14
Oct. 23 Bengals 35, Falcons 17
Oct. 30 Falcons 37, Panthers 34 OT
Nov. 6 Chargers 20, Falcons 17
Nov. 10 Panthers 25, Falcons 15
Nov. 20 vs. Chicago, 1 p.m.
Nov. 27 at Washington, 1 p.m.
Dec. 4 vs. Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
BYE WEEK
Dec. 18 at New Orleans, TBD
Dec. 24 at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
Jan. 1 vs. Arizona, 1 p.m.
Jan. 8 vs. Tampa Bay, TBD
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