FLOWERY BRANCH — Falcons coach Arthur Smith and quarterback Desmond Ridder addressed his rash of interceptions Wednesday.
Over the past three games, Ridder has thrown five interceptions. He did not throw an interception over his first five career starts. He threw one in the sixth start, against Green Bay on Sept. 17.
He tossed two against Jacksonville in his eighth start and three against the Commanders in start No. 10.
“You go back to patterns, history of this league and you go back to patterns,” Smith said. “They happened. You have to acknowledge them. You don’t want to sugarcoat anything. You’ve got to learn from your mistakes, too.”
Ridder is in his first season as the starter. He took over for the final four games last season and didn’t have a turnover. Over the offseason, the Falcons named him the starter, and owner Arthur Blank said the organization was hopeful that Ridder would become the franchise’s quarterback of the future.
But the interceptions have to go.
“It’s a tough position,” Smith said. “We’ve got that. We have to eliminate those.”
Smith is banking on Ridder’s small sample size over his first five games.
“It hasn’t been a major pattern,” Smith said. “You go back to last year the four starts, didn’t turn the ball over. Obviously, two of the last three games they’ve happened. But it’s happened to a lot of quarterbacks. The thing is, you have to fix it. It can’t become a trend. They you’ve got an even bigger problem.”
Ridder knows he had to eliminate the interceptions.
“Obviously, you look back at last week, and it’s tough coming off a game like that when you lead in time of possession, you (outgain) the opponent in total yards, and you don’t come out with a win,” Ridder said. “On my end, protecting the ball is obviously a way that we can get better and kind of control that outcome of the game.”
The Falcons have dissected the causes of the interceptions.
“Those are a couple of things in each, where I could have made a better read, (a receiver could have run) a better route or a miscommunication or all three,” Ridder said.
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