FLOWERY BRANCH — After some shaky ballhandling and three fumbles, Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder found himself in the running back line going through ball-security drills when the team started preparing for the Titans.
Ridder and quarterbacks Taylor Heinicke and Logan Woodside joined the running backs. They were holding the ball high-and-tight as assistant coaches whacked at the ball with red dummy bags.
“Ball security, you see the drills out there, just being able to work through whether they’re pulling at it, you have people punching at it,” said Ridder, who’s set to lead the Falcons (4-3) against the Titans (2-4) at 1 p.m. Sunday at Nissan Stadium in Nashville, Tennessee. “Just going through ball security drills as far as from the quarterback position for us, and then after that, it’s just thinking about it.”
The Falcons overcame the fumbles Sunday and beat the Bucs 16-13 with a field goal at the buzzer.
“Especially, when you’re taking off and running, you turn into a running back in that case once you get past the line of scrimmage,” Falcons offensive coordinator Dave Ragone said. “Ball security is a must for every ballplayer. Not just Desmond. It’s for all who carry the ball.”
Eliminating the fumbles are crucial to the overall improvement of the offensive unit. Ragone said that he sees “a lot of good things on offense” when he watches the video, but the self-inflicted fumbles and miscues “are holding us back.”
Ridder knows that he can’t keep turning the ball over. He’s had eight turnovers – five interceptions and three fumbles – over the past four games.
Ridder had the ball knocked out by Tampa Bay’s Antoine Winfield Jr. before he crossed the goal line for an apparent touchdown. The ball went out of bounds and was a touchback.
“You go out there, and it’s like the red-zone one there, whether you thought it was in or not, you know you’ve got to finish in that end zone,” Ridder said. “Finish with the ball, handing it to the ref, and it’s just about your finish.”
Ridder didn’t mind getting in the drills with the running backs.
“It’s about, at the end of the day, just protecting the football,” Ridder said. “You talk about five points of ball security. Just hitting all of those.”
There’s a mental part to taking care of the football.
“A lot of it is just instinct, running backs, they know that when they feel people around, they go (protect) the ball,” Ridder said. “Obviously, as quarterbacks you’re thinking OK, two hands (on the ball) in the pocket. When you break the pocket keep (the ball) in (the right hand). As a runner you have to know that.
“I’ve run enough in my career that I got to know to keep and hold onto the ball. … those are things that I know … (I have to) try to not make those same mistakes happen twice.”
The coaches didn’t have to harp on the fumbles.
“I knew what those mistakes were when they happened,” Ridder said. “We’ll correct them. We can work on them out here. You’ll see some drills out here in the ending or whatever it is, or I might just tell people, ‘Hey, If I’m carrying the ball around, just try to poke it out at any point in time.’ It’s just keeping that conscious-awareness stuff about it.”
Over the past three games, Ridder has the passing attack moving. They have jumped from 31st in the league to 17th overall (216.7 yards per game) as he passed for 329, 307 and 250 yards against Houston, Washington and Tampa Bay. But the unit has not capitalized with touchdowns.
The Falcons rank 29th in scoring (16.4 point per game) in the league. The Falcons have scored on 47.83% of their red-zone trips, which ranks 22nd in the league.
“Stop shooting ourselves in the foot,” wide receiver Drake London said. “At the end of the day, we get down there, we do all that work to get down there, and it’s like, you’re like a little kid. You see that candy in the cookie jar, and you can’t grab it because it’s on top of the fridge.”
London has a solution to get to the candy.
“We’ve got to get that stool so that we can get on top of the fridge,” London said. “It’s like, just little things that we have to separate ourselves from the pack. Once we do that, with all the opportunities that we’ve had, I think we are going to be a really good team.”
It’s simple.
“You’ve got to protect the ball to win games,” London said.
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