On the hot seat Sunday vs. Jaguars: Can the Falcons’ offensive line hold up

The Falcons gave up seven sacks and eight quarterback hits in their 20-6 loss to the Lions.

Coincidentally, they started juggling the backup offensive linemen and signed tackle Storm Norton off the Saints’ practice squad.

“Just familiarity,” Falcons coach Arthur Smith said. “Gives us a guy that’s played a lot, played in real games and been somebody that we’ve had our eye on.”

Norton, who’s had stops with the Vikings (2018) and Chargers (2020-22), has played in 36 games and made 18 starts in the NFL.

“Thought it was worth a shot,” Smith said. “We still like the development of Tyler (Vrabel) and Josh (Miles), but you can never have too much depth there.”

Smith contended that the signing and poor performance against Detroit were unrelated.

“It had nothing to do with it,” Smith said.

Left tackle Jake Matthews believes the unit can get things turned around.

“Just cleaning up little things,” Matthews said. “You’ve got 90% of the guys doing things right. We just have to get those last little things cleaned up so that we are good across the board, and that way we’ll be firmer.”

The Falcons critiqued their showing and are ready to test out their corrections.

“Little things that we have to pick up, whether it’s a help system on a type play-pass or something like that, trusting where one guy is going to be,” Matthews said. “Just have to take reps and learn it. It’s a constant learning process.”

Smith has shown patience in the past, but with the Falcons trying to end a streak of five consecutive losing seasons, he may not be as forgiving.

“The thing is you have to be objective and look at everything in the totality of it,” Smith said. “What happened? Why things happened? Obviously, when you don’t win, it doesn’t look good.”

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