What, Arthur Blank asked, were some encouraging words that could be deployed to describe the game just played at dreary Nissan Stadium. “A win,” offered the AJC’s diplomatic D. Orlando Ledbetter.
“Six-and-one,” Blank suggested.
For positivity, that was about it. Blank’s Falcons won, which always beats losing, but looked rather less glossy than their record. They beat Tennessee, which has lost 19 of its past 21 games and was without the injured rookie Marcus Mariota, whom the Titans made the second player taken in the 2015 draft. The final score was 10-7.
The Falcons tried hard to hand the game to Tennessee. They had six bad-to-egregious penalties. They failed twice on fourth-and-1. Matt Ryan threw a terrible interception that gifted Tennessee its only points and another – this one was tipped – on the second fourth-and-1, which came at the Titans’ 1-yard line. Matt Bryant sent a 47-yard field goal try outside the right upright with 2:38 remaining, setting the stage for Zach Mettenberger, who’s from Watkinsville and who was briefly a Georgia Bulldog, to lead his team to Week 7 glory.
The reason the Titans took a quarterback No. 2 overall was that the incumbent was Mettenberger, who has a big arm but is short on touch and poise. Three short completions brought Tennessee to the Falcons’ 42 with 1:39 remaining – almost within sight of a tying field goal, ample time to conjure up a winning touchdown -- whereupon the UGA washout threw the ball to Robenson Therezie, who plays for the Falcons.
“We felt great about it,” said Ken Whisenhunt, the former Georgia Tech tight end who coaches the Titans. “We worked hard to get there. Everything was geared toward giving us the chance to do that, and we got there and, unfortunately, we didn’t finish.”
Said Falcons coach Dan Quinn: “I loved the way we finished out the halves. (Paul Worrilow intercepted Mettenberger’s pressured pass to keep the Falcons within 7-3 at the break.) That’s exactly what we want from our defense.”
One team finishes and is 6-1. The other doesn’t and is 1-5. Credit the Falcons for making just enough plays to survive a road game in a benign setting. After Mettenberger underthrew a fourth-down pass with 3:30 remaining, some 5,000 patrons got up and left – even as their team was within three points. Guess they'd seen Mettenberger before.
“This is the NFL,” said Desmond Trufant, who was shadowing Justin Hunter on the Titans’ fourth-down whiff. (Bad plan: Throw at the maybe the best cornerback in the business.) “Anybody can beat anybody else. The team that’s losing can beat the team that’s winning. We don’t look the records.”
Really, though: How can they not? The Falcons haven’t faced a team above .500 since 2-0 Dallas, which was without Tony Romo and Dez Bryant, on Sept. 27. Next week brings 2-4 Tampa Bay, which just wasted a 24-point lead in losing to Washington. After that comes San Francisco (2-5). Then Indianapolis (3-4), which takes us to Thanksgiving. We say again: Bunny schedule.
For all of Quinn’s talk of finishing (and he speaks of not much else), starting hasn’t been his team’s forte. They’ve trailed at the half of their past three games. They’ve scored one touchdown in the first halves of those three games. They’ve trailed at the half of all five road games. They’ve won four of them, but still: Finishing wouldn’t be so dependent on backups like Brandon Weeden or Mettenberger messing up if the Falcons were quicker off the mark.
It’s hard to know if the Falcons are playing down to sub-mediocre opposition or if they’re not yet good enough to possess a separation gear. This marked the third lesser performance in succession. They got away with it here Sunday, same as they had against Washington two weeks back; in between was New Orleans, where they didn't get away with it.
They’re 6-1, and that’s great. But there will come a time – not for another month, but someday – when they’ll face an opponent as skilled and strong-willed as they are. (Carolina, say.) They’ll need to be better then. It wouldn’t hurt to start practicing for December now.
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