Two months ago, any Falcons fan – and surely even the principal owner – would have taken 6-3 at the bye week. These Falcons are indeed 6-3; if the playoffs started today, they’d qualify. Only three NFL teams have won more games.
But enough of that. Cut to the gloom and doom.
The Falcons have lost three of four and are fortunate not to have lost five of five. They won on an interception return in overtime against Washington on Oct. 11. They were beaten by the Saints four nights later. They won by a field goal against a Tennessee team quarterbacked by Zack Mettenberger. They had to scramble to reach OT against Tampa Bay, whereupon they lost. On Sunday they were beaten in San Francisco by a team that had benched its No. 1 quarterback.
The combined record of Falcons opponents is 29-46. They’ve played one game against a team currently above .500. They’ve trailed in eight of nine games. They’ve trailed at the half seven times. They’ve trailed in the fourth quarter seven times.
To their credit, the Falcons have already won as many games as last season and two games more than in 2013. In the grand scheme, they’re moving in the right direction. With this schedule, it would have been difficult to do otherwise. Recent events have made us wonder how much of 6-3 is due to a smart new coach and a new attitude – “Do better longer,” is a Dan Quinn teaching – and how much to the luck of the draw.
Over those first four weeks, it was possible to see this as a franchise reborn. Men of no special portfolio were making big plays. An offensive line being restocked after the final exhibition game had done OK. Devonta Freeman, starting because the rookie Tevin Coleman was hurt, was making like Marshawn Lynch. Was Quinn such a galvanic figure that he could turn Thomas Dimitroff's acquisitions into Real Players?
We’ve learned that the victory at Dallas, which seemed a big deal at the time, really wasn’t. The Cowboys haven’t won since. We’re seeing that those fourth-quarter comebacks weren’t necessarily a function of Quinn’s emphasis on “finishing.” (Close games in the NFL tend to be coin-flip things, not a measure of a team’s will. The other team wants to win, too.)
Over the long haul, the NFL is like all professional sports: Talent prevails. The Falcons have a great player in Julio Jones, an excellent one in Desmond Trufant, a very good one in Matt Ryan and a few promising young guys (Freeman, Vic Beasley Jr., maybe Jake Matthews). The rest of the roster is not so hot.
On paper, the Falcons' stats look good: They're fifth in total offense, 10th in total defense. But they've amassed those numbers against such feeble competition that's it's hard to know what's legit, which is why websites like Football Outsiders exist – to assess via data what's not apparent to the naked eye. Last week Football Outsiders ranked the 6-2 Falcons the NFL's 17th-best team, putting them a shade below the midpoint. (Again, this was before the loss to San Fran.)
An offense that scored six touchdowns over 60 minutes – in the second half against Dallas and the first against Houston the next week – has managed nine the past five games. This from a team that has the NFL leader in receiving yards, the league’s second-leading rusher and a quarterback who’s fourth in yards passing. The Falcons lost to Tampa Bay by making four turnovers and to San Francisco while making no turnovers. How does that happen?
In four weeks, the Falcons have gone from being favored by Football Outsiders to win the NFC to 2 ½ games behind Carolina. They seemed a playoff certainty – per ESPN, only four of the 43 teams that started 5-0 since 1990 missed the postseason – but now we've begun to notice another precedent.
The 2004 Falcons were 4-0 under new coach Jim Mora. Counting playoffs, Mora went 23-23 thereafter and was fired. Do I think Quinn is a better coach than Mora? Yes. But Quinn’s decision to kick a field goal while trailing by four points Sunday indicates he might be in need of, ahem, finishing school. And he could use some better players.
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