Hours before kickoff, former Cleveland Browns great Jim Brown is in the foreground along the sideline taking pictures with veteran military members.
In the background, trying to get their passing game in rhythm were quarterback Matt Ryan and Julio Jones, working on their deep passing connection.
Jones had missed the key days of practice — Wednesday and Thursday — and the two wanted to make sure they were on the same page against the Browns.
But in the 26-24 loss, the Browns crowded the line of scrimmage all game.
The Falcons couldn’t make them pay because their deep passing attack wasn’t successful. Ryan completed only 3 of 8 passes that traveled more than 20 yards in the air. All of the completions were to the middle of the field.
Part of the reason was the blanket coverage provided by Cleveland cornerback Joe Haden. But on other plays, the Falcons were out of sync.
On one route, Jones broke free at the line of scrimmage and jetted passed his defender. Ryan noticed and fired the ball, but Jones didn’t turnaround fast enough after clearing the defender, and the pass fell incomplete. It looked like a play that should have gone for a touchdown.
“I don’t feel like, Matt and nobody here feels like, one guy can should be able to stop me man-to-man out there,” Jones said. “We just have to keep working and make those plays. We just have to go back to the drawing board and keep working to get our timing back.”
Ryan’s deep ball is not dazzling, but it can be effective when the timing is right. Against Tampa Bay, Jones got behind his defenders but had to wait for the pass, which was batted down by a defender.
“We’ll watch the film, learn as much as we can,” Ryan said. “Get onto the practice field and go out there and start moving around again. When you do that, that’s probably the best recipe (to improve). We are going to work on our craft.”
The Falcons expect that Arizona defensive coordinator Todd Bowles, who could be auditioning for employment as a head coach, will take a similar approach against the Falcons.
“Sometimes they were covered and sometimes they weren’t (against Cleveland),” coach Mike Smith said. “We have to hit those. I think there were five that we felt like we had opportunities to make a play down the field and create an explosive for us.”
Jones likely will match up against Patrick Peterson, who some consider one of the top cornerbacks in the NFL.
“We know going into it, Patrick Peterson is about as good as a corner as there in the league, and he’s going to play at a high level,” Ryan said. “He’s going to make some plays. We also know that Julio Jones is about as good as it gets at the wide receiver position in this league. It’ll be a good matchup.”
The Falcons may again have to take shots deep to unclog the running lanes.
“It’s important to create explosive plays,” Smith said. “I thought for the most part, except for a couple of breakdowns and some things that we had seen, there wasn’t anything that we hadn’t seen. We handled their blitz package fairly well. So of the things that they sacked us on, the three sacks were ‘Ned and the First Grader Reader’ type blitzes and pressures.”
Jones is rarely left in man-to-man coverage. But when he is, the Falcons want to make teams pay.
“They are going to try to make sure that they take away our best players,” Smith said. “Everybody puts a game plan together to do that.”
Smith doesn’t buy that Ryan and Jones have fallen out of sync.
“No, they (aren’t) out of sync,” Smith said. “In terms of production, it wasn’t what we’d like to have. We’d like to have a higher percentage ratio that what we did.”
The passing combination of Ryan to Jones has been productive, but hasn’t elevated in to a lethal scoring operation.
Jones has 72 catches (tied for fourth in the league) for 980 yards (tied for seventh) and four touchdowns (tied for 37th). Jones’ 24-yard touchdown grab against Cleveland on a post pattern was his first score since the first Tampa Bay game Sept. 18. He had been kept out of the end zone in seven consecutive games.
The deep pass should lead to more touchdowns.
“We have to hit those plays,” Jones said. “We have to make it work.”
Ryan said he was off the mark and took the blame for the loss against the Browns.
“It’s all 11 guys,” Jones said. “We are all going to make mistakes. We all are going to do something bad. The game of football has its ups and downs. It’s good that Matt is standing up, but it’s not on Matt. It’s on all of us.”
Jones believes that he can help the team rebound after the tough loss to Cleveland as they continue to fight for the NFC South title, even with their 4-7 record.
“I play offense,” Jones said. “I can’t talk about defense, special teams or anything else. I feel like when we are in that position we should make those plays. We just have to keep working. We are not throwing anybody under the bus or anything like that. We are together as a group and we have to keep working.”
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