The theme for Game No. 16 of the Falcons season had been downgraded from “Rise Up” to just “Show Up.”
Attendance at the Georgia Dome was well below capacity Sunday. There was in the air all the buzz of an end-of-year business report (with extra pie charts).
And the Falcons, no matter how much they told themselves over the past week they wanted to win, performed down to the occasion, losing their regular-season finale to Tampa Bay, 22-17.
They will take their 13-3 NFC-best record to the couch for next week’s opening of the playoffs. There they may watch and wait for an opponent to come to them two weeks hence.
In the meantime, they will attempt to both heal up and flush the memory of Sunday. Coach Mike Smith’s decision to play his starters for the entirety of a game that had no bearing on his team’s playoff seeding yielded the Falcons lowest point output of the season. And two of his important defenders – sack leader John Abraham (ankle) and cornerback Dunta Robinson (head) – suffered injuries that will be points of concern leading up to the Falcons playoff opener.
The coach downplayed both injuries and reaffirmed his belief in treating all games as equals.
“We’ve said from the very beginning that we were going to play this game to win. I think we did that. We just didn’t get it done today,” Smith reaffirmed.
Fighting a vague battle against rest and rust was the price the Falcons paid for gaining every playoff advantage they could before the final game. The team spoke all week on the importance entering the postseason – “the money round,” as tight end Tony Gonzalez put it – with a healthy sense of itself. Beating Tampa Bay, a team coming to town on a five-game losing streak, would have been the perfect way to sustain momentum.
Instead, at the finish, it was difficult to see the Falcons gaining anything positive from Sunday’s experience.
Get out of the Georgia Dome in one piece? Nope.
Robinson knocked himself out in the first quarter when he lowered his head to deliver a big blow on the Bucs fireplug running back Doug Martin. And in the fourth, Abraham was helped off the field, unable to support any part of his 260 pounds on his left ankle.
Failing that, could they at least announce their playoff readiness with authority? Not hardly.
Against the league’s 29th-ranked defense, the Falcons were held to fewer than 20 points for the first time this season. Their inability to synch up offensively was evidenced by the fact that none of their cadre of talented receivers could catch more balls for more yards than backup running back Jacquizz Rodgers (eight for 50 yards).
Quarterback Matt Ryan went right to the heart of the most unsettling failing, one that has definite implications for the postseason. “We didn’t do a very good job of converting on third down (converting on just three of 14),” he said. “When we haven’t played well offensively that has been one of the things that has crept in.”
None of the numbers treated the Falcons kindly. On offense, Tampa Bay, 7-9, outgained the Falcons in total yardage 366-278. The biggest difference was on the ground, where first-year running back Doug Martin gained 142 of the Bucs 144 rushing yards (the Falcons ran for but 65). In the teams’ first meeting this year, Martin was held to 50 yards.
Defensively, the Bucs sacked Ryan twice and knocked him down with extreme prejudice another half dozen times. Conversely, the Falcons put little pressure on Tampa Bay’s Josh Freeman.
And in that often overlooked third phase, the Falcons had a punt blocked when the Tampa Bay rush pushed snapper Josh Harris into punter Matt Bosher.
The Falcons showed a spark of second-half life when cornerback Asante Samuel jumped a little out route for his third interception in three games and returned it to the Tampa Bay 21. Two plays later, Michael Turner was presented a sizeable alley to the endzone, and finished off his 17-yard touchdown run with Bucs safety Ronde Barber on board. That made it Tampa Bay 16, Falcons 10.
But the Bucs scored just two minutes later when Martin authored his longest run of the day, a 40-yard touchdown rumble which no Falcon cared to interrupt.
Throwing a fourth-quarter touchdown pass to Harry Douglas gave Ryan the team single-season record for touchdown passes (32) and brought the Falcons back in range. But Ryan, with five fourth-quarter winning drives this season, could not manufacture another. The Falcons last possession ended on four straight Ryan incompletions.
The players had scarcely left the showers when the process of shredding Sunday’s result had begun.
The real time to render this game ultimately meaningless would come in two weeks, they said.
“We’re going to play like champs from now on,” Samuel assured.
Vowed Gonzalez, as he continues to seek his first-ever playoff victory, “At the end of the day we’re still the No. 1 seed. We’ve still got to learn from this but we’ll be a lot better two weeks from now. I promise you that.”
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