FLOWERY BRANCH — The Falcons’ version of the ground-and-pound rushing attack has been on hibernation the past five games.
The downward trend troubles the Falcons (9-6) as they get ready to face Tampa Bay (4-11) at 4:15 p.m. Sunday at the Georgia Dome. The Buccaneers, before they started to crumble, held running back Michael Turner to a season-low 20 yards on 11 carries in their 16-13 victory Sept. 25.
Also, the Falcons know they’ll need to run effectively in the playoffs.
Five games have passed since Turner rushed for 100 yards in a game. He had 100 yards on 21 carries against Tennessee and was vintage Turner, bowling over Titans safety Michael Griffin twice on powerful runs into the secondary.
But over the past five games, he has peaked at 76 yards against Carolina and has averaged 3.1 yards per carry.
There are several factors to explain the slide of the rushing attack.
In addition to missing injured Pro Bowl fullback Ovie Mughelli, Turner started to show up on the injury report during Week 12 with a groin injury and has been getting rest during the week. In losses to New Orleans and Houston, the offense fell behind and turned to their passing game to stay in the games.
Taking note of the low rushing outputs, the coaching staff underwent a running-game system-check this week. They also want to run should they have to play outdoors in cold weather.
“We’re going to be getting on a plane and going somewhere, so we want to definitely make sure that we have a real good feel for our running game,” Smith said.
Turner, who had offseason groin surgery, is not one to make excuses.
“My health has nothing to do with it,” Turner said. “It’s just the way the games have been going the past couple of weeks. In a game like New Orleans, you want to keep them off the field as much as possible, but we weren’t able to do that with the way the situations turned out in the game. But we do need more production out of the running game.”
Turner would not point to the offensive line when asked if there are holes to run through.
“That’s kind of like a trick question,” Turner said. “We just need more consistency with what we are doing and get to our good plays, our good looks that we want to run and just keep running them. Just get better at what we are doing and get our chemistry back.”
Turner acknowledged missing Mughelli and his crushing lead blocks.
“That plays a little bit into it, and sometimes we have to throw Jason Snelling in there at fullback,” Turner said. “We’ve been doing a lot of no-huddle stuff, too. There are a lot of factors that play into it.”
But Turner expects to get his number called more often against Tampa Bay and in the playoffs.
“You’ve got to run in the playoffs,” Turner said. “To win playoff football you have to be able to run it and throw it. You never know what situation you’re going to be in in the playoffs. Every team is good. Every team is going to have a good quarterback, and we’ll have to keep them off the field.”
The offensive line is ready to get back to mauling defenders in the run game, too.
“I think that will be huge,” center Todd McClure said. “You can’t be one-dimensional going against the defenses that we’re going to have to face in the playoffs. That’s something that we really want to do, is get the running game going.”
Tight end Tony Gonzalez believes the running game will be fine.
“We know we can go to that,” Gonzalez said. “If Mike needs to get the ball 35 times a game, I don’t care. It’s about going to the playoffs and winning these games, and we can do it.”
