Floored Falcons must get up for 12-0 Panthers

The Falcons, who have dropped five straight and six of their past seven, know they can’t show up at Bank of America Stadium for the 1 p.m. game on Sunday and think the undefeated Panthers (12-0) are going to throw them a pity-party.

“We have to get ready to face a good football team,” wide receiver Roddy White said. “They are really good. We have to get our mind right to go up there and be ready to play.”

If they don’t, Panthers quarterback Cam Newton might turn it into a end zone dance-a-thon.

But White believes the Falcons, who opened the season going 5-0, will manage.

“We’ll find a way,” White said.

The Falcons were already in a dark place before playing Tampa Bay. They had a players-only team meeting before facing Tampa Bay and the 23-19 gut-wrenching loss to quarterback Jameis Winston and the Bucs may have left some lingering dots on their collective psyche.

“We fell short,” safety William Moore said. “We fell short because of us as players. It’s not because of the coaches. They do an excellent job of preparing us. We are the ones on the field and we fell short as players.”

The 5-0 start seems a distant memory, but that’s all the team has left to latch onto with hopes of pulling them out of this wretched slump.

“We have to be motivated enough to know that we are a great team from the start that we had,” Moore said. “It wasn’t a fluke starting off 5-0. We have to keep that mindset and know that we are a great football team. We have just fallen short.”

Falcons coach Dan Quinn endorsed the players’ only meeting. He’s seen them worked before, but cautioned against seeing a second, third or fourth players-only meeting. Those are not productive.

“I don’t think that the meeting was a failure at all,” linebacker O’Brien Schofield said. “Defensively, we did what we said we were going to do. We got the ball back for the offense.”

But the defense, which was the league’s No. 1 defense against the run before facing Minnesota, couldn’t tackle Winston with the game on the line.

Quinn was still seething on Monday and voiced his displeasure that some of defenders weren’t exactly swarming to the football.

“When I watched it for the second time it was really frustrating, and one that makes you sick when you watch at it to see a play like that and not have the type of mindset to go get it at the end,” Quinn said. “Yeah, it was clearly an example of (not swarming to the ball) because there’s no guarantee, even in that spot, there’s still going to be a long field goal.”

The defense’s psyche must be wounded. They’ll have to tackle much better against Newton.

“Just keeping pressing forward, we still have four games left,” Schofield said. “You don’t know what will happens with a team at 10-6 at the end of the year. It’s not over until is over.”

The Falcons have to also worry about quarterback Matt Ryan, who continues to turn the ball over. He was intercepted by Bucs linebacker Lavonte David with under 1:30 to play.

“He was just trying to make a play,” White said. “At that point, we have to score a touchdown. With a minute and 30 on the clock, you’ve got to get chunks. On that one, he was just trying to make a play.”

Schofield said, “It’s got to be tough on Matt, but it’s not his fault. We had a whole game to put ourselves in a better situation.”

Falcons tackle Ryan Schraeder tried to make sense of the losing streak and Ryan’s recent penchant for throwing interceptions.

“I’m not really worried about Matt at all,” Schraeder said. “He put us in the position to win the game. That’s really what it boils down to. We tried to make a play at the end. We can’t really put it all of him for that.”

The battered and bruised Falcons must figure out a way to move forward against the hottest team in the league.

“It’s going to be a tough week,” Schraeder said. “We just have to come out fighting and get after them on Sunday.”