FLOWERY BRANCH – Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan believes the offense needs to develop a killer's instinct when they get across the 50-yard line and in the red zone.
Ryan spoke on his weekly radio show on 680 The Fan on Tuesday about the offense, which has struggled with turnovers, scoring touchdowns once inside the opponent’s 20-yard line and with penalties over the past four games.
The Falcons went 2-2 over the second quarter of the season with NFC South losses to New Orleans and Tampa Bay. While playing erratic, the Falcons posted slim victories over Washington in overtime and Tennessee.
Here’s are some of the highlights from Ryan’s show:
On the turnovers
“We’ve got to be better than that. It starts with me on the offensive side of the ball. As a quarterback, you have to take ownership of that. I’ve got to do better in that department. But across the board, we’ve got to be much better than that. The thing is that we’re moving it really successfully. We are doing a lot of really good things on offense. It’s just the small details on a handful of plays that need to be cleaned up. I think if we do that, we can be a really, really good offense moving forward.”
How do you fix that in practice?
“From a preparation standpoint, it starts with mindset, first and foremost and that’s been there. (Falcons coach) Dan (Quinn) talks about that all the time. We need to make great decisions and protect the ball on offense. We need to go take it away on defense. That’s something that in every meeting that we have, that’s addressed. I think it comes down to when we are out there competing in practice, during those live reps, we’ve got to be on top of it. We’ve got to go into the game with the mindset that … no matter what happens we’ve got to protect (the ball). … We’ve got to take care of it.”
On the offense slowing down
“The only thing that we need to change is the four turnovers. In this past game, three of them were on the plus-side of the 50. You are directly taking points off of the scoreboard when you do that. I don’t think we need to go changing who we are or what we are doing. There are a lot of really good things that we are doing. We just need to, when we get those chances and we are moving the ball down into that red area, the plus-side of the 50, we need to have that killer’s instinct of putting the ball in the end zone, taking full advantage of the opportunities that we have.”
On the read-action fumble
“It’s kind of a run-pass option that we have in that situation. It was just the two of us not being on the same page. (Devonta Freeman thought it was run. Ryan wanted to fake and throw a pass). There’s no getting around it, it can’t happen. That starts with me. In that situation, I wanted to pull it out to throw it down the field. We were not on the same page.”
On the Jacob Tamme pass late
“Jacob played awesome for us and he has this entire year. He’s been a huge addition for us. I think he’s brought a lot to our offense. That catch, specifically was on a seam route down the middle where you’ve got to drive it in there. You have to be aggressive with it. He knows it and I know that he’s going to get hit after he catches that. But he didn’t blink. He secured the ball and got down. That was a huge play for us.”
On the new audible system
“Obviously, we are different than we were in the past. We were a lot more no-huddle kind of the last three or four years with Dirk (Koetter) and really at the end with Mike Mularkey. We were doing a lot of things at the line of scrimmage. We are a little bit different from that now. But we definitely…we go to the line of scrimmage with multiple plays a lot of the time. We have the ability to get into what we feel like is the best play for that situation. There is still a lot of that. We are doing a lot of that at the line of scrimmage. It’s just different in how we communicate it and how we get it done.”
More on audibles
“There is a far greater emphasis on running the ball….We’re really on the cusp of being a great offense if we can finish drives and take care of the ball.”
On going on a roll
“That’s the expectation that we have for ourselves on the offensive side of the ball. I think our defense has done a great job really of keeping us in games at certain points where we haven’t done our best. But to me, where we can go score 35 , 40 points, I feel like we’re capable of doing that. We’ve done it. The Dallas game. Against the Houston Texans. Against the Eagles where we are up there scoring 30-something, 40-something points. That’s really what I think we’re capable of if we take care of the ball. The production from a yardage standpoint, in terms of moving the football and getting your chances to get touchdowns, that’s there. We’ve got to find the killer instinct and that starts with taking care of the football.”
Any plans to get out of the shotgun in the red zone (Snapping issues)
“I don’t think so. I think some times funny stuff like that happens. I’ve got all kinds of confidence in the world in our guys, James Stone and in Mike Person when they both have been in there. They are going to be fine and they are going to do a great job with it. I expect that we won’t make those mistakes again.”
On the bye week
“I think it’s great when you get it late. You don’t really have any say over when it’s going to be, but we’ve had the early one before in Week 3 or 4 and that makes for a long second half of the season. A long home stretch. I kind of like that we’re going to have nine games in and then get a little chance to get some rest and then come back flying for the second half of our season.”
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