With the defense reeling early against Dallas, Falcons veteran safety William Moore stepped forward and helped to turn the game around.
With the Falcons down 21-7 and showing no signs of stopping the Cowboys, Moore intercepted an errant Brandon Weeden pass that was intended for tight end Jason Witten. He returned in 11 yards to Dallas’ 23 with 5:50 left in the second quarter.
“I was just trying to be spark,” Moore said. “I was trying to take advantage of the down and distance and just read the stuff I saw on film. That was a good play, I was just executing on the ball.”
Moore received an assist from linebacker Nate Stupar, who had some pressure on Weeden.
The offense took advantage of the turnover and cut the lead to 21-14 and brought the defense some time to figure out how to slow down the Cowboys.
“That was big,” Falcons coach Dan Quinn said.
It was Moore’s second interception of the season. Since 2009, Moore ranks tied for second among all safeties with 26 turnovers forced.
“William has a knack for finding the ball,” Quinn said.
For the defense, it was their fourth turnover this season. With the touchdown, the Falcons have scored 21 points off of turnovers.
But the biggest turnaround was with the run defense.
After the Cowboys ran roughshod over the Falcons for 131 rushing yards in the first half, the defense held them to minus-4 yards rushing in the second half. Quinn lit into his defensive linemen.
The Falcons missed nine tackles in the first half and that irked the first-year head coach. The defense missed just two tackles in the second half.
“We had to respect our gaps,” Moore said. “They had fast running backs. So, we had to respect their speed coming out of the backfield. They like to offset them and match them up against linebackers.”
The Falcons played their base defense for about 50 percent of the 54 defensive snaps. Quinn and defensive coordinator Richard Smith went with their bigger linemen to slow down the run game.
The lighter ends rookie Vic Beasley and Kroy Biermann didn’t play as much. Beasley played 35 of 54 snaps (65 percent) and Biermann played 14 of 54 (26 percent).
“We played a lot of man-on-man in the second half,” Moore said. “We felt like we could hold them, we could contain them.”
The moves worked.
“It was nothing out of our realm of what the (Smith) called,” Moore said. “If we would have did that the whole game, I don’t think that game would have been that close.”
Moore and linebacker Justin Durant, who led the team with nine tackles, were not happy with the overall showing by the defense.
“You have to take one thing out of this game and that was the fight,” Moore said.
Durant, who had two missed tackles early, seem to take the first-half showing personally.
“I didn’t play too well in my opinion,” Durant said. “I was just happy to get a win.”
Durant believes the second-half performance showed what the defense can become with some consistency.
“The sky is the limit for our team,” Durant said. “We can’t be inconsistent the way that we are. In this league, the inconsistencies will turn into losses.”
Moore, who’s in his seventh season with the Falcons, was a star on the 2012 team which opened the season 8-0. He went to the Pro Bowl after that team was defeated in the NFC championship game.
He’s enjoying this start a little bit more.
“We’ve been here before,” Moore said. “I’ve seen the success that we’ve had here in Atlanta. To start off like this, we can always use this momentum, but we have to move on to the next game.
“We realize we are 3-0 and we’re a great football team.”
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