By several measures the Falcons have improved on defense from last season, when they had probably the worst unit in the league.
First-year Coach Dan Quinn believes his defense can be better.
Quinn said the pass rush wasn’t effective during the Falcons’ 48-21 victory on Sunday against the Texans. The Redskins, their opponent this Sunday at the Georgia Dome, are among the best pass blocking teams in the league.
“That’s the biggest thing, how do we affect the QB,” Quinn said. “Some weeks you can move a quarterback off his spot, get more hits, and very few sacks and do a good job. Other games you may get three or four (sacks) but the quarterback lit you up and you feel like you didn’t’ do a good job.”
The Falcons rank 30th of 32 teams in sacks per pass attempt and passing yards allowed per game, their lowest rankings among the 14 statistical categories compiled by the NFL. The Redskins rank fifth in sacks allowed per pass attempt.
But the Falcons rank fourth in the league in the adjusted sack rate metric developed by Football Outsiders. It takes into account sacks and intentional grounding penalties per pass attempt and adjusts for down, distance and opponent. The Redskins rank seventh in adjusted sack rate allowed.
Against the Texans, the Falcons had just one sack in 58 drop backs and Pro Football Focus credited them with three hits and eight hurries, for a total of 12 pressures in 58 drop backs (21 percent). The Falcons were credited with pressures on 31 percent of drop backs against the Cowboys, 50 percent against the Giants and 21 percent against the Eagles.
“This week we didn’t do as good a job affecting QB as we had in previous games,” Quinn said. “We try to stay in the moment of each week and say what we can do better moving forward.”
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