Falcon coach Dan Quinn was tempted to deviate from his plan.
After the Falcons were upset by the San Francisco 49ers it took a great deal of restraint for Quinn to allow the team to take the week off as he previously scheduled.
Quinn was disappointed with how the Falcons finished off games against Tampa Bay and San Francisco, both losses. He thought about calling practices, but elected to stay with his plan.
“We had a number of guys that had to get healthy and get well,” Quinn said. “It also gave us the time to look at the things that we wanted to improve upon. Although, tempting as it was, I stayed with the process.”
Quinn met with the team Monday morning for meetings and later for practice. He challenged all players, who are set to face the Colts (4-5) at 1 p.m. Sunday at the Georgia Dome, to find ways to improve down the stretch.
“We have a lot of really good players, for us to play at our best, we need everybody to come through,” Quinn said. “The bye came at a good time for us to heal up. Now, we have a healthy team coming back into practice. As we are moving forward, we can’t wait to get rolling again.”
The coaching staff completed an exhaustive self-scout during the bye week. Quinn has several areas mark for improvement starting with the turnover margin, third downs conversions on offensive, third down stops on defense, red zone scoring and defense and penalty reductions.
“We have a big playbook offensively, defensively,” Quinn said. “Let’s make sure we are finding the things that we do really well and emphasize and stress those things as often as we can.”
The Falcons are even in turnover differential, which ranks tied for 15th in the league with 14 takeaways and 14 turnovers (seven fumbles, seven interceptions). The New York Giants lead the league at plus-15.
The Falcons’ offense has converted 44.96 percent of their third downs, which ranks sixth in the league.
The defense has allowed conversions on 40.35 percent of its third down situations, which ranks 22nd in the league.
The Falcons are 20 of 33 (60.6 percent) on touchdown percentage in the redzone, which ranks 11th in the league. However, the offense is only 4 of 11 (36 percent) over the past three games, including three redzone turnovers. The offense has six redzone turnovers on the season.
The Falcons have committed 73 penalties for 615 yards and 214 nullified yards (two touchdowns). The Falcons need to focus on eliminating the 22 holding penalties and their pre-snap penalties.
Quinn believes the Falcons can work on their techniques to eliminate the holding calls.
“When you’re running the scheme that we run and you’ve got your hands on a guy, when is it time to release?” Quinn said. “That’s really when the holding comes. You usually see it when the jersey or the arm gets extended and you didn’t release in time.”
Pre-snap penalties especially troublesome.
“That’s an area of emphasis that we can do better at,” Quinn said. “We have the officials come to practice. It comes down to us just executing those things better.”
Quinn also noted that he felt wide receiver RoddyWhite would be a “significant factor” in the offense over the final seven games. White was targeted just 30 times over the first nine games and has 17 receptions.
Quinn had the centers getting some extra snaps in after practice. Two of the Falcons un-forced turnovers came on bad snaps by centers Mike Person and James Stone.
“You’ve got to count on that,” Quinn said. “There are certain things in this game that you’ve got to be able to count on and so whether if it’s the time, the reps or the techniques, we are going to look at everything to make sure that those problems don’t exist for us.”
Linebacker Philip Wheeler, who led the Falcons in tackles against San Francisco, is up for an expanded role.
“He’s been a really good addition for us,” Quinn said.
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