Sarkisian takes umbrage with Warner’s red-zone critique

Falcons offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian took umbrage with the notion that the team could have easily flooded a zone against the Eagles to score in the red zone.

» More: Sarkisian stands behind red-zone plan

Former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner, a NFL Network analyst and member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, questioned Sarkisian's calls immediately after the 18-12 opening day loss to the Eagles.

“It was bracket coverage,” Sarkisian said. “They were doubling No. 3 on the right-hand side and No. 2 on the left-hand side. It wasn’t a zone defense. I’m sorry Kurt Warner, Coach.”

The @Eagles ran same D on each of those last 4 snaps in RZ... how the @AtlantaFalcons didn’t come up w/ a better play than those? They played 7 across - needed to attack 1 zone w/ 2 guys & it’s an easy TD - they kept sending guys 2 different zones??? Beat zone by overloading it!
— Kurt Warner (@kurt13warner) September 7, 2018

» Also: Matt Ryan says offense needs balance

After seeing Sarkisan’s retort, Warner appeared to back track in a couple of tweets.

I would FULLY agree with that - but same play 3x in a row with same result isn’t great coaching either! Plenty of blame to go around!!
— Kurt Warner (@kurt13warner) September 13, 2018

Haha - I’ll be showing on Gameday morning this week! You can call it a combo zone with man principals depending on who was running which route... but I will also show that it’s not all on Sark like many think!
— Kurt Warner (@kurt13warner) September 13, 2018

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