FLOWERY BRANCH -- In his Monday morning staff meeting, Falcons coach Mike Smith pulled out his old notebooks from the 2008 and 2010 playoff trips.
He wanted to reflect on the Falcons’ previous postseason appearances, and note some of the differences between regular-season and playoff games.
“It’s really the third season,” Smith said. “When I first got in the NFL, I can remember my first year and they said there were three seasons, actually four seasons. They said there was the preseason, which was at one tempo. The regular season, which is it a little higher tempo. Then the postseason, which is the third season, and the Super Bowl, which is the fourth season.”
When the Falcons (10-6) face the Giants (9-7) in the wild-card round of the NFC playoffs at 1 p.m. Sunday at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, N.J., the intensity will pick up.
“It’s starts early in the week and it becomes a very intense, energetic time when you are playing in the playoffs,” Smith said. “It’s a situation where you’re not going to have a game if you don’t win. Everybody is planning to play through the end of January and into February.”
Smith was able to glean some information from his notes involving a 30-24 loss to Arizona four years ago and a 48-21 loss to Green Bay last season. Both teams went on to represent the NFC in the Super Bowl.
“In our staff meeting today, I brought out the notebook in terms of things we wrote down, and you learn from everything that you do in terms of how you prepare,” Smith said. “In terms of actually scheduling, we’re not going to change that. There are some things that we definitely are going to do a little bit differently.”
Most of the changes will be subtle and involve installation and presentation of information, but an obvious change will be how much hitting the Falcons do in padded practices.
“The rules of engagement are a little bit different with the new collective bargaining agreement,” Smith said. “We are looking at starting our preparation on Wednesday like we would normally do. But there are few tweaks.”
The Falcons have been limited in the number of padded practices they could have; they’ve actually been out of their pads since Week 13.
“Now, you’ve got the ability to have a padded practice if you would like in the postseason,” Smith said. “So it changes a little bit of what we’ve been doing the last six or seven weeks of the season.”
From his notes, Smith said this jumped out: the Falcons combined to commit seven turnovers in those two playoff losses.
“The common theme [was] you can’t turn the football over,” Smith said. “One happened right before halftime last season, and in Arizona I think it was the first or second play of the second half. We came out and turned the ball over and it was returned for a touchdown, as well. It’s no different than regular-season football, but we’ve got to make sure that we have ball security. We cannot turn the football over in the postseason.”
Unlike the previous two playoff trips, the Falcons will have a roster full of players with playoff experience.
“We have 41 players on our 53-man roster that have played in a playoff game now,” Smith said.
This also will be the Falcons’ first playoff game in an outdoor stadium under Smith. Arizona elected to close its roof when it faced the Falcons.
“From what I understand, [on] a certain website that I check the weather on, the weather is going to be nice,” Smith said.
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