The Falcons are moving from strength to strength. After overwhelming Tampa Bay here Thursday night, they hold a 2 1/2-game lead in the NFC South with seven games remaining. They’re 6-3, and no NFC team has won more than six games. They should win their division. They might well land a first-round bye.
Yes, this might be getting ahead of ourselves, especially in the wake of last season’s epic collapse. But this team keeps offering further evidence that last year was so … last year. To see how much the Falcons have grown, we need only contrast this 43-28 victory with the Week 1 loss to these same Buccaneers.
In Week 1, the themes of last season were sounded anew. Their defense yielded four Jameis Winston touchdown passes. Their offense again stalled near the goal line. That egregious loss seemed — at least to me, at least that given Sunday — to indicate that the failings of last season hadn’t been corrected.
Today we all know better. The defense still needs work — and Desmond Trufant, the best Falcons defender, left Thursday’s game with what was announced as a shoulder injury — but the defense is indeed better than it looked that September day. The offense is, in a word, great. This is a team that can play into January, maybe deep into January.
The Falcons trailed twice in Thursday’s first half — at 7-0 and 14-13. With three minutes remaining in the third quarter, they led 33-14. They’d found their stride, and when that happens they aren’t many teams that can keep up. Certainly not the Bucs, who have taken that Week 1 victory and fallen apart.
It’s November, and Tampa Bay hasn’t yet won at home. Famous Jameis hasn’t blossomed quite the way it was hoped when Lovie Smith was shown the door and offensive coordinator Dirk Koetter, once a Falcons’ assistant, was promoted to head coach. Koetter himself hasn’t exactly had a season in the sun, and his decisions in this game were bizarre bordering on silly.
Early in the second quarter, Matt Ryan threw incomplete for Austin Hooper on third-and-7 at the Tampa Bay 23. Falcons guard Andy Levitre was flagged for grabbing the face mask. Koetter declined the penalty, leaving Matt Bryant a 41-yard field goal. Why not accept the 15 yards and make it third-and-22 at the 38, which would make — assuming the Falcons didn’t convert, which shouldn’t happen on third-and-22 — the field goal much longer and maybe too long.
And then: With 25 seconds remaining in the half, Ryan was sacked for a 10-yard loss on third-and-6 beyond midfield. Koetter had two timeouts remaining. He could have at least forced the Falcons to punt. Apparently under the impression that saved timeouts can be redeemed at Costco, Koetter allowed the half to end with his team trailing 20-14 and the Falcons due to take the ball after halftime.
The Falcons took said ball and iced the game. Julio Jones, who’d caught only one first-half pass, caught four on four consecutive plays, each yielding a first down. Ryan finished the drive by finding fullback Pat DiMarco for a 1-yard touchdown. The 86-yard drive made it 26-14. An 81-yard drive soon followed. Then a 57-yard one. By then it was 40-14 and the stadium with the pirate ship wasn’t to be confused with the Good Ship Lollipop.
Ryan was sublime yet again — 25 for 34 for 344 yards and four touchdowns — and he exploited his newest new toy. Taylor Gabriel was cut by Cleveland, the NFL’s worst team, in September. On this Thursday he offered a passable impersonation of Percy Harvin in his prime, scoring a 9-yard touchdown on a jet sweep shortly after making a leaping 26-yard catch.
Over the past eight games, nearly everything Kyle Shanahan has touched has turned to gold. In Week 1, Mike Smith — for seven years the Falcons’ head coach, now Tampa Bay’s defensive coordinator — saw his men do just enough to keep his former team from scoring touchdowns. This time Smitty had nothing. The Falcons finished with 461 yards.
Just as the Falcons answered that loss to Tampa Bay with three consecutive victories, they’ve responded to the missteps against Seattle and San Diego with two victories. The Green Bay game figures to stand as this season’s pivot point, but this was impressive in its way. Four days after besting Aaron Rodgers, the Falcons went on the road and thrashed a team that had become Dan Quinn’s nemesis.
With every game, this team shows us something new. With every game, believing comes easier.
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