The Atlanta Falcons (1-1) face the New Orleans Saints (1-1) in an early NFC South division game Sunday (1 p.m, FOX) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan shares his thoughts on what to expect:
On preparing for the Saints and how it went Wednesday:
“We’re off to a good start. I thought practice today was good. Wednesdays, it’s about getting back onto the field and getting started on the plan, and I thought it went well today. We have a lot of work to do the rest of the week, but we’re off to a good start.”
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On which team is he preparing to see – a team playing man or zone:
“I mean we’ll be prepared for a lot of different things. One of the things that their scheme has is multiple looks, whether it’s in the front seven or in the back end. They do a lot of different things, they give you a lot of different looks. We’ll have to be prepared for all of it. We’ll have to have a good game plan and be ready to go for that.”
On Marshon Lattimore:
“Yeah, he’s a good player. Had a great year last year. Is solid in man-to-man coverage, solid in playing off in zone coverages, too. Has good ball skills. Certainly have been impressed by him so far.”
On rookie Marcus Davenport:
“I think their front seven in general. They’ve got some new backers, some new guys in the front four. But they give you so many different looks, they put guys in different positions and stress you across the board. As a whole, their entire front seven looks good.”
On when things are clicking, is there a feel early in the game when he feels they could score into the 30s:
“Certainly there’s momentum into the game you get a feel and you get rolling and you feel that as a player. So many different things can happen whether it’s a turnover in a short field or just one thing I’ve learned in a long time in playing, they all shake out differently. You have to be prepared every drive you go out there to put up points because you can get them in a flurry or it might take some time to get some. They all shake out differently, but momentum is definitely real. You can feel that, especially at the line of scrimmage when you start winning at the line of scrimmage, the offensive line is playing really well. It’s amazing how that translates to success all over the place.”
On when he plays a team that there’s so much familiarity with, do adjustments come quicker:
“ I think you know division opponents, you know scheme better. But you also see more wrinkles in division games then you do when you play other teams. That’s what I’ve found in my experience in this league. You can make the adjustments on the stuff you know, but there’s also going to be a handful of unscouted things or adjustments that they make to your scheme that you might not have seen. So it’s the balancing of the two.”
On what kind of boost was it to your offense to have that kind of balance:
“Yeah. I mean there was great balance like you mentioned in the run game, in the pass game. The ball was kind of distributed all over the place in the pass game as well. That just comes from how they’re playing and how they’re going to play against us. I feel like as a quarterback you’re just trying to make the right decision, go to the right spot with the football and trust whoever is in that spot to make those plays. That’s just how it shook out in that game.”
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