Rest assured, Falcons fans.
After their 31-28 faceplant against the Vikings on Sunday, Falcons players indicated that the solution for avoiding a third consecutive defeat lays in playing the full 60 minutes of games.
After nine games, the “play for 54 or 55 minutes” game plan will be retired.
Also moving up in priority – attention to detail. “Playing with consistency” will get a long look, as well.
Coach Arthur Smith’s team can also take confidence from another likely game-changer. In their next game, Sunday at Arizona, the Falcons don’t appear consigned to play another quarterback making his career debut or who recently joined his new team days prior to the game. (Barring the Cardinals’ analytics team lobbying for the newbie quarterback ploy, given that it’s apparently the Falcons’ kryptonite.)
Effective tackling can also be expected to be featured more prominently in the game plan. Failing to wrap up Vikings quarterback (and Alpharetta High grad) Joshua Dobbs and allowing him to run for a career-high 66 yards was, in hindsight, a flawed approach.
Also going in the trash – false starting on first-and-goal from the 1 and then settling for a field goal, a ruse that should never have seen the light of day.
Turning the ball over on consecutive plays, both inside Falcons territory, including an interception carelessly thrown by the quarterback (Taylor Heinicke) who was replacing the starter because he turned the ball over too much (Desmond Ridder) – where’s the delete button for that crazy scheme?
Not least, any sense that the Falcons’ problems have been solved by replacing Ridder with Heinicke will, for the foreseeable future, also be suspended.
The Falcons have now lost two in a row and three of the past four. After losing at home to an opponent whose quarterback didn’t know all of his teammates’ names (truthfully), visions of the team’s first playoff berth since 2017 should be put on hold, as well.
“Ain’t no playoff talk, ain’t no nothing,” said defensive lineman Calais Campbell, a team leader who spoke to the team in the locker room after Sunday’s debacle.
Here’s the thing. The Falcons’ talk about needing to tackle better or eliminate mistakes is what you would expect to hear. They weren’t going to say “I think this is about the best we can do.”
But this is a game they needed. It factored into Smith’s willingness to make the fairly seismic decision to put Ridder – the quarterback he’d appointed his No. 1 in the offseason and whom owner Arthur Blank called the quarterback of the future – on the bench and go with Heinicke.
“He’s done a lot of good things, but we have to find a way to go win this game,” Smith said Monday of Ridder prior to elevating Heinicke.
So it wasn’t like Smith and his staff were going easy on the gas pedal this past week and creating a false sense of security about this game that players picked up on. A home game against a conference opponent after losing the week prior makes winning something of an imperative. If Smith’s players weren’t fuly locked in for 60 minutes, that is a problem.
Unfortunately, the flipside scenario is no box of donuts, either. The Falcons were playing as well as could be expected and still found a way to lose.
The Falcons benefited from the following: A safety (Campbell sacking Dobbs in the end zone in the second quarter), a drive that started at the Minnesota 1-yard line (after linebacker Lorenzo Carter picked up a Dobbs fumble created by linebacker Arnold Ebiketie and advanced it to within feet of the goal line), profited from another fumble from Dobbs that was returned to the Falcons at the Minnesota 30 (caused by a sack by defensive tackle David Onyemata and recovered by new defensive lineman Kentavius Street), had the longest play of the game – tight end Jonnu Smith’s 60-yard touchdown reception from Heinicke – and not only were facing the Vikings second-string quarterback (rookie Jaren Hall in his starting debut), but knocked him out of the game in the first quarter.
That’s a lot to go one team’s way. And the Falcons still didn’t win.
The Falcons did have to play without two of their biggest playmakers, defensive tackle Grady Jarrett (out for the season with a torn ACL and replaced in the starting lineup by Street, received in a trade from the Eagles) and wide receiver Drake London (out with a groin injury). And they were riding with Heinicke while Ridder watched from the sideline.
But, again, they were also playing a team that was 4-4 and without its quarterback (Kirk Cousins) and was spinning its wheels in the first half as Dobbs tried to find his way.
“It’s certainly a missed opportunity,” Smith said. “You give them credit, but, yes, you can’t sugarcoat or make excuses. We had our chances and we didn’t get it done.”
The logic that the Falcons could win the NFC South has rested in no small part on a weak schedule and a weak division. They’re now 4-5 against that soft schedule and are now a game behind the Saints (whose schedule is nearly identical to the Falcons’) in the division. They’ll have an opportunity to catch them as they have two games remaining with New Orleans, but the Falcons aren’t a team that’s radiating 5-3 vibes (or better) for the remaining eight games.
All that said, the game could have easily gone the Falcons’ way. The Falcons’ 28 points represented their season scoring high. With Heinicke, the offense was 10-for-18 on third down, a season-high conversion rate of 55.6%. Heinicke, from Collins Hill High, led a withering 79-yard touchdown drive in the fourth quarter to take a 28-24 lead.
The defense’s two takeaways might have been the story of the game had the Falcons come out on top. The big special-teams foul-up in the loss last week to the Titans – mistakes in fielding punts and a kickoff close to the goal line – was addressed.
But the result was the result.
The Falcons play a Cardinals team that is 1-8. If they can’t win that one, what are the solutions going to be then?
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