The Falcons’ offensive line hasn’t exactly been saving Private Ryan this season.
Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan, the team’s $100 million man, has been under siege as his revamped offensive line has struggled to protect him over the first four games.
“I don’t know really much about the perception,” Falcons offensive line coach Pat Hill said. “I’m not too involved in that. I do know that we’ve got to keep working to perfect our trade on a weekly basis.”
The unit will face another stiff challenge against the New York Jets (2-2) at 8:40 p.m. Monday at the Georgia Dome. The Jets entered Week 5 of the season tied for third in the NFL with 14 sacks.
Because of injury and performance, the Falcons have had to do some juggling at the tackle position. Lamar Holmes, who opened the season as the right tackle, is set to start his second game at left tackle for Sam Baker. Jeremy Trueblood, who was picked up after being cut by the Redskins, was elevated to the No. 1 spot at right tackle.
“We’ve had a lot of movement on that line, and that makes it more difficult on those guys,” Ryan said. “When you’re playing in the same spot or you’re not playing next to the same guy week-in and week-out, it’s difficult. With the offensive line play, you are so dependent on the guy next to you.”
Normally, with a clean pocket and sturdy protection, Ryan delivers passes with deadly accuracy.
In defense of the line play, the Falcons point out that they have given up only seven sacks, which ranks eighth in the league. But the number is low because Ryan is an expert at reading defenses and delivering quick passes.
The New England game is an example. The unit allowed only two sacks, but Ryan was hurried 15 times and hit twice out of 60 dropbacks, according to the highly respected analytics website profootballfocus.com. For the season, Ryan has been hit 16 times and hurried 58 times.
“They’ve battled, and we’re improving,” Ryan said.
Hill and Paul Dunn, the Falcons’ offensive line coaches, want better protection.
“We throw the football a good amount of times, and we have to be better with protections,” Hill said. “When you throw the ball a lot, you have to be good at protection. That’s what we have to do.”
When Ryan attempts a pass within two seconds of the snap, he has been accurate on 33 of 35 passes, according to profootballfocus.com. His accuracy percentage of 94.3 percent in those situations is the highest in the league. When under pressure and he takes 2.1 seconds or more, his accuracy percentage drops to 69.3 percent, which is near the NFL average.
“It just goes back to coming together as a team,” center Peter Konz, who’s in his first year as the center and is trying to replace long-time starter Todd McClure.
Falcons coach Mike Smith said that the offensive line had its best pass-protection game of the season against the Patriots. General manager Thomas Dimitroff said, “I’m encouraged by their development.”
The linemen seem to know that the protection must improve.
“There were two sacks, so we need to get rid of those because it’s our job to keep Matt clean because any times he feels pressure, were not going to get the best throw off, so we need to protect a little bit better,” Konz said.
Ryan has not hounded the lineman for better blocking.
“Matt is always positive,” Konz said.
Left guard Justin Blalock, who was drafted in 2007, is the longest-tenured member on the line.
“We haven’t change anything schematically speaking,” Blalock said. “Most of it has been working on our communications.”
Opponents also made it a priority to get the ball out of Ryan’s hands. If he has time and protection, teams are at his mercy with receivers Julio Jones, Tony Gonzalez and Roddy White, when healthy.
So, the group is seeing a lot of tricks and ploys to spring free blitzers against Ryan.
“Across the league you are seeing all of these different packages,” Blalock said. “All of this crazy stuff. All sorts of things. So, we’ve just been working on the timing between individual players. That has probably been the biggest key.”
Blalock doesn’t know what’s a good number of sack or hurries, but he does know the line must protect better.
“Honestly, you want to have a few as possible,” Blalock said. “It would be great not to have any, but as everyone has seen across the league, there have been games when teams have five or six (sacks) and lose the game, and sometimes they have none and win. I don’t want to say that it’s a be-all and end-all statistic of defense and winning football games.”
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