Falcons wide receiver Roddy White was a little dejected after the team’s film review session.
Most folks had the Falcons with seven dropped passes against the Bears. Apparently, assistant head coach/wide receivers Terry Robiskie is a much harsher film critic.
“We dropped a lot of passes,” White said on Monday. “It was like 9 or 10. That was uncharacteristic of us. We’ve got to hold onto the football.”
The dropped passes led to the Falcons converting on only 4 of 13 third down situations and kept the defense on the field longer.
White had two drops and admitted to looking up for the safety on one seam route that was designed to help beat Chicago’s cover-two zone defense.
“I kind of took my eyes of the ball and tried to look for safety and see where he was at,” White said. “Then, before he got there I dropped it and then he hit me. That was just one bad play of many that we had.”
White was not available after the game, but was seeing the trainers.
“It was one of those crucial ones in the game where if I had caught it, it would have made a difference,” White said. “It was tough. It was tough yesterday. We didn’t execute the way that we wanted to on offense in any of the phases so it was a difficult game for us.”
White was smashed on the play by Bears safety Ryan Mundy. The refs picked up the flag. Some contend that it was helmet-to-helmet hit.
“We didn’t pay attention to it,” White said. “Coach just told me to hold onto the ball. That was what the whole discussion in the room was about on that play not whether if it was helmet-to-helmet or anything like that. They don’t care about that. They just want me to hold onto the ball.”
Falcons coach Mike Smith was not happy that the flag was picked up.
“I’m going to be very careful with how I phrase this statement, but I think just like you guys watch explosives plays, all of the plays and replays, you can come to your own conclusion on what happened on that play,” Smith said. “I think that everyone would come to the same conclusion.”
White said the film session with Robiskie was productive.
“We had a lot of opportunities,” White said. “Now that we are done watching the film, you see all of the mistakes that we made. If we had hit a couple of them with the things we were trying to do, stop over thinking so much and just go out there and play football and we would have been fine.”
White has caught just 19 of his 37 targeted passes. He’s on pace to catch just 50 passes this season. That would be his lowest total since he caught 30 passes in 2006, his second season in the league.
“You’ve got to hold onto the ball,” White said. “This is the NFL.”
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