By game’s end, the paying customers who remained were wearing blue and green and chanting, “Sea! Hawks!” That’s how far and how fast the Atlanta Falcons have fallen. They once were able to win anywhere. Now they’re getting blown out and shouted down in the Georgia Dome.
A season gone bad got exponentially worse Sunday. The Falcons were beaten 33-10 in a game so discombobulating that coach Mike Smith, trying to re-inflate a popped balloon, sent his starting offense on the field inside the final two minutes. “We were going to go out there and try to score,” he said. “That’s the competitor in me and in this organization … It would have sent a very negative message if we didn’t use the guys who gave the best chance to win.”
Some might say that deploying Matt Ryan, Roddy White and Tony Gonazalez in the final seconds of a game long gone was more an act of lunacy than a case of competitive juices flowing. (Did Smith learn nothing from John Abraham’s injury 10 months ago?) But losing three consecutive games by an aggregate 61 points has reduced this once-proud team to empty gestures.
As it happened, the Falcons didn’t score on that final drive. Eight dinky Ryan passes didn’t enable them to cross the Seattle 40. This was in keeping with the day itself. This rout wasn’t a function of turnovers or funny bounces. The Seahawks simply hammered the Falcons for 60 dominant minutes. Seattle drove across midfield on each of its nine possessions, scoring on seven.
Said Smith: “We physically were not up to the level we needed to be on the offensive or defensive side of the football.”
Asked if he felt the Falcons had been overpowered, safety William Moore said: “Definitely not. We played some physical ball. They just made some plays. They didn’t outhit us.”
Apparently Moore witnessed a different game. Indeed, he’d been the victim of the first emphatic shove. Tailback Marshawn Lynch caught a swing pass on third-and-4 and was grabbed by Moore a yard short of the marker. Lynch ran through the arms of the Falcons’ biggest hitter and was never actually tackled. He pushed a cluster of defenders backward until, having generated nine big-shouldered yards, he stomped over the sideline.
That was the lesson of this dark day: One team was strong enough, even in a weakened state, to make an opponent that had ousted it from the playoffs in January look as puny as Justin Bieber on Muscle Beach.
Football is supposed to be a realm of brute force, but the Falcons gave up that aspect of the game a while back. They’d become a finesse team, and much of the finesse left when Julio Jones was hurt. Ergo, 2-7.
Still, the Seahawks arrived minus three starting offensive linemen, two gifted receivers and one starting defensive end — and they coped. They gained 490 yards. They managed almost as many yards rushing (211) as the Falcons had rushing and passing (226). Seattle has a deep and powerful roster. By way of contrast, the Falcons stood revealed as a thin and weak assemblage.
Said Steven Jackson, the running back billed as an upgrade over Michael Turner but who managed 11 yards on nine carries: “They didn’t do anything we didn’t prepare for. They just executed.”
On Monday, Smith said he believed it was possible for his team to make a playoff push. After this game, he sounded rather different: “Everyone within this organization and this team needs to take a hard look at themselves.”
Was the coach considering wholesale changes? “Nothing is out of the question. We have not played good football the last three weeks.”
But what’s left to try? The wishbone? This team was built to throw and catch. With the possible exception of William Moore, these Falcons are pragmatic enough to realize that there’s no Plan B. It’s clear, at least in hindsight, that there was never a Plan B. There was only Plan A and fingers crossed.
Seven games remain. That’s a long time for frustration to percolate. Will a team touted as a Super Bowl contender take this dud of a season as reason to quit? “I know the men in this room are pros, and we’re going to prepare and work our butts off,” guard Justin Blalock said. “There’s not a man in this room who’s going to mail it in.”
Those are brave words, but they might not come attached to reality. These Falcons and this coach aren’t used to this. The Falcons’ worst full season under Smith (2009) yielded seven losses. This team has already matched that with nearly two months to go. As grim as Sunday was, there could be worse ahead.
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