The Falcons won 56 regular-season games — second to New England among NFL teams — from 2008 through 2012. In January they came within 10 yards of the Super Bowl. These guys had to be doing something right. Didn’t they?
The 2013 Falcons are 2-5 and about to enter the tougher part of their schedule, and given their injuries they’ll do well to finish 6-10. Witnessing such a plunge, it’s fashionable to ask if we’re seeing the “real” Falcons — meaning flawed — at last. But if they were so flimsy, how did they average 11.2 victories over five seasons? Luck?
Those who track advanced analytics have long been unimpressed by the Falcons. If we check raw numbers, we see why. The 2012 Falcons ranked eighth in the league in total offense, which was good but not great, and 24th in total defense, which wasn’t even good. The 2010 Falcons ranked 16th in total offense and defense, which suggested mediocrity. Both teams went 13-3 and finished as the NFC’s top seed. How’d that happen?
The 2012 and 2010 Falcons each went 7-2 in one-score games. From 2008 through 2012, the Falcons were 29-12 in games decided by eight or fewer points. Their winning percentage in close games was an unbelievable .707. By way of contrast, the New Orleans Saints were 21-17 (.553) in one-score games over those five seasons.
General manager Thomas Dimitroff spent his first draft pick on Matt Ryan, a quarterback who’s good most of the time but great at the end of games. For five seasons, Ryan and an increasingly gifted receiving corps — Dimitroff traded for Tony Gonzalez in 2009 and drafted Julio Jones in 2011 — enabled the Falcons to win at a rate that flattered their overall capabilities. The NFL being a passing league, a quarterback can make a decent team look good.
Even Ryan, however, can’t make this depleted team look decent. These Falcons are 2-4 in one-score games. The defense failed against the Dolphins and the Jets, and after the latter loss Ryan said: “You’re not always going to have the ball last.”
For five years, the Falcons were uncanny in their ability to win close games. Stripped of that, what’s left?
The defense is again substandard, ranking 22nd in the NFL. Under this administration, only once — when they were No. 12 in 2011, Brian VanGorder’s final year as coordinator — have the Falcons ranked above 16th. They were 24th in 2008 and 2012. Let’s recall that Mike Smith became head coach here off his work as Jacksonville’s defensive coordinator.
The running game is statistically the league’s worst. There’s an asterisk: Steven Jackson, imported to replace Michael Turner, missed four games with a sprained ankle. But the Falcons ranked 29th in rushing last season, which was why Turner was cut and the line reconfigured with an eye toward youth and heft. Granted, an offensive line’s play is often a function of familiarity, but it’s not clear if all these linemen, four of them Dimitroff draftees, are bona fide NFL starters.
In years past, Ryan and his receivers could override fundamental weaknesses elsewhere. With Jones lost to injury and Roddy White nursing bad legs and Gonzalez being covered as no tight end in the history of football has been covered, the Falcons stand exposed. It has been a long time since they were expert at anything but throwing and catching, and now they’re not so hot at that.
Looking beyond this season, we see … what? Well, quarterback is always the place to start, and the Falcons are set there. We can argue forever whether they’d have been better served drafting five defenders/linemen as opposed to one Julio Jones, but when healthy he’s among the league’s five best receivers. Desmond Trufant has done well as a rookie and soon could, with William Moore and perhaps Robert Alford, anchor one of the NFL’s better secondaries.
But this offensive line isn’t apt to turn into the Great Wall of Georgia, and the defense continues to lack playmakers up front. (Sean Weatherspoon can be a force, but he, like many Dimitroff draftees, tends to get hurt.) And the passing game, long a given, might not remain that way: Gonzalez insists he’s retiring; White turns 32 on Saturday.
For five seasons, the Falcons won at a level that stamped them as one of the NFL’s best teams. There were times when I believed (and wrote as much) that the Super Bowl was their manifest destiny. But it’s human nature to look harder at losses than victories, and these Falcons have lost a lot. The harder we look, the less we like.
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