Let’s talk Turkey over Thanksgiving
♦ What are we thankful for? Not the Falcons vs. Saints in primetime. Or are we?
We are back after a hiatus as now Thanksgiving is upon us. It’s a time for families to get together, eat some good food and watch some (hopefully) good football. But that last thing, good football; will we necessarily be in for that? For years, the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys and Detroit Lions have hosted turkey day games and this year is no exception. However, there’s a night game on national television and it’s taking place in downtown Atlanta. The Atlanta Falcons (3-8) will host arch-rival New Orleans Saints (9-2) at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Thursday night. Through the first half on this season, the Falcons simply could not function. The offensive line could barely protect Matt Ryan, the run game was next to nonexistent and the defense would give up explosive play after explosive play, unable to get off the field. During Atlanta’s last homestand against the Los Angeles Rams and the Seattle Seahawks, a cacophony of boos rained down on the team as head coach Dan Quinn’s job seem to dangle by a hairline thread.
Then the coaching realignments came and playcalling was taken out of Quinn’s hands. The result came in the best possible fashion for diehard Falcons’ fans. The Falcons, at 1-7, when into the Superdome in New Orleans, against a 7-1 Saints team with franchise quarterback Drew Brees back fresh from injury, and held NOLA out of the endzone en route to a 26-9 win. You could say the result shocked many, but in a rivalry game, anything can happened. That’s the game you give your all, and the Falcons had nothing to lose. Quinn might have saved his job (and General Manager Thomas Dimitroff’s). So we wondered, first, where has this been the previous six weeks? Second, is this a fluke? The latter question seemed to be turning toward a no after a 29-3 victory at Carolina, once again holding a team out of the endzone.
Then the birds returned to their nest with a 3-7 Tampa Bay team coming to town. The Buccaneers had just lost to that same New Orleans team mentioned above 34-17, so the Falcons were in a prime position to pick up even more momentum entering their Thanksgiving showdown with the Saints. Instead, flashbacks of what we had seen for the first half of the season crept back in, as the product on the field was nothing like what had been witnessed the previous two weeks. Atlanta simply could not get the stops needed on defense and the offensive line could not protect Ryan. Ryan was sacked six times, fumbling twice (the later of which was recovered by Tampa and returned for a TD) and the team fell to 3-8. All that momentum doused in a flash.
So here we are, just one day before the Saints take the field at MBS to battle Atlanta. Pessimism, once again, persists on the perch. If there was any doubt about Quinn’s job security before the brief turnaround, it’s vanished. On the flip side, Saints’ head coach Sean Payton would love nothing more than to avenge the Nov. 10 loss in NOLA in big fashion. If the Falcons look hapless
against New Orleans and do get blown out at home, Quinn’s fate will be all but sealed. The season’s fate: sealed with permanent ink.
After the turkey has been consumed, the laughs and moments shared with family, and the desserts been demolished (Who wants pie?), what will we see on television Thursday night? A furious Falcons team determined to give the Saints a run for their money on the big stage? Or a punchless team, resigned to its 2019 destiny? You might be quick, based off of Sunday’s performance at the Benz against the Bucs, to write off the Falcons and chalk up the “L.” But, as mentioned earlier, it’s a rivalry game, and, as we found out at the SuperDome earlier this month, sometimes rivalries bring out the best, regardless of records. Enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday! Save me some turkey, please.