Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Jones declines to cry foul after missing pass
PHILADELPHIA » It was a play that defined a disappointing season for the Atlanta Falcons, a play that ultimately pushed the Eagles into the NFC championship game next Sunday.
It came at the end of an overly emotional rollercoaster ride of a drive, not only for the players, but certainly for a packed house of fans at Lincoln Financial Field who stood and waved white flags and screamed at the top of their lungs for the 14-play drive that counted down more than five of the last six game-clock minutes of the fourth quarter, but also included three timeouts, a successful Eagles review challenge and an unsuccessful one, and a long twominute warning break.
Ah, the suspense through all those commercials.
It finally came down to a fourth-and-goal at the Eagles 2, local boy Matt Ryan having completed a sevenyard slant to favorite target Julio Jones on third down to get there. Ryan and offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian figured that was the right combination for the next play, the do-or-die fourth down pass attempt.
“It was a sprint out; a rollout to me,” Jones said. “We tried to take advantage of the 1-on-1 down there.”
That one Eagle defender was Jalen Mills, who gives away four inches to Jones but doesn’t lack for physicality. He did more than put a little shove and bump on the Falcons’ receiver ... there would be some who would suggest Mills essentially knocked Jones over.
But neither Jones nor the guy from Exton who threw the ball were going there.
“It just didn’t work out and that’s disappointing,” Ryan said of the Falcons’ last gasp. “That’s the life that you kind of live as a competitor, when you get in those situations.
“We’re disappointed that we didn’t make the play, but I thought it was a good call . ... We just fell a little bit short.”
Yet there was talk — after Ryan’s rollout pass had escaped Jones’ hands, after the Eagles escaped this divisional playoff with the defending Super Bowl runnersup 15-10 — that the turn near the right corner of the end zone was a little slippery.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Jones said. “At the end of the day, I have to make those plays. I ended up on the ground when I came out of my route. But that’s a tough call to make during that situation in the game. So ... that was it.”
That was it, a ball that could have been caught wasn’t, an official’s whistle that could have been blown stayed silent. Jones awkwardly throwing up his hands as he slipped down, Mills with him ... his work successfully completed, mercifully without official comment.
As it should be?
“The whole time, as a defense, we’re defending the goal line,” Mills said. “Regardless of whatever the situation may be, whatever the refs may say, we’re defending the goal line and that’s what we did.”
What the Falcons did was largely what they had done all season ... fall short after a predictable playcall.
The team that melted down in the Super Bowl some 11 months previous, blowing a 28-3 late thirdquarter lead over the Patriots, saw its offensive performances fall drastically from last season’s level.
Getting most of the blame was Sarkisian, who came from a similar position at Alabama when Falcons offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan was hired on as head coach in San Francisco. Sarkisian caught fan flak all season long, and there was substance to the charges.
Take Jones, for example. Except for an injurystunted 2013 in which he caught two touchdown passes in only five games, Jones averaged nearly eight TD catches per season in the other five full seasons he played coming into 2017.
This season he caught three scoring passes.
Yet Jones refused to point any fingers, saying only, “We’re way better than we’ve played, for sure. But that’s on us; it’s on all of us. Executing ... taking advantage of opportunities. We’ve just got to keep working together.”
For this season, the Falcons’ work is done ... and it all came down to one tough play.