At pivotal moment, Falcons flop
NEW ORLEANS—The Falcons weren’t going to salvage their season Thursday night in the Other Benz Dome. It’s too late for that. The Falcons could show something by beating the Saints, though, because doing so would mean they’d turned in an extraordinary performance.
A victory might not have required mistake-free football but something close to it. An off game by the Saints, who hadn’t had many, would help. So, too, would some good breaks for the Falcons.
The Saints weren’t sharp by their recent standards. The Falcons did have some good luck—heck, Matt Ryan converted a fourth down by running 11 yards. But the Falcons did not have an extraordinary performance.
It wasn’t even mediocre. The Falcons made a lot of mistakes, four turnovers most egregious among them, and squandered several good opportunities. Midway through the fourth quarter the Saints and their fans danced while wrapping up a 31-17 victory.
This wasn’t like the collapse in Cleveland for the Falcons. In that game, they seemed to go through the motions. In this game, they played with intensity. They just weren’t good enough to stay with a Saints team firing at perhaps 75 percent efficiency.
The Falcons were down 24-3 before they scored their first touchdown. It took everything they had.
During that drive the Falcons converted a fourth-and-two and a thirdand-23. The latter came via Ryan’s improvised pass to Calvin Ridley that put them at the 2-yard line. They didn’t score until fourth down, when Ryan tossed a two-yard touchdown to Ridley.
The Falcons forced a three-andout after that. Here was a chance for the Falcons, down 24-10 early in the fourth quarter, to climb back in it. But Ryan’s shaky protection collapsed, Saints defensive tackle Tyeler Davidson tipped his pass and A.J. Klein intercepted it.
The Saints needed just 22 yards for another touchdown. They got it in five plays. The Falcons were finished, but not before Ridley lost their third fumble in the red zone.
The Falcons lost the other two in the first half. They gave the ball away on their first drive of the game when a blitz blew a hole in the offensive line and safety Marcus Williams stripped Ryan. The Falcons gave it away on their last drive of the half when Julio Jones got hit.
The Falcons were down 17-3 at half. Maybe they could have made a game of it without those miscues. Then again, isn’t that what we’ve been saying about the Falcons for three weeks now?
Maybe if things were different for the Falcons, they wouldn’t be the same. They are what they are, and it’s not good enough.
The story used to be that the injury-depleted defense was holding the Falcons back. That narrative no longer holds. Now the defense is competitive, but their offense is dragging them down.
The Falcons got worse on offense at the same time their defense got better. They are springing leaks faster than they can plug them. The Falcons are sunk. In retrospect, it probably happened later than it could have.
Their offense has played one good game in its last five. The Falcons are trying to score points with no real running game, and that’s not sustainable. They can’t execute stretch running plays with this offensive line, which is down two starters, and they’ve never been a power team.
That development also has made moot the play-action bootlegs which had been so effective. Former offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan lived off those plays. Successor Steve Sarkisian was using them more in his second season but not anymore because opponents no longer even respect the fakes.
At this point the Falcons are a team with a good quarterback and skill players but an offensive line that can’t block consistently for run or pass. Their defense is better but, without its best linebacker and two good safeties, the Falcons aren’t going to shut down opponents with good offenses.
The Saints have a great offense. The Chiefs and Rams are on another level, but the Saints are just a notch below. That loss to the Bucs was bad but the Saints scored 40 points. They’ve hit that mark or higher in five other games.
That’s why it’s significant that the Falcons, who couldn’t stop anyone for a while, held the Saints to 31 points. But that wasn’t nearly good enough when the Falcons have two more turnovers than touchdowns and the same amout of yards rushing (26) as penalties.
The Saints swept the Falcons for the first time since 2013. It’s been a while since the gap between them was this wide.
The Falcons lost at home to New Orleans in Week 3, back when both teams looked shaky. The Falcons were reeling from the cascade of injuries. New Orleans had lost at home to the Bucs at home and lucked out to beat the Browns here.
The Saints haven’t really played a bad game since. They had their two best games in the past two weeks. The Falcons had that mystifying effort in Cleveland and scored one touchdown in the loss to the Cowboys.
That’s why the Saints were favored by two touchdowns in the rematch. The Falcons aren’t a good team and they played a bad game, so they got what they deserved in New Orleans.