USA TODAY International Edition
Falcons show they’re still among best
Atlanta displays powerful offense
ATLANTA – In any given week this season, there is likely to be an inversely proportional relationship for the Falcons between how much success they have on offense and the amount of conversation that revolves around offensive coordinator Steve Sarkisian.
That’s not meant as a slight to Sarkisian, who was put in a nearly impossible position when Atlanta hired him out of college football and gave him NFL playcalling responsibilities for the first time in his career. It’s merely a fact of life for a team that many would consider the most offensively gifted in the league: When the focus shifts to Sarkisian rather than quarterback Matt Ryan or wide receiver Julio Jones, it probably means the Falcons didn’t perform the way they were supposed to.
That’s why Sunday’s 31-24 victory over Carolina was cathartic, largely because they were able to leave MercedesBenz Stadium without having to talk about questionable play calling or which star receiver wasn’t on the field on a key third down.
That happened a lot to Atlanta last season and continued in their seasonopening loss at Philadelphia, in which issues in the red zone again betrayed the amount of talent the Falcons have on their roster. Whether that’s the fault of Sarkisian, Ryan or some combination of coaching and execution doesn’t really matter when there’s an obvious way to stop talking about it.
“We’re our own worst enemy,” Jones said. “We have all the talent in the world. But we get in our own way sometimes.”
While Week 1 might have been fuel for those who believe Sarkisian is in over his head leading such an elite group of playmakers, Week 2 showed why you can’t discount Atlanta as a Super Bowl contender.
The Falcons ran for 170 yards against a team that rarely gives up much against the run, even without injured starter Devonta Freeman. They spread the ball around to Jones (five catches, 64 yards), to tight end Austin Hooper (five catches, 59 yards) and even to rookie Calvin Ridley (four catches, 64 yards), who flashed potential as a high-end No. 2 receiver. They even were 4-for-4 in the red zone, the place where their 2017 season died.
“I didn’t check that,” coach Dan Quinn deadpanned when asked about converting all four touchdown opportunities. “No, of course I did. I was pleased to see we had balanced with the run game and the play action that goes with that. The way Sark featured different guys in different spots, give credit to them. We were pumped to see that. We’ve put in a lot of work there.”
The questions, of course, are going to continue well into this season until Sunday’s success is sustained. The Falcons ranked 24th in the NFL last year in the red zone, but that was only a microcosm of how badly they underachieved offensively given their explosive potential.
When you regress from the No. 1 scoring offense (33.8 points per game) to No. 15 (22.1 points) and the only substantive change was the coordinator, of course that’s going to fall on Sarkisian.
And when the Falcons came out for their 2018 debut and couldn’t win a game in which their defense held Philadelphia to 232 yards and was +1 in the turnover column, you better believe there was a lot invested in changing the narrative Sunday.
“We were (ticked) as a team that we didn’t perform like we thought we could, but that didn’t affect their preparation or mind-set,” Quinn said. “We knew the work we’re doing is right and knew the process was right. By no means have we solved any of the issues that come up, but we’re going to continue to dig and fight.”
Even if the process was right, this is a league of results. And the only way to take the focus off Sarkisian was to deliver a whole bunch of points. That might not be totally fair — Sarkisian, after all, called the plays Sunday just as he did in Philadelphia — but it’s the way this narrative is going to play out for the foreseeable future.
The good thing for the Falcons is they showed they can still look as they did in 2016, when nobody in the league could slow them down and they came oh so close to winning the Super Bowl. While they certainly believed that potential was still somewhere deep within, it’s good for Atlanta to actually show it on the field every now and then.
“The main thing is all 11 did their job at the same time,” Jones said. “In the past there was one guy here or there that wasn’t doing their job. We are talented enough. We put the work in. We can move the ball up and down the field.”
Maybe now that the Falcons have done it once they can do it again and return the focus to the players rather than the offensive coordinator.
If people are talking about them rather than Sarkisian, Atlanta will get back to being one of the best teams in the league.