Improving defence gives Falcons an edge
NFC final shaping up as a shootout between two high-powered offences
No one is expecting the defence to decide the NFC championship, a contest in which most prognosticators suggest the team with the last possession will win.
Not the Las Vegas bookies, who have set the over/under total at 601/2 points, the highest playoff number in NFL history.
And certainly not anyone who has watched the Atlanta Falcons and Green Bay Packers offences operate.
Not even Falcons head coach Dan Quinn, a man renowned as a defensive specialist from his days with the Seattle Seahawks, who was hired by Atlanta owner Arthur Blank in 2015 to bring some spine to the defence.
There no doubt will be plenty of offence at the Georgia Dome on Sunday afternoon. But if a defence is going to have a say in who advances, there’s a reasonable chance it could be the Falcons.
“I think you are asking me if I’ve just become an offensive coach,” Quinn said with a chortle on Thursday when it was suggested defences are barely a sidebar in the conference title tilt.
“Really, you just try to complement each other well. ... The team that can play in all three phases is going to (move on.)”
Quinn gained renown by guiding a Seahawks defence that dominat- ed Peyton Manning in Super Bowl 48, holding the Denver Broncos to eight points.
With nowhere near the personnel he had in Seattle, Quinn’s Falcons ranked a shoddy 28th in pass defence in the regular season and 17th against the run.
There are many reasons for this, starting with youth and inexperience making them very much a work in progress. But in holding the Seahawks to 20 points in a divisional round win last week, the Falcons defenders hinted at being a group on the upswing.
Seattle’s Russell Wilson is nowhere near as threatening as the red-hot quarterback the Falcons will face on Sunday, but chew on this: Rodgers is 0-3 in his career facing Quinn-coached teams.
And if they’re trending in the right direction, the Falcons’ defence is also playing with some confidence, hoping to be more than just a complement to the offence led by their own talented quarterback, Matt Ryan.
“Last game we were so physical,” Falcons safety Keanu Neal said. “The biggest thing was what (Quinn) emphasized during the week — arrive violently.”
Of course, to administer even a trace of violence to an opposing quarterback, you have to catch him, and the way the Packers’ offensive line has been playing lately, that will be a tall order. On the scramble, Rodgers routinely gets seven seconds or more to find an open man — and he’s just as adept in the pocket.
“The extended plays could be a momentum-shifter if you let something over your head,” Falcons cornerback Jalen Collins said. “If you cover the first look and they get behind you and score six points, it’s tough.
“Once you get out in the field, there’s a lot of space. If there’s no underneath defender, (Rodgers) can go anywhere.”
It doesn’t hurt that in the past month, the Falcons have faced and defeated quarterbacks who can scramble — Cam Newton of the Panthers as well as Wilson.
Rodgers is next level right now, however, a fact not lost on his next opponent.
“You just have to stay with it, you can’t come out of coverage,” cornerback Brian Poole said. “You can’t look back at the quarterback or anything like that. If we just stay disciplined, we’ll be all right. ”
Last game we were so physical. The biggest thing was what (the coach) emphasized during the week — arrive violently.