They’re in trouble. They were in trouble before A.J. Green ran through their soft zone – more about that later – to catch the winning touchdown pass at 0:07. The Falcons are too hurt to play defense, and now they’re doubly troubled because, twice in eight days, they’ve been outgunned in a shootout. They’re 1-3 headed for Pittsburgh. This season of promise could essentially be done before Halloween.
“We’re a good team,” Dan Quinn said, speaking after his Falcons lost 37-36 to Cincinnati on Sunday. “The record doesn’t show it at this point.”
A month ago, the Falcons looked the part of Super Bowl contender. Today they appear a skewed team – great offense, depleted defense – that’s dancing as fast as it can. Any weakness, and plenty of those have arisen, is exploited. Any lapse doesn’t just cost yards but points. Any late-game wobble yields a loss.
They outgained Cincinnati 495 yards to 408 Sunday. They held the visiting side to nine second-half points. They developed a pass rush – where’d that come from? – after halftime. (Takkarist McKinley and Vic Beasley, forgotten man no longer, were immense.) They blocked a punt. For the second week running, they coulda/shoulda won. For the second week running, they lost.
Quinn again: “We did make make some good adjustments. When it’s time to close the door and shut it, we’re going to develop that instinct. We don’t have it right now.”
Example: After the blocked punt, the Falcons could manage only a field goal. Another: Inside the final five minutes, holding a two-point lead, they had first-and-goal at the 9-yard line, but Brandon Fusco’s holding penalty on a running play turned a clinching drive into a salvage-a-field-goal possession. Another: Desmond Trufant, once a Pro Bowl cornerback, dropped an interception one play before the Bengals converted their first of two fourth downs inside the final 80 seconds.
“Same story as last week,” said Matt Ryan, who passed for 419 yards and three touchdowns. (Two to Calvin Ridley, who became the first rookie in NFL annals to have six scoring catches in his first four games.) “We had opportunities to close that out.”
When you’re riding high, you can shrug off a holding penalty or a dropped INT. When your defense is missing two safeties, a linebacker and a defensive end, you know that every possession that doesn’t bring you a touchdown is the equivalent of a service break.
Sunday’s first half made you wonder if the Falcons could induce another punt this season. Not counting a New Orleans kneel-down at the end of regulation last week, opponents scored touchdowns on eight consecutive possessions. The Bengals went 4-for-4 in the first two quarters, their shortest driven being 51 yards. Andy Dalton had a halftime passer rating of 158.3, which is the highest possible. On those four possessions, Cincinnati faced three third downs. Whoa, Nellie.
Credit: Scott Cunningham
Credit: Scott Cunningham
And yet: For long moments in the second half, the Falcons took hold of this game. They began to pressure Dalton, who began to move off his spot. He had two incompletions and took no sacks in the first half; he had 10 and took three – all by McKinley – in the second. He lost tight end Tyler Eifert, a first-half focal point, to an awful-looking ankle injury. Damontae Kazee executed the Falcons’ first takeaway in two weeks on a deflected interception.
But the Fusco penalty kept it a one-score game, and this defense isn’t apt to protect a one-score lead. Starting at its 25, Cincinnati converted a third down, then a fourth, then another fourth. With 16 seconds left, the rookie cornerback Isaiah Oliver defended expertly, batting the ball from Alex Erickson on a fade. Down to 12 seconds now. The Falcons, who’d played man-to-man almost exclusively on this possession, switched to a zone. “A change-up,” Quinn called it.
The famous Georgia alum Green, the Bengals’ version of Julio Jones, flashed past Oliver and cut to the right corner. Safety Brian Poole couldn’t get there in time. One of the NFL’s best receivers popped wide open for the touchdown that sent the Falcons to 1-3. How does that happen?
Quinn: “We’ll definitely be looking back as to what we could have done differently.”
There have been times over the past year when the Falcons seemed a vastly gifted team hamstrung by its inattention to detail. This team’s issues are mostly – not entirely, but mostly – down to health, or the lack thereof. The trouble is, the NFL won’t grant a bye month so Deion Jones to heal. These Falcons must keep playing with what they’ve got. (And the offense is missing Devonta Freeman and Andy Levitre.) Even with this offense, they mightn’t have enough.
The belief entering the season was that this should be no worse than a 10-win team, and maybe much better than that. The schedule will, we stipulate, soften toward the middle. But when you’re 1-3, your margin of error gets sliced to the bone. Three winnable games have been lost, and surely a bit of the Brotherhood’s self-esteem has gone missing, too.
Asked if he’s concerned that this season could crash, Quinn said: “Not with this group, (though) I understand where it could.”
His 2016 team shrugged off an opening home loss to Tampa Bay, an excruciating near-miss in Seattle and the galling defeat on Eric Berry’s pick-2 to finish 11-5 and win the NFC title. Last year’s team started 3-3 and wound up 10-6. Those teams, though, were mostly hale and hearty. This one is not.
Said Ryan: “Who we are going to be at the end of the season is going to be different than who we are now, and the only way to get there is through hard work.”
That’s true. What’s unknown is how much room for growth this team has. The Falcons have scored 73 points in two games without making a turnover. They’ve lost both. They’re in trouble.
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