(Here’s your weekly serving of nine items on the Falcons at 9 a.m. every Wednesday this season.)
1. The no-spin zone: In what turned out to be the last game of the Arthur Smith administration, the Saints ran up the score on the Falcons last season.
With backup quarterback Jamesis Winston in the game for mop-up duty, the Saints pushed across a late TD in what turned out to be a 48-17 loss.
Instead of taking a knee in victory formation, Winston said the team wanted to get running back Jamaal Williams his first touchdown of the season.
Williams led the NFL with 17 touchdown runs in the 2022 season when he was with Detroit. He signed with the Saints in free agency and hadn’t scored a rushing touchdown until facing the Falcons.
Saints coach Dennis Allen tried to apologize to Smith, but he was not having any of it. Allen apologized again in the postgame press conference.
Just a few hours later, Smith was terminated.
Winston was signed by the Browns this offseason, while Williams is serving as Alvin Kamara’s backup.
Falcons coach Raheem Morris is not going to use last season’s game to try to motivate the team.
“I don’t go with motivation that I wasn’t a part of,” Morris said. “If you need any more motivation than playing against a division rival for the South, that you’ve got the pen in your hand to be able to write your own story, then you’re probably in the wrong building anyway.”
Morris, from his time in Tampa Bay, is very familiar with the NFC South.
“There’s no secret about the Saints, the Bucs and Carolina, particularly this week,” Morris said. “The team that you focus on had better be the Saints. You’ve got to find a way to go out there and beat a really competitive, well-coached team at our place.”
After the Saints, the Falcons host the Bucs on “Thursday Night Football” on Oct. 3 and play at the Panthers on Oct. 13.
2. Robinson has moved on to the Saints: Falcons running back Bijan Robinson is ready for the Saints.
“It doesn’t matter who we play,” Robinsons said. “We’ve got to have the mindset of we’ve got to beat everybody we play against. With them (Kansas City), they came in and they were just another team on our rack that we had to take care of. Obviously, we fell short of that.”
Robinson believes the Falcons need to play with more consistency.
“We just learned that we’ve got to stay consistent,” Robinson said. “The up and down – we can’t be one way one week and do something different the next week. We’ve got to stay consistent and stay the right way. It doesn’t matter what team we play. It doesn’t matter if they’re the defending Super Bowl champs or not, we’ve got to stay in the right mindset, the right motive every single play.”
Credit: Bob Andres
Credit: Bob Andres
3. Third-down woes: The Falcons will look at the 27 plays they have run on third downs and try to find a pattern.
“Each individual week is its week,” Falcons coach Raheem Morris said. “We were 2-of-9 this week on third down, and we got to go out there and get better. In order to keep Patrick Mahomes off the field, you’d like to be able to convert some of those.”
The Falcons also were 2-of-9 against the Eagles and the Steelers on third downs.
The Chiefs won the time of possession with 34 minutes, 57 seconds to 25:03. The Eagles won the time of possession 35:39 to 24:31. The Steelers won the time of possession 35:36 to 24:24.
Picking up third downs would help with time of possession.
“That’ll affect some of the plays they get on our defense,” Morris said. “That can also affect the scoreboard. So every individual week, that’s something we got to get better at. We’ll go work on those things and get those better.”
Wide receiver Darnell Mooney led the Falcons with eight receptions. He had 66 yards receiving.
“I feel like we had a good third-down plan all week,” Mooney said.
4. Bolton was a problem: Chiefs linebacker Nick Bolton finished with eight tackles and three for losses, including the key stop on a fourth-and-inches.
“Bolton did a really nice job being able to shoot the gap and really make some plays,” Morris said. “All those guys, Chris Jones is Chris Jones. That’s a good football team. That is a very good football team. Bolton stopped the run. And vice versa. We were not. They ran the ball pretty well.”
Jones had two assisted tackles and a quarterback hit.
5. Opening drive: Against the Chiefs, the Falcons scored a touchdown on their opening drive for the first time this season.
“I thought we had a good rhythm at the start of the game,” Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “A good rhythm at the end of the game as we were alluding to, there did seem to be a little bit of a lull in the middle of the game and for any number of reasons, kind of each play is its own entity.”
Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
6. Bring on the NFC South: The Falcons have played three one-score games against teams who went to the playoffs last season in the Steelers, Eagles and Chiefs.
“We felt like we had this one,” Mooney said. “We got the Saints and then the Bucs, then get into a little mini-bye. I felt like we will be very strong. The Saints are pretty good. ... We can take care of these next two, I’m sure.”
7. Series history: This will be the 110th meeting between the teams. The Saints lead the series 55-54. Last season the series was split, with each team winning at home.
8. Where to watch, listen, livestream: What you should know about Sunday’s game between the New Orleans Saints (2-1) and the Falcons (1-2), which is set for 1 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
TV: Fox – Play-by-play: Kenny Albert. Analyst: Jonathan Vilma. Sideline reporter: Megan Olivi.
Local radio: 92.9 The Game. Play-by-play: Wes Durham. Analyst: Dave Archer. Executive producer: Beau Morgan. Engineer: Jake Cook. Pregame/Postgame show – Hosts: Chris Goforth and Mike Johnson. Dylan Matthews and Orin Romain (studio producers). Dylan Matthews (network studio producer) and Chris Thomas (local studio producer).
Satellite radio: SiriusXM NFL Radio. Falcons channel 225. Saints channel 380 and on the APP.
Livestream: Streaming inside the Atlanta market: Fans in the Atlanta market can stream the game on the Atlanta Falcons app. NFL app (subscription required). Out of the country: GamePass International. There are several other subscription services.
9. Depth chart: Here’s a look at the Falcons’ official 53-man depth chart heading into Sunday’s game with the Saints, which is set 1 p.m. at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Here’s the depth chart:
OFFENSE
QB: Kirk Cousins, Michael Penix Jr.
RB: Bijan Robinson, Tyler Allgeier, Avery Williams, Jase McClelland
WR: Drake London
WR: Darnell Mooney, Casey Washington
SWR: Ray-Ray McCloud, KhaDarel Hodge
TE: Kyle Pitts
TE: Charlie Woerner, Ross Dwelley
LT: Jake Matthews, Brandon Parker
LG: Matthew Bergeron, Elijah Wilkinson
C: Ryan Neuzil, Jovaughn Gwyn
RG: Chris Lindstrom, Kyle Hinton
RT: Kaleb McGary, Storm Norton
DEFENSE
ROLB: Lorenzo Carter, James Smith-Williams, DeAngelo Malone
DE – Grady Jarrett, Kentavious Street, Eddie Goldman
NT – David Onyemata, Ruke Orhorhoro
DE – Zach Harrison, Ta’Quon Graham, Brandon Dorlus
LOLB – Matthew Judon, Arnold Ebiketie
ILB – Kaden Elliss, JD Bertrand
ILB – Troy Andersen
LCB -- A.J. Terrell, Kevin King
RCB -- Mike Hughes, Clark Phillips III
NCB – Dee Alford, Antonio Hamilton Sr.
SS -- Justin Simmons, Richie Grant
FS -- Jessie Bates III, Micah Abernathy
Special teams
K -- Younghoe Koo
P -- Bradley Pinion
LS -- Liam McCullough
KR – Ray-Ray McCloud, Mike Hughes
PR – Avery Williams, Mike Hughes
About the Author
