Here’s what Falcons coach Arthur Smith had to say after the 27-26 loss to the Saints on Sunday:
On what he said to the team: ”I said hold your heads up high. Same peripheral opponents that thought we wouldn’t get a yard, get a point. Same ones will be writing old narratives. That’s not us. Didn’t go the way we wanted, and blame me, and we’ll get better from this. We’ll learn from this mistake. A lot of ways to look at it, easy narratives. It is what it is. We lost the game. Didn’t make enough plays. We had a chance to put them away; we turned the ball over in the red zone. We had the penalties, probably a four-point swing. Really could have put them away, and you’ve got to give the Saints credit. They made one more play than we did. And even when a game – whatever, there’s time, if they’re breathing, this team is going to fight till the end, which we did. We had a chance. Tried to kick a 63-yarder, and they blocked it. That was the message. Again, it’s about us. We got 16 games (left), and if we have the right mindset, we’ll improve from this and become a better team.”
On the decisions behind the play-call sequence at the end of the game: ”The play never developed. Quarterback-center exchange, under center. It happened. Obviously, we’d love to have that back, but it is what it is.”
On the decision to punt on fourth down: ”Obviously, hindsight is 20/20. But when you’re in that situation, I had faith. If you don’t get it right there, they’re even closer. That’s what you have, and we tried to bleed every second. Sure, there’s a part of me that wanted to go for it. Again, hindsight is 20/20. But at the time my thought was, at the time, let the clock play down; let’s pin them back. They had no timeouts. We made them use all their timeouts. And, again, if you had to do it over again, obviously knowing the end result, sure, make the other call.”
On what changed defensively over the last three drives: ”We mixed up the calls. They made the plays, and we didn’t get to the quarterback. And that’s essentially what it was. When there was pressure, four-man rush, different coverages. And you got to give them credit. They kept him clean at the end. We were collapsing the pocket most of the game. When it mattered, we didn’t get there. And same thing, I thought 3 ½ quarters, we dominated the line of scrimmage. But they were able to make the plays at the end there.”
On his message to the team that this is not the same old Falcons: ”Look, guys, it’s a different team every year. Last year, right? Again, the game that happened, the collapse. What happened? They went back down and scored and won it. They had the opportunity again today. We didn’t sit there and say, woe is me. We practiced those situations. Try to get what we thought was the coverage – thought maybe – actually, I’m not going to say anything about that. But kept swinging, get the ball to C.P. (Cordarrelle Patterson), get it down, work our mechanics, there’s no panic on our sideline. They happened to get a personal foul. And we had a shot to go bang the timeout with two seconds. I thought we had a chance at least. They gave us an opportunity, and they made another play; we didn’t. They blocked it.”
On whether he felt the team was receptive to that message after the game: ”Yes. Guys, this is the same team, you guys wrote our obituary back in May, and you’ll continue to write our obituary. Who cares? Because we got 16 games, and if we don’t learn from this and get better. And we’ve got to go play L.A. They’ve got a three-day jump on us. We’ll watch tape; we’ll look for corrections, and then we got to get going on the Rams.”
On whether he saw any fatigue today on the defense: ”No. ... I didn’t see fatigue. I mean, I thought, again, I thought we handled the lines of scrimmage well. And, obviously, they made plays at the end, and we didn’t.”
On Patterson’s usage: ”A lot of them are looks that they gave us. There was a lot of runs that Marcus (Mariota) had, too. Pretty effective. Again, some of these guys aren’t superhuman. I couldn’t give them 50 carries. There’s a lot of things that go when you run a run. How many rushing yards did we have? 201? I’ll take that. And, obviously, you wish we had 1 more. Maybe in hindsight, you wish you could have gotten a look at the spot on Marcus and they put the ball out. They didn’t. We bobbled the snap, and that gave them the opportunity for them to go down there and kick the field goal.”
On Mariota’s ability to run the ball: ”Absolutely. We’re trying to use every asset and weapon we’ve got. I’ve been telling them all year we’re not going to play the same way we played last year. We’re going to play to the strengths of our team. We got an edge we want to play with up front, and I thought, for the most part, we played with that edge up front.”
On whether this is what he wants the team to look like offensively: ”For the most part, other than the turnover in the red zone. We had two fumbles, I believe, O.Z. (Olamide Zaccheaus), the one on the explosive. And then, obviously, Marcus got the first down and trying to give himself up and the guy did a good job, knocked the ball out. And the penalty down on the low one, that one bothers me.”
On whether he liked the diversification of the offense: “Absolutely.”
On whether the offense looked the way he wanted it to Sunday: “Yeah.”
On whether Taysom Hill’s long run early in the game was a misalignment: ”It was. It was.”
On what the one question he wanted to be answered going into this game: ”Well, I mean, really, can we protect? Can we run the football on the defense that, they’re supposed to be the Steel Curtain and the ‘85 Bears’ front? That’s what I wanted to see. The challenge was, can we come up and manhandle that front, which is one of the better fronts in football. We’ll get another shot at them down in New Orleans, and we can’t wait. Write whatever you all want. You guys ranked us 45th. You buried us in May. Bury us again. We don’t care. We’ll get back to work.”
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The Bow Tie Chronicles
Atlanta Falcons 2022 NFL schedule
Sept. 11: Saints 27, Falcons 26
Sept. 18 at Los Angeles Rams, 4:05 p.m.
Sept. 25 at Seattle, 4:25 p.m.
Oct. 2 vs. Cleveland, 1 p.m.
Oct. 9 at Tampa Bay, 1 p.m.
Oct. 16 vs. San Francisco, 1 p.m.
Oct. 23 at Cincinnati, 1 p.m.
Oct. 30 vs. Carolina, 1 p.m.
Nov. 6 vs. Los Angeles Chargers, 1 p.m.
Nov. 10 at Carolina, 8:15 p.m.
Nov. 20 vs. Chicago, 1 p.m.
Nov. 27 at Washington, 1 p.m.
Dec. 4 vs. Pittsburgh, 1 p.m.
BYE WEEK
Dec. 18 at New Orleans, TBD
Dec. 24 at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
Jan. 1 vs. Arizona, 1 p.m.
Jan. 8 vs. Tampa Bay, TBD
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