BALTIMORE -- Here’s what Falcons coach Arthur Smith had to say after the 17-9 loss against the Ravens that eliminated his team from the NFC playoff race Saturday:
On the intentional grounding call and how it affected the game: Obviously I’m not going to comment on my opinion on the officiating. Situationally, when they do assess a penalty, there are a lot of things that happen. We had a timeout left and the runoff. Without going more into it, because I don’t want to get fined. I’m not sure what I’m allowed to say. I’m not trying to be critical there, but there is a lot of communication that has to happen in that situation. We’re right there at the (1-yard line), we’ll look at everything and be better, but give Baltimore credit. So, there’s a lot of things going on.
On what he was told about the catch/no catch in the red zone: (The official) said he thought when he rolled out, that he didn’t maintain possession. We’ll look at it again, we felt pretty confident and threw the (challenge) flag. They have to look at it and go through their whole procedure. That was a call on the field.
On why not say something about officiating: I would rather give that money to people that need it in Atlanta, (rather) than give it to people in the league office or whatever they do with it. That’s why I’d rather give it to people that need it.
On the description of intentional grounding and if he saw contact: You kind of answered your own question there. I’m just not going to get into subjectivity of the officiating. There are a couple of situations where we can be better, and that’s what we’ll look to do. I thought Desmond (Ridder) took another step against a pretty good defense. At the end of the day, we didn’t win situational football. Baltimore did, and they walked away with a win right there. We have to look at everything we’re doing so that we can make improvements. We’ve got to get better at situational.
On Ridder: I think you saw a lot of it playing quarterback in a drop-back game. I thought his decision-making was good, and he was pretty accurate. I thought he made some big-time throws when the pressure got on him in the second half, and that’s what you want to see. He was calm and collective, and I thought he delivered the football. A couple things here and there that we have to look at down in the red zone. Short yardage and things like that. But I thought from the pocket presence against a quality defense that gives you a lot of looks, I thought he had pretty good poise.
On the connection between WR Drake London and Ridder: You can see it. I think they have pretty good chemistry. It’s pretty obvious, after two starts by (Desmond Ridder), and credit to Drake, too. There are other guys that are working and getting open. There’s a trust factor there. I’ll have to look at the film. That was a big catch, the one going down in the red zone. He went up there and got it, top shelf. That’s where you see a little bit of that basketball background, going up there and getting it, which is what you need. We’ve got to continue to work on ball security. Like I said, situational football, that’s where we came up short today.
On seven losses by fewer than 10 points: Ultimately, it’s about winning. But you can look at a lot of progress being made. We’ve got to find ways to play with the league. Our guys are a resilient group, we need to win. I’m thankful we have another opportunity next week at home. There has been a ton of progress. It’s different from last year when we were in some one-score games, completely different team and different situations going back and looking at them. We’ve got to find a way to get over that hump.
On the defense giving up less than 25 points in the past seven games: They’re doing a nice job on critical downs, four-point swings in the red zone, gave us a chance to come back. We’ve got to find a way. We’ll work and do everything we can to find solutions to get off to a better start. I’ll look at what happened, I thought we were decent situationally. Obviously, today we weren’t, give credit to Baltimore to find solutions there. Defense, stats are what they are. But those critical four-point swings if they do get down there, then they’re winning a lot of those. We’ve got to do a better job, we need to score more when we get down there.
On replacing CB Darren Hall with DB Cornell Armstrong: Some of those are packages, rolling guys. It was going to be a run-heavy game. We knew that. So, certain things we were doing with the corners, we wanted a bigger body in there. I didn’t think there was going to be a lot of coverage, but that was kind of just the plan. Rolling guys at that spot. It’s no different than some of the stuff we’ve done with our inside linebacker. That was why.
On why CB Darren Hall didn’t play: That goes with the game plan. When you’re playing a team that are heavy handed, they run a lot of gap schemes, zone read, sometimes you want to go with bigger bodies in there and stop the run.
On what he looks to accomplish in the final two games: Win. Progress and win. We need to win, and we need to make progress so I can stop coming up here and sounding like a broken record. Getting over the hump, so that’s our charge. We need to win at home and win for our fans and then finish this thing out right.
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Atlanta Falcons 2022 schedule
Sept. 11: Saints 27, Falcons 26
Sept. 18: Rams 31, Falcons 27
Sept. 25 Falcons 27, Seahawks 23
Oct. 2 Falcons 23, Browns 20
Oct. 9 Buccaneers 21, Falcons 15
Oct. 16 Falcons 28, 49ers 14
Oct. 23 Bengals 35, Falcons 17
Oct. 30 Falcons 37, Panthers 34 OT
Nov. 6 Chargers 20, Falcons 17
Nov. 10 Panthers 25, Falcons 15
Nov. 20 Falcons 27, Bears 24
Nov. 27 Commanders 19, Falcons 13
Dec. 4 Steelers 19, Falcons 16
BYE WEEK
Dec. 18 Saints 21, Falcons 18
Dec. 24 at Baltimore, 1 p.m.
Jan. 1 vs. Arizona, 1 p.m.
Jan. 8 vs. Tampa Bay, TBD
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