FLOWERY BRANCH – If the playoff started today, the Falcons would be headed home.
The Falcons are 6-7 and a game behind Tampa Bay (7-6) with four games to play. The Falcons were 6-3 and in control of their own destiny, but they have dropped the past four games and have been blown out twice.
“Try to get healthy this next week,” Falcons quarterback Kirk Cousins said. “Get to Vegas, try to find a way to win there and then see if we can string it together (over) the last stretch of the season.”
The Falcons have not been to the playoff since the 2017 season. This would be their seventh consecutive season without making the playoffs if they can’t rally back and catch the Bucs.
The Falcons beat the Bucs twice this season and would just need to tie their record because they have the head-to-head tiebreaker.
“That’s why we (have) all 17 games,” Falcons safety Jessie Bates said. “Ain’t nobody coming to save us. We’ve got to play better. The margin of error is so small once you start playing these games (in December). Just try to learn from it and move on.”
The Falcons know of their playoff plight and that they have fallen out of first place in the division.
“You go to work and you try to go 1-0,” Bates said. “You can’t really worry about the other team right now. You just have to worry about what we can do to find a way to win a game. That’s the reality of it.”
The Bucs have won three in a row and are trying to claim their fourth consecutive NFC South title. They went to playoffs last season and upset the Eagles before losing a battle to Detroit in the Divisional playoff round.
The Falcons secondary was torched for five touchdown passes by Minnesota quarterback Sam Darnold.
“They had way too many explosives,” Falcons safety Justin Simmons said. “You’re not going to win football games like that. I think for us moving forward. We don’t control our destiny. For us, it’s taking it one week at a time. Just focus and locking in on winning. For us that’s Monday night against Vegas. Get back on track and take it one week at a time.”
The Falcons’ offense passing attack has not been as potent over the four-game losing streak. Cousins is without a touchdown pass in those games and has eight interceptions.
However, they tied the game up 21-21, the defense gave up an easy touchdown drive and kickoff returner Ray Ray McCloud fumble. With a short field, the Vikings went up 35-21 with ease.
“I just think for us, it’s about getting back to doing what we were doing,” Simmons said. “I think defensively we just have to find ways to generate takeaways. That’s all of us involved.”
The Vikings connected on pass plays 52, 49, 42 and 43 yards against the Falcons.
“That’s not singling any one person out,” Simmons said. “We just have to play better on the back-end especially, you can’t give up those explosives. When you have the opportunity to get the player down like I did, you’ve got to them down. Those are the things I’m focusing on. We just put our offense is a bad situation.”
Falcons coach Raheem Morris gave the team a state of the union address after the game.
“Just get back to work,” Falcons outside linebacker Arnold Ebiketie said. “We don’t control our destiny no more. It just comes down to us trying to win the remaining games that we have left and see what happens.”
The Falcons weren’t caught off guard by Darnold, who’s on his fourth NFL team and is resurrecting his career with the Vikings.
“We knew that he was somebody who was going to try to have poise in the pocket,” Ebiketie said. “Just tried to contain him and affect him as much as we possibly could. The things overall, we did a pretty good job this week. We just fell short.”
Running back Bijan Robinson had more than 100 yards from scrimmage for the sixth time over the past seven games.
“This is the time that we have to really buckle down because we want to do some special things in this season,” Robinson said. “We have to take it one game at a time obviously. Just continue to keep praying and keeping that faith that we’ll make it. I believe if we do everything the right way and just keep being faithful, we’ll get there. But we can’t worry about... we can’t look ahead and we can’t look at somebody else.”
The Falcons close out with games at Las Vegas (2-11), home against the New York Giants (2-11) at Commanders (8-5) and home against the Panthers (3-10)
The Bucs play at the Chargers (8-4) next Sunday followed by games at Dallas (5-7 before facing the Bengals on Monday), and at home against Panthers (3-10) and Saints (5-8).
