Even after Lavonte David’s interception; even as Al Michaels was saying, “If Tampa Bay holds on, (it) will go to 4-1 …”; even after the Falcons had been reduced to calling timeout and hoping against hope; even then, I could still see this happening. There was just enough time.
Sometimes I’m wrong. Often I’m wrong. This time: not wrong.
How much time was just enough?
One second.
Throw the ball. Catch the ball. Spike the ball. Kick the ball. Overtime.
Win the toss. Throw the ball. Catch the ball. Run with the ball. Victory.
Tampa Bay is not 4-1. Tampa Bay is not leading the NFC South.
By the weight of a tiebreaker, the Falcons are.
After they beat the Saints without benefit of an offensive touchdown, it was possible to wonder if the 2-2 Falcons were luckier than good. (They’d been outscored on the season; all games had been decided by one score.) ESPN’s erudite Ben Solak offered facts/figures/visuals as to why Kirk Cousins is limited and their offense substandard. It was a fascinating read.
Hours later, the Falcons stacked 550 yards on Tampa Bay. Cousins passed for 509, establishing both a personal best – and he’s 36, having been in the NFL since 2012 – and a franchise high. On one Thursday night, as brought to us by Amazon Prime, everything that was bad about this offense came good.
As of Thursday morning, the Falcons were 20th among NFL teams in average yards per game. As of Friday morning, they’re ninth.
The case can still be made that fortune has favored the Falcons. They’ve still played nothing but one-score games, four of those at home. But their five opponents are, not counting results against the Falcons, an aggregate 12-4. All five finished last season plus-.500. This team hasn’t been playing nobodies. It has played only somebodies. And it is, we say again, in first place.
Even on Cousins’ night of nights, Solak’s observations hold. The quarterback isn’t moving much. He was sacked four times last night, bringing his season total to 10. He has thrown an interception in four of five games. Until Thursday, he hadn’t mustered 250 passing yards in a game. Then he posted 250 x 2 + 9. Could mobility be overrated?
As seen against Philadelphia on a Monday night, we saw again vs. Tampa Bay on a Thursday: If you DON’T get to Cousins, he can cut you to pieces. Not counting spikes – including the golden spike at 0:01 – he completed 5 of 6 passes for 55 yards at the end of regulation. In OT, he completed 3 of 3 for 69.
Thursday brought our first extended look as to why the Falcons paid/tampered to land a real NFL quarterback. Five different receivers – London, Mooney, Pitts, Hodge, McCloud – finished with at least 66 yards. All five caught a pass in the final 74 seconds of regulation and the 75 seconds of overtime. Bijan Robinson didn’t have a huge night, but he generated 77 yards rushing/receiving.
For the first time, we saw what this offense can be – a glorious mosaic. We saw what a real quarterback can do with surrounding talent. Not to put too fine a point on it, but on the night Matt Ryan was inducted into the Falcons’ Ring of Honor we saw another Falcons QB have a game like Matty Ice had en route to becoming the 2016 MVP and, not incidentally, taking his team to the Super Bowl.
If I’m getting carried away here, I apologize. Yes, it was only one night, though it was one hell of a night. And it was, I submit, the sort of night I’d envisioned when Cousins came aboard. The team with everything but a quarterback has one now. That team is in first place. That team is going places.
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