Before the Falcons played at Las Vegas Monday night, I contemplated their chances of winning a wild card if they fail to win the NFC South. I don’t know why I even bothered to look. The Falcons aren’t going to win a wild card. They aren’t going to overtake Tampa Bay in the South.
The Falcons are going to go meekly into the offseason after a seventh straight year with no playoff berth. They aren’t a good football team mostly because they struggle to score points with their $100 million quarterback. The Falcons just finally ran into a team that is even worse at scoring and managed to outlast them.
Sorry to sound so sour on the Falcons after they ended their four-game losing streak. It’s very hard to win in the NFL and so every victory is a good one. The Falcons beat an awful team — and had to survive two throws into the end zone at the end — but they beat the Raiders just the same. The 15-9 victory leaves the Falcons (7-7) one game behind the Buccaneers (8-6) in the South with three to play.
But if you watched this game then you surely understand my pessimism about their chances of going on a run. The Falcons can’t be trusted to score often enough to win three games in a row, no matter the opponent. They’ve scored more than 20 points just once in their past five games. Quarterback Kirk Cousins still doesn’t look comfortable or confident.
The Falcons had 11 drives against the Raiders (2-12) with four of them starting on the home team’s side of the field. They scored one touchdown. Two Falcons drives started less than 40 yards from the end zone. They got three points out of them. The Falcons gained just one first down on eight drives. A good kickoff return by Avery Williams put the Falcons at their 45-yard line to begin halftime. Cousins threw an interception on the first play.
Everything is hard for Cousins now. He started fast with his first touchdown pass in his past five games. The 30-yard strike to Drake London put the Falcons up 7-0. They never gave the lead back, but they couldn’t put the Raiders away because Cousins wasn’t sharp. The league’s leader in interceptions had another giveaway (late pass, again) and missed throws that killed drives.
Cousins was the subject of ongoing commentary in the Monday Night Football booth. The gist of the chatter between Louis Riddick and Dan Orlovsky is that Cousins just doesn’t look the same. Here was an exchange after Cousins botched a simple throw to Ray-Ray McCloud in the red zone before the Falcons kicked a field goal in the third quarter:
Riddick: “Just a miss. He’s got a clear line of sight.”
Orlovsky: “I’m surprised he doesn’t cut loose right now to Drake London in the seam.”
Riddick: “Just not able to put it on (McCloud). Not under pressure. Nobody is in his face. You just wonder now if (the interception) is in Kirk’s head a little bit more, again. Is it starting to melt on him a little bit.”
Cousins didn’t melt. He just didn’t really try to make any plays. It seemed offensive coordinator Zac Robinson didn’t want to risk letting Cousins try. Falcons running backs carried the ball on 34 of 54 plays while churning out 168 yards. The play mix after Cousins’ interception was seven passes and 22 runs even though the Falcons never led by more than 12 points.
The Falcons couldn’t solve a defense ranked next-to-last in points allowed and missing Pro Bowl edge rusher Maxx Crosby. They didn’t need to score much because ex-Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder was even worse than Cousins. But Ridder got a chance to win the game because the Falcons couldn’t finish off Las Vegas when they got the ball with three minutes left, even after the Raiders were called for a suspect roughing the passer call.
The Raiders made it to Atlanta’s 35-yard line with 10 seconds left. Ridder’s first pass to the end zone was incomplete. His second was intercepted by Falcons safety Jessie Bates III. The Falcons got out of Vegas with a crucial victory. Per the NFL’s statistical projections, the Falcons have a 36% chance of making the playoffs. It would have been 10% with a loss.
The Commanders (9-5) are the only winning team left on Atlanta’s schedule. The Falcons play the Giants (2-12) here next weekend and the Panthers (3-11) in the finale. Those are losing football teams that play bad defense and even worse offense. But that describes the Raiders, too, and the Falcons had to huff and puff to beat them.
Even the NFL’s worst teams have a shot to beat the Falcons. The plan of building a high-scoring offense around Cousins isn’t working. The Falcons won against an opponent with a worse offense on Monday night. They won’t win enough to make the playoffs.
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