Falcons Low's and High's

The Falcons season got off to about as ugly of a start as possible considering the expectations that were thrusted upon this team. The offense was nothing close to what it was supposed to be, and Kirk Cousins played his worst when it mattered most, but the Falcons told us "R E L A X" against the Eagles.

Following week one I was ready to throw the season away. I sat there looking at Kirk taking every snap in the pistol and not moving from that spot after the snap no matter what. Kaleb McGary had a terrible game, but was not helped at all by Kirk standing in the same spot no matter what and letting T.J. Watt tee off on him. Then I was left thinking either the Falcons just spent top quarterback money on a guy who is not healthy and it does not look like he will be healthy for a long time, or Kirk has a mental block when it comes to moving in the pocket and stepping into throws. I told myself that it was a mental block and that Kirk was going to be able to work through this, but in the back of my head I was preparing myself for a world where we spent all this money on Kirk, and we were going to have to put the ball in the hands of a rookie quarterback with a roster that is built to make a run. The bright side of week one was how good the defense looked. While the Steelers' offense isn't spectacular, the Falcons lack of offensive production put the Steelers in short field position on almost all of the Steelers field goal drives. The defense was able to bow their necks on every one of those drives and hold to a field goal, but I was worried that this defense would only look this good against a poor offense like the Steelers, but boy was I wrong.

The Falcons may have just saved their season, and in week two that may seem like a crazy thing to say, but the turnaround has restored my confidence in this team. Week two this Falcons defense was put to the test and they held strong. Once again the Falcons' defense was able to cause problems to the opposing offense when the field got short. I know the Eagles were missing A.J. Brown, but you can't take a performance away due to an injury. The Falcons once again employed the "bend but don't break" defense, and by doing this Raheem Morris thoroughly out coached Nick Sirianni. I'm not sure if the thought went through Raheem Morris' head that Nick Sirianni is the type of coach that will leave points on the field on fourth down in the red zone, but I am going to give him credit for it. Nick Sirianni had a full tilt coaching blunder, and the Falcons were able to fully take advantage of it. The bend but don't break defense can work in three situations. You have the offense that you trust to go get you points on most drives, the offense you are playing against is not very high powered, or the one that applied in this game: the coach on the other sideline is a bonafide idiot. Nick Sirianni chose to go for it twice on fourth down in field goal range early in the game and the Falcons were able to get a stop. The more embarrassing thing for Sirianni about this, is the time that it 100% made sense to go for it on fourth down was following the Saquon Barkley drop on third, they should have ran the ball anyways. Nick Sirianni decided to take the field goal in this situation rather than go for it. Hello Sirianni this is the time to go for it, you pick it up it is a first down and the game is over. You get stopped the Falcons only need a field goal to tie, but they have to go fifty yards with no timeouts and then make the kick. by choosing to kick the field goal you still concede that a touchdown beats you. When you decide early in the game that you are going to be aggressive on fourth down in field goal range, you have to be consistent in that decision. Enough tearing apart Nick Sirianni, let's get to what that awful mistake set up.

Kirk Cousins you have went from getting ran out of the city to having the entire city behind you. We got a look into what Kirk Cousins can do for the Falcons, and I think we watched him break through a mental block in real time on that game winning drive. The veteran leadership showed as Kirk Cousins did what a veteran should do, he found a rookie on the field and said if you are going to beat us your rookie is going to have to make a play. Kirk Cousins picked on Quinyon Mitchell for two chunk plays to Darnell Mooney, and on both of these plays the rookie Mitchell looked like a rookie. Then Kirk on third down with the game on the line found his guy Drake London wide open in the end zone after London made a beautiful move getting Darius Slay to jump inside the route he was getting ready to break outside. Wait I thought Drake London couldn't separate. Well, Drake London created about five yards of separation on that route, I love it. I could do without the celebration though. Younghoe Koo came in clutch and buried the 48 yard extra point, and Jessie Bates was able to end the ensuing Eagles drive with an interception and the improbable was done. What a great win and momentum builder with the back to back champs coming to our house next Sunday night.