No excuse to lose this game. None.

Posting here because TATF is down.

It's...it's disgusting. JJ literally dropped the game. Ryan looked awful. We flat out sucked.

No excuse...so hard not to curse here...I mean, there was something like 8 dropped passes there? We are killing ourselves, and if we do this in the playoffs, we WILL be one and done once again.

Sorry for ranting and raving, but this team is so depressing sometimes. The only one stopping the Falcons this year is the Falcons...

We all know the game was ugly. We all know it didn't go great. And we all know that statistics don't tell the story...but honestly? Right now, I'd like to take solace in some statistics.

The Run Game

In all fairness, this looked really good. Jacquizz looked a little tapdancy back there, but Turner had a great day outside of the fumble, which I'll get to later. Snelling looked good too. As a team, we averaged 7.857 yards per carry - extremely good against a stout Bears Run D that was rather good last year - and Turner had 10 yards per carry. Hell, he was still over 5 ypc if you take out his big run, so you can say "inflated numbers" all you want - we wanted explosive plays and our run game delivered. If we'd focused a bit more on that, maybe we would have looked a tad better.

The Passing Game

Besides a few drops, our recievers looked pretty dang good. Julio and Gonzo both got over 70 yards on 5 catches apiece, and Roddy was steady (albeit limited due to all the stinkin checkdowns). Something I'd really like to draw your attention to, though, is our RBs - something you guys have wanted us to use more for a while now.

I was reading through the game thread earlier and I saw some anger about us not doing many screens. Well, it's true with our WRs, but we got our RBs really involved. As a matter of fact, the RBs accounted for 105 of Matt's 300 yard passing game, with Turner, Snelling and Quizz getting 40, 32 and 33 yards, respectively. Believe it or not, explosiveness is NOT all in that 40 yard streak down the sidelines. Explosive players lead to explosive plays. And while I'd have really, REALLY liked to see more big plays today, there's a little perspective to be had here. We had (I believe) 3 plays over 30 yards, and 5 plays over 20. Is that stellar? No. But it's a definite step in the right direction. I wish Ryan had gotten a few longer passes, but...that's life. And I think he'll fix it.

What's more important to me, however, is the play of our offensive line on passing downs. There were several times where Ryan had less than two seconds to make a decision, and he went down 5 times (what a trooper) while being hit FIFTEEN TIMES. That's unacceptable. Seriously. We need McClure back, and bad, or else Hawley and Baker (that joke) need to step up.

The Special Teams

Had a scare or two with Hester, but we were actually remarkably solid in coverage, and Hester had only a 17 yard average. Their field position was hurt further with all the penalties too (quite nice). On the other hand, I think Bosher was a huge mistake. His leg is pretty mediocre at best, and he failed to impress me all day. Bryant's money, though.

Run Defense

Needless to say, we pretty much rocked here. Outside of a big 27 yarder for Forte, he averaged 2.73 ypc, and Bell was down at 2.4 ypc. Even with that added in, their rushing plays average 3.26 ypc. And that is plain sad. We did really well in the run game overall, and it felt good to see.

Pass Defense

I've got to give credit to our D-Line; they had a fanfreakintastic game. 4 sacks on Cutler and a pick for a TD by the ever-talented Biermann? I liked it. Of course, there were some times where Cutler had all day to throw, but for the most part, we kept him on the run and on his ass. Great games for Babs, Abraham, Biermann, and Sid today. RE didn't look stellar, but he wasn't in long either, so...eh.

Our DBs were a mixed bag, if only because Grimes made them look far better than they actually were. He had 3 pass deflections, which were a little offset by the fact that Decoud dropped two of them that could have been easy interceptions. Dunta looked awful. When a CB is fourth on the team in tackles, he isn't doing his job, particularly because he was slipping all over the place and missed a lot of tackles too. Moore looked alright. Owens was ugly. As a whole, Grimes is the only thing keeping this secondary's heart beating, and I'd really like to see Hayden maybe step up and take a main CB position so Dunta could slide into the NB spot. I saw a blitz from Dunta - let's see MORE of that.

What really killed us today was the coverage of linebackers...particularly, and I'm sorry to say it, Weatherspoon. He was flying all over the place early, making great tackles, but he did AWFUL missing a few tackles today. The one where he 'shoved' Forte on the pass was nothing short of embarassing. Step it up, man.

So yeah. Lots to improve on there. But the big things for me were:

Yards

We had more than the Bears, and we got clobbered by 18 points. That can be directly attributed to settling for freaking FGs instead of the touchdown. I'm sick of that, and MM SERIOUSLY needs to be more creative once we get into scoring position. Of course, our difficulties there can be more attributed to...

Turnovers

We had a great turnover ratio last year. Not today. We had three, whereas they had just the one. They got 17 points off of our turnovers, and it KILLED us this game. Ryan made a stupid play with Urlacher, and his fumble is possibly the most idiotic play I've seen him ever make. It was flat out awful. I'm not blaming Turner nearly as much, as that was simply an excellent play by the Bears, and he accounted for 140 yards on his own. The turnovers directly attributed to another thing we were great at last year, but not here, and that is...

Time of Possession

Really. It was bad. They had the ball a good six and a half minutes longer than we did, and considering how we dominated last year, I wasn't even that surprised by the loss in the end.

Look, guys. I think we're going to fix these issues. McClure might be back next week, hopefully Corey Peters will help our D-Line look even gnarlier, and our ToP and Turnovers are things Smitty won't let go unnoticed. Ryan learns from his mistakes too. He WILL fix them.

A lot of people here didn't take the Bears seriously, I think. Every team in the NFL should be taken seriously...the Bears are the last team anyone should make an exception for. They're really good, and they're one of the few teams that matches up well to GB's style of the game.

Next week we have the Eagles. I was more worried before the Rams game. Bradford, Jackson, and Amendola had to go out for the Eagles to win...the Rams exposed a lot of weaknesses. Particularly, their run D doesn't look much better. We can and should attack that, especially now that Turner's running like he has something to prove. He looks much more fresh.

We can beat them. We will beat them. and honestly, if we win 2 of our first 5 games, we'll go at least 11-5 and get to the playoffs. I hope our secondary looks better - maybe Sanders can step up and take Decoud's spot? - and I hope we have what it takes to fix the mistakes. I hope we will. We'd better fix them.

Oh, something I haven't mentioned yet is our coordinators. I've hated MM for a while, and want him gone. I think if BVG played games with the same urgency as the NO one where we blitzed Brees so much, he'd be much better, but at the moment he looks awful too...and I've never been his biggest fan. But that's another post...the fact that I don't want either of them here isn't that relevant.

They called an awful game. We got flat out beat. But we still had a chance, if not for stupid mistakes and failing to capitalize on touchdown and turnover opportunities.

We will rise up, and beat the Iggles next week...take it to the bank.

I was talking to a guy over at BGN who insisted that Dunta's hit was dirty several times over, so I decided to just go get the solid proof that it was clean instead of continuing the pointlessness. Here it is, devoted Falcoholics.

And now we can officially say if he gets fined, it's total BS. But the media hates the Falcons...weirder things have happened before, eh?

I wish Desean the speediest of recoveries, he really is an excellent player. The fact that there was memory loss involved is...disturbing, to say the very least.

I'm not going to bore you all with strenous explanations, but instead, with some delicious food for your hungry brains.  In a non-disturbing, non-zombie related way, of course.

Basically, everyone that's been worrying about Ryan really needs to calm down, because he has NOT regressed nearly as much as people have been saying.  I have no doubt that he will return next year with a far superior season to this sophomore slump he's been experiencing.  But on the other hand, when you look at the games he's played...can you really be too upset?  I'll lay it out simply.

The falcons schedule is, and admittedly has been, one of the most painstaking in the NFL this year.  But a look at the statistics prove that it's a much harder schedule for Ryan himself than for the team as a whole, which points simply to his much lesser stats.  Take a look at the top 10 pass defenses in the NFL.

So, do any of the teams look familiar?  I hope so.  As you can see, we have faced 8 of those top 10 pass defenses throughout our already ugly schedule.  And on top of that, we faced Tampa Bay and Carolina TWICE.  Basically, 10 of our 16 games are against top 10 pass defenses.  Ugly, in a word.

But wait, there's more?  Well, Ryan ALSO sat out two of our games against easier pass defenses, being New Orleans (No. 24) and Philadelphia (No. 14).  Not only does this jab a stick at the eyes of the Redman lovers who want him in over Ryan, as he faced the "easy" teams, but it also highlights how difficult Ryan has had it.  Assuming that he plays for the next two games, he will have had to face teams in the top 10 pass-defense rankings 10 times out of 14.

And on top of that, do injuries ring a bell?  Injuries to the line have caused him to make hasty decisions, and drops by Michael Jenkins, as well as the loss of capable 3rd down reciever Harry Douglas, AND Jerious Norwood's long-term absence...should I even continue?

Redman also didn't have to compete with 4 - yes, FOUR - teams coming off of their byes.  He didn't have to compete with four well-rested teams (Giants, Redskins, Bears, Cowboys), three of whom are in the top 10 pass defense already and DON'T need an excuse to make QBs perform poorly.

When it comes down to it, 1 INT per game doesn't look so bad at all.  Thoughts?

(NOTE: I also posted this on The Beat Blog, but I felt it needed seen here as well.)

This was a good game, but some of the Saints fans (very specifically, SOME of them - I actually like the Saints fans more than most team's fans in the NFL, they seem to be very gracious and well mannered as a whole) need to stop denying that the Falcons had a chance. All of this about scoring 50 pts and having a bad night…utter bull crap. Yes, they did win, and I’m not trying to discredit that, but some haters also should recognize that the Falcons looked like the better football team for the majority of the game. We played excellently, and I can list several reasons that we didn’t win that had very little to do with our team as a whole, and rather, with individual players, and even more so, with the refereeing. And, to be fair, I’ll count what happened wrong with you guys as well.

Jason Elam and John Carney: 2 missed for Elam, 1 for Carney. That brings the score to 33 : 38

Roddy White interference for INT TD: Now it’s 33 : 31, Falcons ahead.

Miracle 68 Yard TD with Possible Interference: 29 : 31 now, since they would have likely made the FG. 26 : 31 if you want to be touchy.

Roddy White Defensive Interference in the End Zone: Back up to 33 : 31, or even 36 : 31. Falcons on top.

3rd and 5 Defensive Holding: Everyone knows it was crap, even the Saints-worshipping announcers. Give it up. You punt it, 7 points off the boards for the saints, and the score is 36: 24.

This is being generous and not counting the times the Saints held John Abraham – I counted at least 5.  But nothing’s definitive there. And Michael Jenkin’s drops don’t even count here. Nor does the miracle INT with a tip at the 10 yard line. It’s all up to interpretation.

So yes, I believe the Atlanta Falcons had every shot at winning the game by a double digit margin. Falcons 36, Saints 24. Not counting all the other bad calls. Or the huge break through run where Pierre Thomas got the TD in the first quarter – an easy stop, and yet we failed. Falcons had this game on their fingertips, and played some damn great football.  But this is all extremely obvious, extremely preventable stuff.  We had this, we won this, it sucks that it's over, but we showed just what type of a football team we are.  Finished through to the end.

I can’t wait till the Georgia Dome battle occurs.