The Importance Of Getting To The Red Zone For The Falcons

by Dave Choate on Oct 10, 2009 8:00 AM EDT in Falcons News

This post is sponsored by Comcast and their NFL RedZone channel. If you're looking to check out red zone action as it happens, then you need Comcast's NFL RedZone. Don't argue with me!

Great, you're saying, a post about the Falcons' red zone failings! Just what we need. You might think that after bitterly recalling the Patriots loss, where the Falcons only managed a single touchdown and field goal. You could be forgive for thinking that, but you'd be wrong.

The Falcons actually made the most of their chances two Sundays ago, given that they only made it inside the Patriots' 20 twice. The week before that against the Carolina Panthers, they had three touchdowns on three trips into the red zone. Against the Miami Dolphins, they had a similar level of success, scoring two touchdowns and grabbing a field goal, with their only failure to score coming on the last drive of the game when they kneeled to run out the clock. That's a very, very good success rate.

It underlines the fact that once they're 20 or fewer yards out, the Falcons are damn near impossible to stop. Field goals aren't nearly as good as touchdowns, but they're much better than turnovers or a complete failure to score, so we'll give them half credit or more there. The problem is that we're not getting there often enough, and I would tend to blame an offense that thus far has been content to try out conservative plays and march down the field slowly. Unfortunately for us, many of those drives are going nowhere.

What I'd hope to see against an effective San Fransisco 49ers defense is a more aggressive effort that either gets us close where we seem to do a lot of damage, or bypasses the red zone entirely on long scores. The worst thing we can do is get into the trap of taking only what the defense gives us. This isn't the kind of offense that needs to be timid.

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Comments

Wow.

This stat is HUGE. My strongest issue with the Mike Vick era here was that despite dazzling runs our redzone capacity was atrocious.

I had almost no confidence in the team inside the twenty. Of course, I also had no confidence in 3rd and longs, or trailing but a lot of that had to do with the Redzone issues (either stemming from the same cause or causing it itself)

Maybe there is no Heaven. Or maybe this is all pure gibberish — a product of the demented imagination of a lazy drunken hillbilly with a heart full of hate who has found a way to live out where the real winds blow — to sleep late, have fun, get wild, drink whisky, and drive fast on empty streets with nothing in mind except falling in love and not getting arrested...Res ipsa loquitur. Let the good times roll.

by iRonin on Oct 10, 2009 11:52 AM EDT via mobile reply actions

This says it all

“an offense that thus far has been content to try out conservative plays and march down the field slowly”. Where are all the big plays, shots downfield, etc.?

by qthaballa on Oct 10, 2009 6:22 PM EDT reply actions

agreed

i didn’t realize that we’d actually been that successful in the red zone, but the more i think about each game, i guess that’s really true… our problem has been getting into the redzone. In the NE game, it seemed like we would easily march 30 yards down the field, maybe even get into their territory, and then suddenly hit a wall for no apparent reason.

I had really hoped our offense would be more like New Orleans has so far this season, and with all the weapons we have, i don’t see why it shouldn’t be. Hopefully things will progress as the season goes along. Either way, a team with this many great offensive players should never be getting held to 10 points in a game by anyone.

by cheshire falcon on Oct 10, 2009 11:22 PM EDT reply actions