Opponent Series History Week 9: ATL vs WAS

by Adam Schultz on Nov 7, 2009 12:30 PM EST

Gang, I'll be honest. It ain't pretty. To demonstrate how utterly ugly our series history is against the Redskins, here's a chart:

The X axis is the game number, the Y axis is the score differential. A negative score differential (see below 0 on X axis) indicates a loss. Yeah, it's that bad. Out of twenty-one games, we've won only five. The 'Skins have won fifteen. In '67 (game 2 on the chart), we somehow managed to tie with them, so at least that game's not hanging out in our L column...

The Facts:

Current Series Record: 5-15-1
Score-to-Score Totals: Redskins have scored 543 points to our lowly 379 for a difference of 164 or 23 touchdowns, give or take.
Old enemies: We've played the 'Skins since our inaugural year, and played them in stretches of years. Recent games have been hard to come by. We've only played them twice this waning decade (03, 06).
Stompin' em: I wish I could say the Falcons had any stomping games, but alas, they haven't. The Falcons' average win margin is a measly five points and haven't yet managed to win a game by more then ten points. The ten point victory, for those keeping up, came in our last meeting (2006).
Everyone scored: No shutouts exist in this series. I guess that's something positive to take away from this...
Running Away with It: 38% of these games have been won by a score of ten or more. That's 8 games. The Falcons only have one game to claim in that bunch.
Like Fish in a Barrel: The Redskins have beaten us by more than thirty points twice in the series. The margins, as the chart shows, were closer to forty...
Keeping it Close: 13 (68%) of these games came down to three points or less.

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Holy statistical analysis Batman!

Good stuff. I’d rec it if it weren’t already on the front page.

Reporter: How will you address all of the dropped passes?

Mike Smith: I don’t think that we were as sharp as we have been catching the football. It’s something that is very fixable. It’s VERY fixable.

by FrankyWren on Nov 7, 2009 12:58 PM EST reply actions

Thank goodness history doesn't ALWAYS repeat itself...

Nice post there! Since the Falcons came into the league, the Skins are 359-297-7 (.547) and have a 3-2 record in Super Bowls. Not too shabby! In that span, the Falcons are 271-386-6 (.413). Those point spreads may not look quite as surprising in that context.

by tom slick on Nov 7, 2009 3:28 PM EST reply actions

Bad memories from the 90s

Jan. 3, 1992 – NFC Divisional – Washington 24, Atlanta 7. I remember our little blip of success when Deion was here in the early 90’s – I also remember Washington putting the smackdown on us in a wet, muddy RFK.

If Atlanta is going to be labeled a “good” team then we must win this game. Being a life-long Atlanta resident and Falcons fan, this game makes me very nervous. This is the kind of game that the “old” Falcons would lose. I hope it’s different this time.

by Samuel L. Bronkowitz on Nov 7, 2009 4:05 PM EST reply actions