Chill the F... Out

And good god, it’s wonderful to see that not everyone slit their wrists when we lost a close game to a playoff-caliber team. Holy hell, I know we lost, but what a game! Did anyone see our defense? We have an excellent run defense! In fact, our entire defense was rock solid. It took 5 quarters for them to score 2 TD’s worth of points. Sean Weatherspoon was all over the field, HD had some good plays, and even Weems looked like a competent receiver.

All good building blocks for this season. All we need is to get the run game going, and we’ll be alright. That’ll take a LOT of pressure off Matt Ryan, because there’s no way he should be throwing 44 times…

By no means is it the end of our season, but there’s a lot to be concerned about.

First off throughout the preseason everyone said that the first team woes would “sort themselves out in the regular season.” Yet the same problem of not being able to score TD’s carried over into this game.

Second our offensive line got man-handled all game long, mainly in the run game. Turner could get nothing going, and his confidence suffered. If our boys on the line can’t get leverage then many of our assumptions of our offense being “great” or having the potential to, will be pointless.

Third, it seemed that the Steelers knew the snap count and what the play would be, either a run or a pass. If the play-calling can’t get more creative then it’ll be quite a problem.

Fourth, we (the Falcons and us here) talked about the need for the big plays. The Falcons had only two plays of 20+ Yards and the biggest was 23 yards. For all the talk we just couldn’t get it done. I think this had a lot to do with our protection. Sure, Matt wasn’t sacked 20 times, but he had to get rid of the ball extremly quickly which didn’t allow any downfield routes to develop.

Those are just some of my concerns, and your a fool if you think that everything will fix itself next week for Arizona. This team isn’t as playoff worthy as some of us thought, and we can’t just look at a schedule and tick Wins off saying “Oh Pittsburgh, Win, Arizona, Win, Saints lose…blah blah blah”

This team has the potential, but whether they put that into on field performace is the key question. And it just doesn’t seem like this team has what it takes to be consistent.

one game is the difference between finishing 9-7 and missing the playoffs instead of 10-6 and being the wild card team. Everyone, us and the media, came into this season thinking we could score on any team and we couldn’t even put up a TD. Mularky being predictable, Ryan staring down his recievers, and our running backs looking scared to hit the holes being only the first game or not is something to worry about. We saw a lot of this in the preseason and thought it would work itself out before week one and it hasn’t. But with all our problems on offense our defense looked like a top 10 defense. Loved the guys hustling to the ball. I think this D has a chance to play with any offense in the league. Am I throwing away all my Falcon gear and jumping ship? Hell NOOOOO but I am worried. Plus if they win 12 in a row you can come on here and just tell me how dumb I was to get so worked up over one game and I’ll take it and tell you good job keeping your head up while I’ve got my panties all in a bunch.

I know we’re Falcons fans, but I think our fingers are fumbling for the panic button a little early.

Honestly, it’s not that we lost this game that bothers me. I knew we might lose to the Steelers. It was just seeing the offense look horribly, horribly lost that really concerned me.

next week we will win because Arizona isn’t very good anymore, right now the team that scares me is Seattle after blowing out San Fran, look out for the Seahawks

On any given Sunday, anything can happen, key injuries, mistakes, big plays… A loss is a loss, it was a hard fought battle, but the offense made me sick to my stomach yesterday, squawndering scoring chances. But u ALWAYS end with a positive & that is our D looked like a top 5 defense yesterday. One game you guys, we’ll be fine…like always

GO FALCONS!!!!

Yesterday stunk. There were positives, but there were a bunch of negatives…

However, we weren’t going undefeated. Period. We still have all 6 division games and all our games against the teams we are battling against for playoff spots in the NFC.

I mentioned this before the game, but I was worried about this game. It’s not like we lost to the Rams. Our team thrives on being able to run the ball, and Pittsburgh was not having any of that. I thought we should have used Norwood more to shake it up. Turner will be fine, as will Ryan (who I thought did well, interception aside), for very few Ds will be as good as the Steelers’ D in Heinz Field.

Do Falcons fans think that the Colts, Vikings and Cowboys are down for the count? Do they think the loser of the Ravens v. Jets game is eliminated from the playoffs tonight? I strongly doubt it.

Plenty of football left.

but I understand them. Born and raised in Atlanta, being a Falcons fan has been the ultimate exercise in getting yanked around. Sometimes I found myself wishing they would suck consistently rather than showing so much promise one year, just to return to anonymity (’98, anyone?).

I can’t speak for new fans, but I’m sure the older ones are a little scarred and just worried that the winning ways of the past 2 years are gonna go up in smoke, just like they always have.

for once – a safety was not our leading tackler. Our LBs look awesome!

I believe Matty will realize he can’t stare down a guy for five seconds with the NFL’s best safety roaming in zone (that was zone, wasn’t it?). Pittsburgh is a very hostile environment and the Falcons hung very tight for the first game of the season. I thought we did a great job on avoiding penalties until those at the end just killed us.

I won’t be worried unless we stink up the place this Sunday.

James. I saw the same game you did. you are one of the few who ARE actually giving some credit to the Steelers. I thought the Birds did quite well, other than losing the game. The Steelers live up to their name, that’s for sure. None of this crying and whining about who didn’t do or do what. Enough of that.

Remember, it took Peyton Manning NINE seasons before he won a Super Bowl. This stuff doesn’t happen overnight unless you catch lightning in a bottle. Peyton wasn’t all that great either until he got the personnel and the coaching that is needed to win the whole thing. I do think we have a fine coaching staff here that can lead the Birds to the promised land eventually. I must be the most patient fan there is. Since 1977. And, I’ll continue to be that way.

had been reversed, and we had defeated the Cardinals before losing to the Steelers, would we be as upset? Agreed, this was a huge let-down after an entire off-season of building expectations, but it is only one game against a potentially top-5 defense.

Of course, if we lose to the Cards, panic away!

Play calling sucked and we had a passing game. they should have gone down field in the overtime and they would have won it.

I guess you guys might listen to me more, I told you not to panic.