It's Better To Be Lucky And/Or Good: A Falcons-Eagles Recap

or is that in bad taste?

I don’t care how wins come, just that they show up. Gutty, gritty win for the Birds.

You have to like that no huddle offense. Ryan is a smart guy, and was making fantastic calls at the line. I realize Sam Baker had a bad night, but at some juncture, someone has to see that he is overmatched out there and (A) bring help, or (B) do something other than putting Ryan on a tee.

Was it just me, or was Chris Collinsworth a far better broadcaster after Vick went out? He had been saying “Michael Vick” so many times that it was refreshing to hear him talk about some of the other 21 players on the field, or hey, even the game situation.

We may have won – and Ryan again pulled out another 4th Quarter come-from-behind victory – but this Falcons team is NOT a playoff team. I don’t know if they are even a .500 team at this point.

Offense:
The offensive play calling was horrible. After running Turner up the middle with some success, they apparently felt that every first down should be a run up the middle. No play-action, no sweeps – just runs up the middle.

They never changed the snap count, and as a result, Philly was able to tee off on Ryan all night. Changing the snap count would have kept Cole and Babin on the back of their feet at the least and may have helped with the ridiculous pressure they were applying.

Julio needs to learn to come back to the ball. Typical rookie mistake that will get corrected.

All these weapons, and still no explosiveness.

I’m done with Mularkey and his conservative, predictable offense.

Defense:
Great first half, holding an explosive offense to 10 points. But that third quarter? WTF.

Dunta – stupid. Just stupid. You know the league has a special eye on you and you pull that crap?

I’m also done with BVG. We have some good corners and this guy has never heard of bump-and-run.

I’m hoping the Comrade gets in the ears of these guys and helps them find religion, because MM and BVG will help turn a Super-Bowl caliber team into a sub-.500 team at this rate.

I’m glad we got the win, but our OC and DC are costing us.

Nice….
Anyway. What’s with the obvious hated we get off zebras? There were AT LEAST 3 obvious RTP on Ryan. A helmet to helmet near the beginning of the game, a late late hit, and the whole doin splits hit where they hit him in the head and horse collared….. no calls!!!! But Abe touches Kafka and even goes out of his way to keep him upright, and its 15 yards.._
Disgusting. If the refs are only gonna protect certain played and not others, we need new refs. If the refs are trying to influence the outcome of the game due to personal bias, we need new refs. If the refs are….. aw screw it, we need new refs.

I dont understand how Sam Baker is still a LT in this league. He is an open door turn style at Left Tackle and I wonder why we didnt cut/trade him and resign Dahl. Svitek has to be able to do just as bad as Baker.

Why do we play zone so much on Defense? Every time they completed a pass we were in zone coverage and there was no one within 5-7 yards of the reciever. I would rather put dunta and brent in man coverage and say its on you then depend on them to be able to play good zone all game. When we play brees he is going to eat us alive if we dont fix this.

Why is any one surprised by this, it was no lucky win. We had quite a few of comeback wins in last 3 years. Glad I was at the dome and with the dome rocking, it never felt the game was lost. With 9 min to go in 4th quarter and only 10 points behind I was confident Matt would pull off another comeback win.

“Prison Sex” by Tool; it’s about Trent Cole and Sam Baker. I’ll let you listen and figure it out….lol.

Getting hammered in the chest and staggering back like that all night long has to be tough on the glutes and quads. I bet his ego is bruised too! He got eat up and spit out by Cole. Luckily we got the win.

Turner pulled off a big run earlier in the game because Gonzo literally pushed the entire Eagles DLine to his left 5 yards sideways and opened up a giant hole. Thats some power!

Meaning, we won a gamewe shouldn’t have, with infinite breaks going our way, and will probably wind up seeing the same team in the playoffs ready to destroy everything we hold sacred. Except the sloppy version of that.

What a terrible 3rd qtr followed by a brilliant 4th. It’s amazing how quickly I went from furious to the relief that somehow they won. I will say that if Vick stayed in the game I have serious doubts our Falcons get that W. I give my reason why below. First some positives before I get out my 3 big gripes.

Nice to see our WR core play so well against a stout secondary. Gotta love Gonzo of course. He looked like he was in his prime. Julio is turning out to be what we expected. One. Thing we didn’t see was Matt calm & firing quick passes till the 4th. Wish we could get a whole game of that. Our linebackers & D-line had a solid night IMO.

Here is the 4 things I want to see the most improvement on:

1. Our secondary still needs so much improvement. They let the 3rd string QB have a shot at winning this game. Had Vick been in there, the Eagles probably score on their last drive. If our secondary is letting Kafka complete 30 yd passes then this team has a long way to go before they can convince me that they could beat Rodgers & the Pack in a NFC title game. It’s so hard to watch week after week of teams slinging the rock for 15+ yd gains routinely.

2. We need a new punter signed. Today… That was like watching a high schooler at times. I’m sure Bosher is a nice guy and all but giving the opponent so great starting positions will kill this team against elite opponents.

3. I have to ask if our coordinators are getting the job done. I’m already sold on getting rid of BVG after the first couple of weeks. A soft D week in & week out gets you nowhere far in the playoffs. Now, MM has me questioning him too. ATL was most successful last night when Matt was running no huddle or calling audibles at the line. Makes me think we should just let him call the plays. If MM isn’t going to get the right schemes going at least let Matty Ice light it up & take control.

4. For the love of God our O-line needs to step up before they get Matt injured. Thats 2 weeks in a row where he has hit the turf 4 times, Unacceptable. That needs to be fixed ASAP. It shows when Matt is scrambling as much as he has that he is not comfortable & doesn’t trust the line yet. That us causing the offense to be totally out of sync and ineffective.

All in all, huge sigh of relief they won, but still haven’t seen this team show me they can win the NFC yet. Good news is there is still plenty of time to improve and make the necessary changes, no matter how hard it is to do.

I don’t think any of you are giving BVG enough credit for the blitzes he dialed up. Utilizing Edwards as more of an anchor and turning Abe lose enabled us to bring pressure from the corners, safeties and LB’s. Not to say that is an excuse for Dunta’s poor play and yes, more Man coverage could help us. Kudos to Grime’s coverage.

I am not a BVG fan, but I will say the falcons were better prepared for the gadget plays this year than they were last year. (of course they just implies they were not ready last year). Also, whatever scheme they had to control Vicks runnning was good enough. the defense was impressive inside the 10 (reverse Abe’s miscues and turn 2 TDs into FGs – Philly only scores 23 points)
We all get frustrated seeing so many plays being given up underneath the safeties in the middle of the field – so many 3rd and longs converted – soft zones – so I am also a serious BVG doubter – but he does do some things well apparently. Another DefCoord will have to implement schemes that will have tradeoffs and must fit the talent. Whatever those tradeoffs are, they may not result in a better bottom-line. Just beware what you wish for.

the eagles had to get downfield to score touchdowns and come from behind. bring the heat. there are very few instances where a prevent should be used or desired.

Could the Falcons run the same plays as the Eagles with our personnel??