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A Look At The Falcons Red Zone Performance: Week 9

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We may have screwed up a week or two of this (it's a royal we), but there's no time like the present to get caught up. And so caught we shall be.

Let's start with the Saints of New Orleans. Michael Turner busted one TD run in the red zone, Jason Elam missed a field goal the next time, Elam hit a field goal the next time, Matt Ryan tossed an interception on the 10 yard line the following time and that was it for the game. Since field goals don't count for as much and we whiffed twice, period, that brings our previously sterling red zone record crashing down a little bit. Some of that can be attributed to Elam's fluky performance and Ryan's recent slump, but it did happen. Oh well.

Next, we travel to...well, home, where the Falcons dismantled the Washington Redskins. The story was different there, but we also had an unusual number of long scores, which meant that we came up with a touchdown and a field goal in our only two trips in that game. That's more like it. It also is odd when you actually stop to think of it, because Washington has a talented defensive unit, one that's arguably much tougher on a regular basis than the Saints. Yet the Saints are basically the only team which managed to make our red zone attack look anything other than awesome.

Still, I think we're on pretty solid footing, all things considered. The Falcons still have a conversion rate inside the red zone that hovers around 90%, which is pretty damn good, and we did some excellent things in the red zone against the Carolina Panthers once already this season. In the immortal words of Radiohead, "there was nothing to fear, there was nothing to doubt."