Birds Squawk: What The Falcons And Packers Are Saying

A few quotes and thoughts about what the Falcons are thinking and saying after their 25-14 loss to the Green Bay Packers.

• Smitty sez the Falcons have to win together. I know this is excruciatingly obvious to everyone who watched yesterday's game, but Mike Smith has one thing right in all his coachspeak. It's not just one person:
  
  "You have to take a good hard look at yourself. It starts with every man, it starts with me, it starts with the coaching staff and the players. We’re only going to fix this together. We’re not going to fix this individually. It’s not one person, it’s not one thing. We’ve got to collectively make sure that we find ways to win football games instead of finding ways not to win football games. When we haven’t been successful this season, we have found ways to lose football games where in the past we have always found ways to win games."
  
  Now, again, there's not a lot to glean from that. I know fans are tired of hearing Smith's equivocations, but this is correct. The team has to fix its many issues collectively. Yeah, he didn't lop off Mike Mularkey's head in front of hungry reporters, but he's never going to do that. Period.
• Tony Gonzalez says FINISH HIM! Or them. The Tweeting tight end offers up a pretty general statement, but he's right about one thing: The Falcons have to finish. Whether it be plays, drives or games, they're just not doing it right now.
• B.J. Raji has words for the Falcons. The Falcons are getting a bit of a reputation around the league, as Jason noted earlier, and B.J. Raji decided to talk a little trash after the game.
  
  It's funny to me any time a player says he "wouldn't talk like this, but." You're talking like this because you want to. You're talking like this because one player said something derogatory about your team in the pre-season, and it was a player (Roddy White) who makes news when he doesn't say something derogatory about a team. For a guy on a 5-0 team to make comments like that after a game his team has won, even one a game as chippy as this one, is something I don't really respect at all. Raji's a fine player, but I'm not impressed by this.
  
  Of course, if the Falcons would just win these games, we wouldn't have to listen to it.
  

There's a couple of quotes in a slow week for them. Most of what was said was typical of the Falcons, dealing with fixing mistakes and getting better next week. Weigh in.