Roddy White: The Falcons Are a Different Team at Home

The Falcoholic's very own credentialed media analyst/Flowery Branch czar/I'm-not-sure-what-we-are-calling-her-except-Jeanna-Thomas has been getting great quotes from the team before they play the Chicago Smokin' Cutlers Bears on Sunday. The wide receiver duo Julio Jones and Roddy White were asked some questions about the team's consistency through the 2014 season.

Importantly, what does Roddy have to say about the Falcons dominance at home but inability to put together anything other than unending fan disappointment on the road?

Yeah, I feel confident every time we come home—every time. I guess we’re just a different team when we play in the Dome. The energy’s a lot higher, we rally behind the crowd, and it’s just a lot more excitement. I think we’ve just got to pick it up more on the road whenever we go back out there. But when we’re home, everybody’s relaxed, everybody’s confident, and you know everybody’s playing at a high level at home, and we’re getting off to such great starts and things like that. So we’ve got to continue to do it. This is a good football team that we’re playing offensively and defensively, and they’ve had leads in games and kind of let some of them go, get away from them. So they’re very dangerous.

Like most teams, the Falcons are better at home... but not too many teams have had this level of disparity. In fact, the Falcons have shown flashes of greatness, but not throughout an entire game. Roddy had this to say about consistency and keeping momentum throughout the game:

We’ve got to do that. Like I said, we haven’t played four quarters of consistent football. I feel like we’re just waiting on our time to come to where we go out there and execute for four quarters, and if we can do that and be consistent at it, we’ll score a lot of points if we can go out there and do that. We’ve got to eliminate the three-and-outs, get behind the chains and stuff like that—get behind the sticks—and just go out there and just relax and play football.

Roddy learns a lot from Mike Smith. In response to one question, he referred to both consistency and execution. Asked if the Bears game is a must-win game, Roddy gave us another Smith impression.

They’re all must-win games. I mean, we’ve got to stay in the division hunt. We’re one game out of first place right now, so it is a must-win, especially coming back home and going out—being back in the Dome and how well we’ve played. So we’ve got to go out there and get a win and get back to .500 and try to take off from there.

Julio was asked the same thing, and he continued his history of saying significantly less than Roddy.

It’s very important because it’s the next game, and we want to win. This game has ups and downs. As long as we stay positive here, everything else will take care of itself.

Roddy said that the coaches have been showing the players that the team statistically has a top five offense, but "we're not playing well."

I wonder if "not playing well" is code for, "Paul Worrilow is dropping into coverage as a free safety," or "Kroy Biermann is covering Greg Jennings." The offense has not been the problem but they will probably have to end the season in the top five to make the playoffs.

Both players seem pretty optimistic about their chances tomorrow. Both the Falcons and Bears share similar qualities of elite offenses and nonexistent defenses. If Matt Ryan can turn the ball over less than the Bears, the Falcons should be back to .500 by about 7:30 PM on Sunday.