Falcons snap counts for the Week 6 win over the Buccaneers

Offense

Matt Ryan: 67

Jake Matthews: 67

Wes Schweitzer: 67

Alex Mack: 67

Brandon Fusco: 67

Ryan Schraeder: 67

Austin Hooper: 54

Julio Jones: 51

Tevin Coleman: 38

Logan Paulsen: 37

Justin Hardy: 36

Mohamed Sanu: 33

Ito Smith: 31

Marvin Hall: 15

Eric Saubert: 14

Ricky Ortiz: 13

Calvin Ridley: 7

Russell Gage: 6

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I don’t claim to know what’s going on with Mohamed Sanu, or how long Calvin Ridley will be out. If the Falcons have to survive one or (god forbid) multiple weeks without one of them, though, we got a glimpse at what that might look like Sunday.

Julio Jones and Austin Hooper were the true workhorses for this offense, with the team balancing out Tevin Coleman and Ito Smith in the ground game. Getting Devonta Freeman back would allow the Falcons to use Coleman as a receiver more often if they needed or wanted to, but otherwise this team is going to need to lean more heavily on the likes of Justin Hardy, Marvin Hall and Russell Gage to get the job done. All three had their moments on Sunday, and we’ll hope that can continue should the Falcons have to trot them out there more often.

Otherwise, no surprises. Eric Saubert is slowly starting to get more snaps, something I’ve welcomed this year, but he’s still well behind rock solid blocker Logan Paulsen in the pecking order. The offense continues to look very good, minus injuries and offensive line hiccups.

Defense

Damontae Kazee: 66

Robert Alford: 65

Jordan Richards: 65

Desmond Trufant: 65

Brian Poole: 58

De’Vondre Campbell: 54

Takkarist McKinley: 51

Vic Beasley: 48

Jack Crawford: 44

Foye Oluokun: 40

Terrell McClain: 40

Duke Riley: 28

Deadrin Senat: 25

Brooks Reed: 22

Mike Bennett: 21

Steven Means: 15

Bruce Carter: 12

Kemal Ishmael: 6

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The big news here is that the Falcons are doing something I expected them to start doing weeks ago, which is getting Foye Oluokun snaps at the expense of Duke Riley. It’s fair to say that Riley looked better on his limited snaps and Oluokun, while far from perfect in this one, was one of the team’s better tacklers Sunday against the Buccaneers. This may not stick, but with the team’s likely emphasis on stopping the run against the Giants next Monday night, Oluokun should draw at least one more nominal start in the near future.

The Falcons still leaned heavily on their nominal starting defensive line in this one—god, do they need Grady Jarrett back—and Jack Crawford was arguably their most productive pass rusher on Sunday. Something has to change there or this defense is not going to get markedly better any time soon. The Falcons are at least trying out snaps for the likes of Brooks Reed, Mike Bennett, Steven Means and Bruce Carter in their front seven, with varying degrees of success.

One thing is clear as the team continues to mix-and-match up front: They need to find a way to give Jordan Richards’ snaps to someone else. That sounds cruel, but we’ve seen multiple weeks of Richards getting starts or significant snaps at strong safety, and he’s somewhere between below average and an active liability in those weeks. How bad can Keith Tandy really be?

Special Teams

Russell Gage: 19

Bruce Carter: 19

Kemal Ishmael: 19

Keith Tandy: 19

Eric Saubert: 17

Matt Bosher: 17

Justin Bethel: 17

Logan Paulsen: 16

Foye Oluokun: 15

Sharrod Neasman: 15

Marvin Hall: 13

Robert Alford: 11

Josh Harris: 10

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Again, no surprises here, as the Falcons have a pretty good group of special teamers and have settled on a comfortable mix. They were pretty good on teams against the Buccaneers, too.

One note: Oluokun also handily out-snapped Riley on special teams. I’m not suggesting that the latter is going to be a gameday inactive anytime soon, but if he’s not offering special teams value and he’s falling behind on defense, that’s not great.