Falcons snap counts from the lousy loss to the Buccaneers

The Falcons didn’t play particularly well against the Buccaneers, and the couple of personnel wrinkles we saw weren’t the major reason for that. Nonetheless, we snap on.

Offense

Jake Matthews: 87 (100%)

James Carpenter: 87

Alex Mack: 87

Kaleb McGary: 87

Matt Ryan: 76

Calvin Ridley: 74

Russell Gage: 64

Jaeden Graham: 57

Jamon Brown: 55

Brian Hill: 51

Julio Jones: 49

Christian Blake: 38

Luke Stocker: 32

Wes Schweitzer: 32

Qadree Ollison: 23

Justin Hardy: 15

Kenjon Barner: 13

Keith Smith: 11

Matt Schaub: 11

Olamide Zaccheaus: 7

Ty Sambrailo: 1

---

I guess you can’t fault the Falcons for trying to upgrade on Wes Schweitzer, but the truly infuriating thing about this season has been that the Falcons have invested so much money in Jamon Brown and James Carpenter and they’re just playing Schweitzer anyways. On Sunday against the Buccaneers, Schweitzer mixed in on 32 snaps, with Brown sitting on the sideline with no apparent injury. Dan Quinn alluded to potential personnel changes on the line against the Saints, and you don’t have to read far to come to the conclusion that it’ll be Schweitzer in for Brown, not that that’s going to solve anything. I am beyond frustrated with this team’s offensive line decisions over the years, and the two guard signings appear destined to go down as two more poor decisions along that front.

Both guards could be in trouble, even though Brown was the only one who appeared to be benched (again, we haven’t seen any injury updates yet). Carpenter hasn’t been good this year, either, but the Falcons have to decide if Schweitzer and Ty Sambrailo (or Matt Gono, I guess) would offer better play or not.

Beyond the offensive line notes—and again, it’s not like the tackles even played well Sunday—there were still some notable items.

First, it appears Jaeden Graham has passed Luke Stocker on the depth chart, at least with Austin Hooper out. Graham was part of a passing attack that didn’t exactly have a ton of success yesterday, but he did break a huge gain and remains an interesting receiving option for a Falcons team that could use more of them. With Julio injured—and even when he’s not, frankly—Christian Blake appears to have stepped into a larger role than Justin Hardy. The Falcons can’t get any of these guys open consistently except for Russell Gage (on short routes) and Calvin Ridley (mostly downfield), but it appears Blake and Graham will get enough opportunity to push for a role in 2020.

The offense being a major disappointment is really at the feet of Dirk Koetter and the offensive line, ultimately. Atlanta’s probably going to need to draft another capable wide receiver this offseason and might continue their streak of adding running backs, but the skill position players are plenty good enough, by and large. Given that the Falcons have two recent first round picks on the OL, the coaching staff is the obvious place to make major changes. Again.

Defense

Deion Jones: 64 (97%)

Damontae Kazee: 63

Desmond Trufant: 63

De’Vondre Campbell: 61

Kendall Sheffield: 60

Ricardo Allen: 58

Grady Jarrett: 57

Isaiah Oliver: 43

Allen Bailey: 43

Tyeler Davison: 35

Jacob Tuioti-Mariner: 32

Adrian Clayborn: 32

Vic Beasley: 31

Foye Oluokun: 30

Jack Crawford: 23

Takk McKinley: 13

Jamal Carter: 10

Blidi Wreh-Wilson: 7

Jermaine Grace: 1

---

The Falcons were largely without Takk, and I think that had a big impact on the pass rush, which was again nonexistent. We saw a lot more of Bailey, Davison, and Tuioti-Mariner than we had in the last couple of weeks, and the Falcons once again couldn’t rush the passer but largely clamped down hard on the Buccaneers rushing attack. Obviously, that’s not exactly what the Falcons needed, but it’s what they got. We now have more than half a season of lines heavily featuring Bailey and Davison, and we’ve seen that they don’t offer enough in terms of ability to get after the passer. The Bucs did a nice job of protecting Winston and he did a nice job of avoiding the limited pressure the Falcons did get, but less Jack Crawford and no Takk was not a recipe for success this week.

That lack of a pass rush hit the secondary hard, too. Kendall Sheffield has been one of this season’s few true success stories, but even with a mostly solid day he saw himself beaten by an en fuego Chris Godwin. Winston was making unusually great throws all day, but coverage lapses and missed tackles were still a factor on the day. It’s noteworthy that Sheffield has clearly passed Oliver on the depth chart and that guys like Oluokun are still getting snaps, but the overall defensive effort against the Bucs got quite underwhelming once they got their impressive early game interceptions out of the way.

Winston’s great day and Takk’s limited availability were definite factors against the Bucs, but the defense certainly was much less sharp against Tampa Bay than it was against New Orleans and Carolina. Hopefully they have one more great effort in them on Thanksgiving.

Special Teams

Foye Oluokun: 24

Jermaine Grace: 24

Sharrod Neasman: 23

Keith Smith: 22

Olamide Zaccheaus: 21

Qadree Ollison: 18

Christian Blake: 17

Jamal Carter: 17

Damontae Kazee: 15

Jaeden Graham: 13

Jacob Tuioti-Mariner: 12

Kenjon Barner: 12

Isaiah Oliver: 11

Austin Larkin: 11

Blidi Wreh-Wilson: 11

Luke Stocker: 10

Tyeler Davison: 10

Josh Harris: 10

Ryan Allen: 10

---

The usual suspects here, by and large, with Kendall Sheffield and Sharrod Neasman leading the way with an impressive play where Sheffield blocked the extra point and Neasman put in a heroic effort to try to return it for two points, though he fell a bit short. With Younghoe Koo and Ryan Allen in the fold, special teams has largely turned back into a solid unit across the board, leaving us one thing we don’t really have to worry about on a week-to-week basis. At least, I hope so.