Atlanta Falcons vs. New Orleans Saints: Keys to victory

The Atlanta Falcons play the New Orleans Saints on Monday Night Football. If the Falcons want to come out as the winners, there is what the team needs to do.

Week 2 is in the books for the Atlanta Falcons, as is the first win of the young season.

As the celebration of this week’s win has turned into focused attention on next week’s game, the Falcons must change their tune as well and look at keys to victory against the Saints.

Here are five keys to a Falcon’s victory in Week 3.

1. Pressure the quarterback

For weeks the same thing has been said over and over again about the Falcons, get pressure on the quarterback. That hasn’t improved and the Falcons have to do a better job of at least having someone hurry up the play.

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Against the Raiders there were times when Derek Carr could have literally stood walked around the pocket it was so clean. A passer like Drew Brees with that much time on his hands will pick any secondary apart. I don’t care what his stat lines say in the first couple weeks of the season, Brees is an elite quarterback that the Falcons are going to have to be prepared to hurry up if they want to win.

2. Julio Jones needs to ball hard

Where has Julio Jones gone in this offense? I fully understand spreading the ball around and not being predictable but when you have one of the best receivers in the NFL (if not the very best) you get the ball to him as much as possible. Jones has yet to break two hundred yards on the season through two games.

Julio Jones is still not involved in the offense but not to the point he should be if the Falcons can have him be the player he was last year for their offense this week the offense is going to look a lot more potent.

3. Desmond Trufant needs to be physical

The third key this week will be Desmond Trufant shutting down the Saints aerial attack. Last week against Amari Cooper, Trufant was burnt more than once and didn’t play the best game in the world. The Falcons need him to help shut down their receivers and buy the defense more time to get some pressure on Drew Brees.

4. Matt Ryan and Co.

The other two keys for victory for the Falcons intertwine Matt Ryan and red zone turnovers. That one red zone turnover gave a lot of fans flashbacks to the issues that the Falcons had last season. On the other hand, it is the only time Ryan has done that so far this season and he has looked to be an elite quarterback so far posting impressive numbers.  He has to continue doing just that this season and have a better game than he did last year against the Saints.