Falcons vs Bears – Postgame Falcons Grades

Each week after every game, win or lose, I will grade the performance of the Falcons’ Offense, Defense, Special Teams and coaches.

• Offense (C-) – The offense were inefficient at key points in the game, failing to complete key third downs and committing three costly turnovers. The grade is saved somewhat by the offense gaining over 400 yards of offense, however they only converted that into six points! That is clearly not good enough.

• Defense (C) – I was impressed with pass rush at times especially from Biermann and Abraham, as between them recording 3 sacks. However the secondary were awfulthroughout, due to poor scheming and poor execution, Grimes was the only player out of the group that had a decent game. In run support, generally the Falcons did ok, however on a few plays they got away from sound fundamentals in tackling, letting plays gain more yards than they should. A pick six, late on has inflated their grade somewhat.

• Special Teams (B) – Matt Bryant looked great as usual, knocking over two field goals. Rookie Punter Matt Bosher was a slight concern however, it is becoming evident he does not have they leg to kick consistent touchbacks, which is a strategic disadvantage for us, as we are having to deal with kickoff returns. As for punting he did ok, the coverage wasn’t that great either but we were playing against the best returner in the league in Devin Hester, so would always be a tricky challenge. All in all not a bad effort against one of the best special teams units in the NFL.

• Coaching (C-) – To start with the gameplan on Defense was very poor, the falcons secondary was in zone coverage way to often and the bears picked it apart as if they knew exactly what we were doing. I would have liked to have seen more man, we have two very good corners (Dunta Robinson and Brent Grimes) in man coverage, let’s use them! On offense, the falcons struggled to pick apart the Bears Tampa 2 Defense. Matt Ryan was forced to check down to the running back to many times for my liking.

All in all, there are a lot of improvements that need to be made across the board, hopefully next week i will be able to hand out some “A’s”!