Atlanta Falcons: Defense must respond to 49ers mockery

This Sunday, the Atlanta Falcons travel across the country to face the San Francisco 49ers and, in what may have been an overlooked game on the national scale, has grown into a game of serious implications for both teams.

These two teams are both spiraling out of control with ineffective showings over the past few weeks, but the Falcons seems a bit more able to stop their descent in the standings by protecting the ball better. They 10 turnovers (four in the red zone) over the past four weeks.

But leave it to the 49ers who are grasping for any sort of purpose for the rest of their schedule to only add fuel to a growing disdain between these teams.

Earlier this week, a tweet surfaced that San Francisco was making a much needed quarterback change as Colin Kaepernick’s time as a heralded player is coming to a crashing end. But that wasn’t all the gist to the rumor, as “team management” pointed that it served Blaine Gabbert better to face a porous defense, in the Falcons, than in a highly touted one of the St. Louis Rams last week.

The Falcons reply?

This slap in the face to Dan Quinn and the Falcons should not be taken lightly. And it is another chance to respond by Atlanta that they must capture at all costs, because it points to the fact that NFL teams are making a mockery out of Atlanta, and don’t believe that they were nearly as good of a team as their record shows.

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It was only a few years ago the 49ers bounced the Falcons en route to the Super Bowl, and the “big brother” attitude of the 49ers must be tackled, both literally and figuratively, by these Falcons.

Many will say that Atlanta needs to focus, solely, on their task in front of them and protect the ball better as that has been the detriment of this team over the past few weeks. But this is a time where every player needs to see this as an insult and they must respond or else more and more teams will grow the same, weak, image of these Falcons.

With a spearheaded offensive attack led by the best running back and best wide receiver in football, the offense should answer the bell after poor weeks. But this is not about the offensive prowess of this team anymore. This is about the intestinal fortitude of this defense that must finally prove to the league that the victim of the NFL is becoming much less of a liability than they have been previously.

If they fail to answer this declaration, the Falcons will take another step back into the ineptitude that has haunted them for years. But, if they come out fighting, this will be the proof that the nation has been waiting for about this team.

Between the hash marks and lines on Sunday, the coalescence of the Falcons identity will be formed.  Whether this is the type that will propel this franchise out of the miry pits of mediocrity will be known when the game clock hits triple zero.