The Atlanta Falcons have to correct their offense fast
By Ross Terrell
The Atlanta Falcons once again laid an egg in their season opener under Dan Quinn.
Make that four out of five years dating back to 2016, the Atlanta Falcons have dropped their game in week one. And it’s getting harder to justify this coaching staff sticking around.
Yes, it’s just one game and this could very easily be an overreaction, but Quinn’s been in Atlanta long enough to give us precedent. The most troubling part is the Falcons don’t seem to change during the off-season. We didn’t get a preseason this year, so this was our first chance to see how Atlanta and their new weapons would fare against a big-league defense, and the answer was disappointing.
The offense looked stuck at times bringing Dirk Koetter’s play-calling into question once again. They put up just 12 points in the first half and went scoreless in the third quarter. The Atlanta Falcons big off-season acquisitions were Hayden Hurst and Todd Gurley.
Hurst had just five targets and Gurley, 14 carries. Those two needed to be involved in the offense a lot more in the Falcons have any hopes of unlocking their true potential.
Julio Jones is still Julio and Calvin Ridley looks good, his biggest problem remains to be getting up the field after catching the ball and not dancing so much. Still, there is no excuse for the Falcons to come out and underperform the way they did Sunday. Matt Ryan throwing the ball 54, yes 54 times, is not going to win games.
Sure, the coaches will say we got behind and had to throw the ball to try to keep up. But Koetter abandoned the run game early on and relied on play-action passes with no true threat that the Falcons were going to commit to and stick to pounding the rock – despite having three capable running backs.
Next. Atlanta Falcons: Good, bad and ugly from week one. dark
The Falcons don’t have a game where they can try to right the ship and hopefully get things right. Dallas is up next, followed by a Bears team that engineered a nice comeback against Detroit. Quinn and Koetter ought to be on short leashes and if they start the season 0-2, the Falcons have to start considering making a change.