Atlanta Falcons endure week never before experienced
Atlanta Falcons ended the most bizarre NFL week ever with their first win.
The Atlanta Falcons aren’t the first team to start a season 0-5, fire a head coach in season, fire a general manager in season, and aren’t the first team this season to deal with shutting down their facilities due to covid-19.
Every team across the NFL has dealt with at least one of these four things at some point in their franchise’s history.
However, the Atlanta Falcons are the first team in NFL history to process and deal with all of those things within a five day period and still go on the road and beat a team for their first win.
The Atlanta Falcons looked like the football team that we expected to see.
All week long, not only did we have to deal with the fallout from the firing of Dan Quinn and Thomas Dimitroff but seemingly every Atlanta Falcons fan with social media following and microphone lobbied for quarterback Matt Ryan to be benched, traded or retire.
Matt Ryan responded with his best game of the season, 30/40 371 yards and four touchdowns. Ryan understands better than most of the responsibilities that come with being a starting NFL quarterback and a big part of that is to ignore what those outside the locker room are saying.
Other than two garbage-time touchdowns by the Vikings, the Atlanta Falcons defense played a much better game than they have all season. Sure, Dalvin Cook was out for the Vikings but the Falcons defense did a fantastic job to help out this game away.
Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins threw for almost 350 yards, but the Atlanta Falcons defense turned him over three times in the first half, including rookie cornerback A.J. Terrell making his first NFL interception – a spectacular between the legs play that you should be a SportsCenter Top 10 play later Sunday night.
Next. Falcons have a chance to get out the “In-Between”. dark
While it is just one win and isn’t the cure-all for the franchise, the Falcons were able to fight through a week no other franchise has ever experienced, put it all behind them and focus on the Vikings and securing their first win of 2020.