Atlanta Falcons defense clutches team to divisional victory

Ah, the good old Atlanta Falcons. When one least expects them to do something, suddenly they’re doing it. When one is looking towards the 2022 NFL Draft, one is putting the Falcons in that group. Coming into their second battle against I-85 rival Carolina, both teams were sitting at 5-7 and picking eighth and ninth, respectively, in said upcoming draft.

The winner of this game, however, would not only hurt their draft selection but keep whatever slim playoff hopes they had alive. Yes, it’s physically impossible to envision a team with such an astronomically bad point differential in the playoff hunt, but that’s the NFC and its Atlanta Falcons for you.

So imagine the surprise when, after going up against the champs and losing (expected), the Falcons head up to Charlotte and defeat the Carolina Panthers, 29-21, in a game where the running backs combined for over 100 yards for the third straight week.

The Atlanta Falcons defensive group strengthened late after Matt Ryan tried to give it away early.

Early in this game, the Panthers’ second-ranked defense had three ample opportunities to continue the beatdown they put on Matt Ryan back in October. First, there were two instances where Ryan targeted Russell Gage that Panthers defenders had the ball in their mitts, but dropped them. Both were inexcusably bad throws; however, in the case of the second throw to Gage, he did get his hands on the ball. Technically speaking, this should move blame to him, but Ryan threw it into triple coverage; it was not a smart play by the veteran.

Another play by Ryan which was problematic was when he inexplicably underthrew a wide-open Tajae Sharpe on the right sideline. It would’ve maybe been acceptable if he was “hurried”, so to speak, but he had time to set and throw this pass.

Finally, there was a shocking flea-flicker play on this same drive. Ryan tossed it up to Sharpe after receiving it back from Davis, but the pass fell incomplete despite the only player getting a hand on it being from Carolina. However, he was bailed out by a roughing the passer penalty (a lot of those right now).

Give Ryan credit though; even with these bad plays, he managed to make some plays, most notably a touchdown pass to the returning Hayden Hurst (no need to bring up the two-point try) and, when the money was on the line, worked with Arthur Smith to call a play-action pass to Kyle Pitts for a 22-yard gain on third-and-13.

https://twitter.com/AtlantaFalcons/status/1470134460582699014

Now, we reach the defensive side of the ball. And this is where it gets interesting because, for most of this season, the defense has broken against the really good teams and played well against the equal footing or bad teams. Carolina, by their record, falls into the latter category, and the Cam Newton homecoming continues to struggle for the Carolina blue and black.

Despite the Panthers driving down the field on their opening drive after the Falcons punted (don’t give Smith flak for the failed challenge; it looked close enough), the team put the clamps on the running attack that decimated them 47 times for over 200 yards prior.

This forced Carolina to throw the ball, and not only did Cam throw an interception (which was returned by Mykal Walker for a score), but his backup PJ Walker just lolled one up that AJ Terrell intercepted. Keep in mind, the Panthers apparently wanted to rotate the quarterbacks in this game.

Newton also had a fumble, but much like Atlanta’s playoff win in 2016 over the Seahawks, that was aided by his center stepping on his foot and throwing him off his balance. That said, Newton tried to hand it off still, and Chuba Hubbard wasn’t ready, but Grady Jarrett was.

In his review and grading of the game, CBS Sports’ John Breech gave the Falcons performance a B+, which is a nice compliment.

To be reasonable, however, the Falcons did not deserve to be so close to the “A” range. If anything, this game was a “B” because of the early miscues and some bad throws by Ryan, lack of a real pass rush once again, and a couple of bad defensive coverages.

That said, the team is now 6-7, picking ninth in the draft, and are sitting in the 10th spot in the NFC playoff picture. Next up on the ledger? A trip to San Francisco for a 4:05 game against the 49ers, who just came off an overtime win against the Cincinnati Bengals. Tiebreakers hurt right now with losses to Washington and Philadelphia, but the fact that Atlanta’s even in the hunt is not something we expected.

So let’s enjoy the rest of the Atlanta Falcons in 2021, folks. Because the only thing that’s for sure is that nothing’s for sure.