Atlanta Falcons finally deliver a clutch play late in Seattle

The Atlanta Falcons finally put one in the win column late Sunday evening beating the Seattle Seahawks 27-23 in a tight road victory. It was a game in which the Atlanta defense managed to make Geno Smith look like prime Tom Brady picking apart the Atlanta defense.

However, this same Atlanta Falcons defense stepped up with the Seahawks driving for the go-ahead touchdown Atlanta sacked Geno on third down and picked off the fourth down desperation heave. While it was a learning curve game for the Atlanta defense the early story of the game was an Atlanta Falcons offense that has been impressive through the first three weeks of the season.

While Mariota isn’t the passer that Ryan was it is hard not to notice how much better the office has been this season. Cordarrelle Patterson was the biggest reason the Atlanta offense found success setting a personal best with 141-rushing yards and a touchdown.

Mariota wasn’t perfect but was far better than last week throwing for 229-yards and finally feeding the ball to Kyle Pitts consistently. There were plenty of positive takeaways in this game and the offense is the biggest reason Atlanta finally won.

However, the story of the game should be Arthur Smith’s Falcons finally holding onto a late lead and making a play on defense to end the game after Mariota’s late fumble. Atlanta’s defense which had been shaky all day long delivered a clutch play the Falcons have been desperate for not only the first two weeks of the season but much of the last half-decade.

Falcons fans can only hope this is a sign of things to come for Atlanta and not the outlier it currently is. Atlanta will now turn its attention to the Cleveland Browns who will travel to Atlanta next weekend giving the Falcons a great shot at getting back to .500.