Atlanta Falcons look for revenge against Washington’s journeyman QB

Last season, the Atlanta Falcons were coming off their first win of the year against the New York Giants in week three as they took on Washington at home.

They went up against quarterback Taylor Heinicke, who has been a journeyman across a couple of leagues, and they came up short. Now in 2022, they are traveling to D.C. to take on the same quarterback who has been on a hot streak.

Atlanta Falcons need to get revenge against Taylor Heinicke and the Commanders

About 14 months ago the Atlanta Falcons’ defense got gashed by Taylor Heinicke. He turned into an all-star quarterback, granted, against a pretty bad defense, and won the game.

Heinicke threw for 290 yards, three touchdowns, had ten incompletions, rushed for 43 yards, had no turnovers, and did not lose a single yard on a sack. It was basically a perfect game by him in Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

That cannot, I repeat, cannot happen again. Dean Pees needs to shut the quarterback down. The team cannot allow a similar performance if they want to keep pace in the division. The offense cannot be counted on to score every possession due to the defensive line they are going up against.

The pass rushers need to keep Heinicke contained or else he will make plays with ease. They should play him similarly to how they played Justin Fields on passing downs last week. If you can run down Fields, then you should be able to run down Heinicke.

Much like last week, there will be a lot of pressure (pun intended) on the edge rushers for Atlanta. They cannot always go for the sack, instead, they need to allow themselves to mirror Heinicke in the pocket.

Dean Pees knows this, so it will come down to the players executing. They just need to make enough plays to allow the offense to have a little breathing room.