Five takeaways from Atlanta Falcons week 1 loss to Pittsburgh

#3: Defense might be legit

Keeping a team out of the endzone and still losing is painful, but that is what happened with the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday. The defense did play well, but cannot be crowned just yet. The Steelers employed a simple scheme and had a backup QB at the helm, but for the most part, the defense did its job.

AJ Terrell could not keep up with George Pickens. Terrell does struggle with stronger more physical WRs, which is what Pickens is, but Pickens had his way with the defense. He had a huge 50-yard catch and run right before the half to set up a last-second field goal, which may have been the turning point in the game.

Outside of Pickens, and a late Najee Harris run that iced the game the defense played great. They held the Steelers to 8-17 (47%) on third down, 4.1 yards per play (the Falcons had 4.5 for reference), 3.3 yards per rush, and 0-1 on 4th downs (stopping the Quarterback sneak on 4th and short was beautiful). They also got the offense the ball back with under four minutes to go in the game, and the offense proceeded to go out and turn the ball over almost immediately after.

The Falcons had two sacks, which may not seem like a lot, but Justin Fields is a hard guy to bring down. The Falcons often rushed just three or four players to make sure Fields did not break out any big runs. Grady Jarrett had 1.5 sacks and two tackles for loss, putting his imprint all over this game, and new Falcons acquisition Matthew Judon had 0.5 sacks. The defense as a whole registered seven tackles for losses and five QB hits.

Aside from the first-half deep-bomb to George Pickens, Fields was kept very quiet, getting only 156 yards and mostly taking checkdowns.

New Falcons acquisition Justin Simmons also had a key pass breakup on third down.

The defense looks to be good, can the offense build on that?