A Not So Subtle Reminder
Any Given Sunday won’t be the feature film on the Falcons flight back to Atlanta Sunday evening.
But it would be appropriate.
The Falcons flew to a new height in a Week 6 victory over the Chicago Bears, but just as quickly swooped back to the ground against the Cowboys Sunday in Arlington, Texas.
You can find examples on paper of why the Falcons should have defeated the Cowboys. You can rewind the game film to see the masterful, 80-yard touchdown drive to open the game. You can even point to specific plays and moments and know the opportunity to do better existed.
But, on any given Sunday, NFL teams can rise and fall.
The Cowboys defeated the Falcons 37-21 at Cowboys Stadium, taking over the game by capitalizing on what seemed like every Atlanta miscue.
By the time Patrick Crayton returned a second-half punt 73 yards for a score, the game was all but locked for the Cowboys and Falcons nation was left to star at Tony Romo’s 300-yard passing day.
The Falcons allowed four sacks on Sunday after allowing just two sacks in the previous five games (both in Week 1). The offense also managed just 298 net yards, with 80 coming off that first-quarter drive.
After the game the Falcons locker room — as expected — was filled with frustrated faces. It’s not a pretty site, especially considering next week’s NFC South game against the division-leading Saints staring you down.
But as I sit on the bus waiting to head out to the Dallas-Fort Worth airport I’m reminded of two things.
First, the Falcons have never lost back-to-back games under Head Coach Mike Smith.
Second, you simply respect the power of the NFL. It’s any given Sunday. Better to get that reminder now than later.
MORE FALCONS-COWBOYS COVERAGE:
- GAMEDAY LIVE: Complete coverage from AtlantaFalcons.com
- GAME CENTER: Stats and more in the NFL.com Game Center
- FIRST TAKE: Exclusive interviews from the Falcons locker room
- VIDEO CONTENT: More video interviews and highlight reels
- BEAT BLOG: In-game thoughts and a final breakdown
- J. MIKE’S MISSIVES: Thoughts from the AF.com managing editor
- IMAGES: Action photos from AF.com team photographers
- GAME NOTES: Game notes taken from the Cowboys Stadium press box
- TRANSCRIPTS: Thoughts from the postgame locker room
- INACTIVES: Falcons-Cowboys game inactives and starters
- FORUMS: Talk about the game with other fans on FalconsLIFE
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Today was a tough pill to swallow. We played poorly in all three aspects. Here’s to bouncing back and keeping our ‘never lost back to back games under Coach Smith’ trend alive.
We should have never punted on that 4th and 2 with 9:00 minutes and counting. We were down by 13. Ryan wanted to go for it. They ran it back for that td. That reminded me of Last season, Smith PUNTED THE BALL AWAY LIKE THAT DURING A MUCH NEEDED COMEBACK DRIVE LATE IN THE GAME??????
I love my team but it is getting to reciprocal with our team. We have a wonderful game against the B’s and C’s of the leagues but stumble against an obvious B+ at the most. It is really frustrating and with all of the players we have we just cannot stop certain offense’s! I was stunned that we lost in that fashion. We depend too much on momentum instead of trench warfare, DEFENSE wins the game every time!! Go Falcons!!
tough day today for my falcons….my only hope is that we bounce back hard and come out to play good against the saints….my fellow falcon fans i know you have to be tired of seeing brent grimes on the field…he cant cover any one he is to small and not physical enough and doesnt play the ball
Our secondary is awful. Any way you put it we got destroyed in the air. The rush was good and forced Romo to get the ball out quick but that didnt matter cause a WR was always open if Roy Williams caught the passes, they would have passed for over 500 yards. The Falcons secondary is awful and its upsetting as a true falcons fan. We should also be putting up more points, look at the players on our offense we arnt as productive as we could be. I mean Jamal anderson is a great fit at DT and the D line is looking nice, the linebackers are nice but our secondary is single handedly blowing games. No more “oh its our whole defense, its everyone bla bla bla” NO ITS NOT THE WHOLE DEFENSE, its the weakest part were going up against wr’s who are all above 6 foot and were not even close. Houston needs to get cut NOW, Grimes is ok but certainly has shown can’t match up 1 on 1 agst a teams #1 wide out. So that leaves us what? Tye hill who hasnt played a down all season for what reason? is he still hurt from years ago? Signing Jamall Fudge yeah he knows the system but seriousley? I hope we use our draft pick to get the past corner available next year. And whats the status of Ovie and Jerious injuries are killing us now, imagine we had harry douglas and peria healthy, damn
I agree with you completely Daddy G. I think Mike Smith is a great coach, but I don’t understand his hesitancy to go for it on 4th down late in games when the Falcons are trailing. It would be different if our defense was completely shutting them down, but they couldn’t stop them. The same thing happened in New England and last year in Philadelphia. Very frustrating.
FALCONS FALCONS WHAT YOU GONNA DO WHEN THE SAINTS COME FOR YOU…………..
MAN THAT GAME YESTERDAY WAS A SHAME FOR OUR SECONDARY, ESPECIALLY FOR GRIMES AND HOUSTON, WHAT IN THE WORLD WERE THEY DOING OUT THERE YESTERDAY.
I HAVE MY SCORE BOOK LISTED AS FALCONS 4-3 AND NOT 4-2 CAUSE THEY WILL LOOSE TO THE SAINTS
I hope they play better than you spell
All is not lost, We just played 3 straight teams that had 2 weeks to prepare for us. We came out 2-1.
Our defense has been keeping us in games up until now, but I think that the offense is what lost us that game.
There were a number of things that I saw that concerned me.
1. The play calling on both sides of the ball.
Offense- We seem predictably, part of that is our inability to run the ball. Turner is losing confidence, but the line is not getting to the second level with our blocks. We seem to run better on stretch plays.
Defenses know what we want to do, I thnik Malarkey has to reach deeper in the playbook.(exp. touchdown to Weems, never saw that play before).
Defense- First of all injuries are killing us. Thomas Johnson was doing an excellent job before he got hurt. Call plays that suit the level of talent you have, because the draft isn’t till next year. We suck at cover 2. Both grimes and houston are better at bump and run. We need more blitz packages, we do pretty good job blitzing. I know it is hard to do that when we are down 2 scores, but see 2nd concern below.
2. Coaching staff needs to play to win, not play not to lose.
Tired D
Cowboys moving ball at will
9:00 minutes left 4th and 2 Every game is different,that game was screming for us to go for it.
Let us pray…God help our secondary because only you and the coaches (who dont read these blogs) know that what we see is all we have. We may go but we can not win a playoff game with these Db’s. So lets not expect too much yall. If we keep saying the same things all year then itll get to the front office soon enough.LMAO Im to the point where if they pull up my old files i have plenty of energy to go out and play corner myself. We gotta forget about NE and Dallas, and focus on the NFC South and our biggest comp, and b sure not to lose at home. We’ll win some, we’ll lose some, thanks to the secondary. I agree FALCONS78 its not the entire D thats giving the problem, lets start pointing fingers
theres gotta be a free agent at the cb position that is better than our starters we have cap room jamal fudge is not the the sloution