 It's been a close race so far this season in the NFC South and with the Falcons going down to Tampa, they are hoping to come home with sole possession of first place. Both these teams lost at home last week, hoping to get back in the win column today, but only one can. Thank you guys so much for joining us for the Falcons pregame show presented by Ticketmaster. I'm your host Taylor Miss Moore and of course Derek Grackley is back with me this week. Obviously we missed the last, but I'm so happy you're back. Thanks for being here. Thank you. It's been a country for a little while, but I'm back here and I'm ready to roll. Talk about some Falcons game day. Yeah, we're so happy to have you. Obviously, thank you for DJ for filling in. It was a good time, but nothing is like it's nothing the same without Rackley. So let's just go ahead and get into it. Obviously last week, not what the Falcons wanted to see at home. First loss at home, obviously, but there was a huge moment last week. Did you see that one? I saw it. I know you're London. It was it was a big moment. Clayus Campbell got his 100th sack in while in the NFL and it was a huge moment for him. So let's go ahead and take a look back at what that moment was like in Mercedes Benz Stadium. Deep in the pocket again, steps up, Clayus Campbell, that is sack 100. How about that? You know, it's a good feeling. You know, I've been chasing that play for a little while. You know, I thought I was going to get it last year, having some opportunities. A couple of quarterbacks throwing the ball away where I got my hands on them. You know, a couple of times where I just missed them, you know, I'm there. You know, just couldn't get them down. And, you know, a couple of times, you know, actually the play before, you know, I was, I thought I had a good chance to get there and just, you know, but beat me there. And, you know, I was happy for Bud, but also I was like, damn, so close. It's coming. It's coming. You know, Gansley four, we had really good rushes and just, you know, got the ball off him before I got there. And so it was just a lot of build up over and over again. And so, like, you know, I knew it was just a matter of time. It was going to happen. So as long as I was healthy up to keep playing football, it was going to happen. So it was just a matter of time, but it feels good that it's done. You know, when I signed here, it was just like, you know, it's poetic. That would be cool, you know, especially like, you know, from a hundred flight. Yeah, let's, let's do the dirty bird. Let's celebrate. And I always said, you know, I remember a couple of my teammates asked me, like, you know, why don't you do the baseball swing? And I was like, you know, I really couldn't think of anything cool over the years when I first started playing. I was like, I need to figure out like a sack dance. Everybody's a sack dance. And our celebration. And so I just pay homage to Neil Smith, who was like one of the guys that, you know, was playing for the barcodes when I was a kid that I looked up to. He had a cool baseball swing. So I did my version and, you know, pay homage to him. But I told a couple of my teammates, I was like, you know, once I get to a hundred, I'm done though. I'm only doing up to a hundred. After that, I have to do something else. And so dirty bird is what came about for the first one. And we'll see you going forward. Might still be the dirty bird. I don't know yet. You know, just got to figure it out again. It's like starting over from the first second again. It's been incredible. I got to play with some, you know, really cool guys who played the game the right way, you know, with passion, love, hunger, just a desire. And so, you know, I'm very grateful to have the teammates I've had. And, you know, just to, you know, to play this great game, you know, it is a beautiful game. I think the most beautiful is that brotherhood we create. And so, you know, I mean, I've been, you know, catching up with a lot of old teammates over the last couple of days because a lot of guys reached out to me to give me some congratulations. But I've always said, man, I appreciate your part of this. You know, my history is, you know, because of you. So, you know, to all my teammates out there that I play with, I really appreciate you, you know. It is definitely, you know, I couldn't do none of this without you. So, you know, together we are strong, baby. I mean, a hundred sacks. It's such a humongous feat in this league. It's so awesome. And obviously, did the Dirty Bird too. I love it. It was all of that. I hope I see more of that this year too. Exactly. You know how cool it was too? I mean, Kalei is Campbell right at the end. Like, he's a television veteran. Like, he turns to look at the camera to say, like, this is all because of you guys. Thank you so much for everything that you've done. It's like he was doing the whole interview like this, and then he wanted us all to feel it at the end by locking eyes with it. I mean, that just shows you how great of a guy he is, how great of a player he is. Quick little story. So, my play-by-play guy last week, and actually works for the Jacksonville Jaguars, we were talking about Kalei's Campbell, and he said, yes, I saw that he got his hundred sack. I texted him immediately. He texted me right back. That just shows, like, the connection that Kalei's Campbell makes with everybody throughout every organization that he's played for. So much respect for this. I call him a young man because he's younger than I am, but he's kind of a grandpa in the terms of the National Football League. But I don't think there's anybody around this league that couldn't be more proud of what he did last weekend. Yeah, he's been in the league for 16 years, and that's just incredible how many seasons he's been able to play and stay healthy, obviously. And I just want to read you some of the quarterbacks because there's 61 quarterbacks in the 100 sacks that he's had. 61 of them have been sacked by Kalei's Campbell. Here's some of the list. Tony Romo, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Drew Brees, Brett Farr. My personal favorite is TJ Yates because he's a coach here with the Falcons, and how awesome is that that you sacked someone and then he becomes a coach of a team that you're now with. Just an incredible list of guys that's also on the Falcons Twitter if you want to go see that whole list of all 61 quarterbacks. Such a cool competition. And you also mentioned that his first one, his first half sack, came against David Gerard, you have to be like an NFL guy or been around for a while to even know who David Gerard is. So that shows how long that he's been around the National Football League. I thought it was a really cool list. I didn't get a chance to see who he sacked the most. Maybe it's like a Matt Hasselbeck or something like that, somebody that played within his division. But it's always one of those two where you see a guy get an honor like this and you don't want to be the one that's like, yeah, he's sacked me the most out of all of them. Seriously. I know that he sacked Tom Brady twice in one game, which that can be a little more like as well. But let's just move on as he has those 100 sacks going into Tampa Bay. This is an NFC matchup. This or NFC South matchup. Obviously, excuse me. This is our second, the Falcons second NFC South matchup so far this season. They're in second place right now behind the Buccaneers. This is a really, really big game. Yeah, important game sitting a half game behind them right now. Tampa Bay has already had their bye week. Falcons at three and two right now. Falcons at three and three. Anytime you get a chance to play a divisional game, it's a hugely important game. But this one almost just seems like it's got even more on the line because it's a chance to take a division lead. And there's probably a lot of people, the speculation going around saying that Atlanta's not playing too well and there's how are you going to get to the postseason? All you have to do is win your division in the National Football League. And all of that is still in front of the Atlanta Falcons. That's what even Jesse Bates said is a time to panic. It's still early in the season and all of the goals that we've set out to accomplish, they're still out in front of us. This is why you take it one game at a time because this game on the road is so important for Atlanta for a couple of reasons. They haven't won on the road in a long time. It's been since week three of last year at Seattle that they won a road game including a loss at Tampa last year. So there's a lot on the line for this game but you've got to go get a road victory. You've got to get a divisional victory. And if you do, you come back with the lead in the division. And you think about a couple of the other teams. The Saints ended up losing on Thursday night but the next three games for the Saints, Indianapolis, Chicago, Minnesota. So maybe if New Orleans figures it out, that's three favorable matchups for them. So you don't want this thing to start going back into the loss column and then somebody catches a run on you in the division. Probably don't have to worry about Carolina as they sit at 0-6 right now but their job today is to go down to Tampa and play a good clean game to come back with a victory. Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up the Saints matchup or not the matchup, the game from Thursday night. They obviously lost to the Jaguars and that was such a big question mark going into this week is will the Saints win? If the Saints do win, then they can be tied with the Falcons if they win against the Buccaneers. But now that the Saints have lost, the Falcons are now looking at possibly having soul possession of first place in the NFC South which is a huge thing to then go to Tennessee with and have two back-to-back road games like you mentioned. Haven't won on the road in a long time. Desmond Ritter has never seen a road game win as a starting quarterback for the Falcons and something else to note about the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, they've won one game at home. Only one game. That's a huge thing to... You want to have a home... What am I looking for the word? Strong home record. There you go. Strucker, you want a good home game record and if you don't have it, it's hard to find those wins and obviously last week they lost 20-6 to the Detroit Lions and quarterback Baker Mayfield was not very happy with how they looked on the field. He spoke to media earlier after the game and he was a spitfire. Take a look. Baker, you guys have been so good on third down and today was kind of the opposite story. We sucked today. I sucked today. We sucked today. It was awful from the get-go. I mean, it just... Can't play like that. Didn't start fast. We didn't pick it up in the middle and we didn't finish strong. So, playing simple, we have to be better. Lions are a good ball club. If we play like that, we're going to lose every time. I mean, the defense and special teams did an amazing job yet again and offense, we just need to pick it up and there's really no other way around it. I mean, that's like pure Baker Mayfield fashion, right? I mean, honestly, when you have a Baker Mayfield like that, who's that angry from Oklahoma, from the Browns, from the Rams, even at Carolina. When he's talking like that, he's kind of hard to beat that next week. He means business. Yeah, I mean, he's definitely very honest with himself. He's not going to sugarcoat things. But you know that after the performance last week, especially hearing the way that their quarterback talked in the press conference, that there is going to be a big time focus this entire week on getting them on track offensively and him playing a whole lot better. So, yes, I would agree with you. You're probably going to see it upset, but hopefully for the Buccaneers portion of it, a focused quarterback, right? You don't want to go out there and play mad. But it's going to be a big focus for them to get off to a fast start at home. You mentioned they haven't had a whole lot of success at home. So Atlanta's going to have their work cut out for them. Not only Baker Mayfield playing with a purpose, but we're going to get to a little bit later. But the defense of playmakers that the Buccaneers have on the other side of the ball is going to make it difficult for Atlanta to put the ball into the end zone. So all three phases are going to have their work cut out for them. It's the National Football League. I'm sure Smith talks about it every single week. You're going to face a different beast every single week in the NFL. Yeah, this is a little sidebar here. I saw a tweet about why the NFL, people think the NFL is better than College of Ball. It's because if you're Georgia and you're Austin Peay, it's not that interesting of a game. Georgia's probably going to win. But the Saints can beat the Jags anytime, any week doesn't matter. Same with today. Tampa Bay can beat the Falcons. The Falcons can beat Tampa Bay. It's going to be a dogfight the entire four quarters. That's why they say any given Sunday. I mean, it's a good one. So let's go ahead and talk about these Tampa Bay Buccaneers and what this team looks like as they get ready to take on and host the Atlanta Falcons. When you look at this Tampa Bay team, strong quarterback, headstrong guy, but outside of maybe Baker, what else do you see in this team? Okay, so for run game, they've been struggling running the football this year. They're 29th in the NFL and rushing offense, and they're coming off of a game last week where they only had 40 rushing yards on 22 carries. So that kind of forced the hand of Baker Mayfield putting the ball in the air. Atlanta Falcons fans know that Detroit Lions is a good football team. They got a chance to see that up in Detroit. They got a lot of playmakers on the defensive side of the ball. They made it difficult for Baker Mayfield. He ended up having to put the ball through the air more than they probably wanted to, and that's the reason why they came away with a loss. Now, Tampa has got a really good defense, but then you look at Jared Goss' performance, 353 yards through the air, a couple of touchdowns. Amon Ross St. Brown, 12 catches, 124 yards in a touchdown. So they had some great individual performances against this defense. I think what's interesting to note here is Collegiate Kansy is coming back on the defensive line. He played last week against the Lions. He's a first-round pick out of Pittsburgh, 19th overall. He started the season, but he left during the week-one matchup after re-aggravating an injury that he had during the preseason. He came back last week against Detroit, and look what he was able to do. 28 pass rushing attempts, six quarterback pressures, had a sack, and Jen Statz said that he had snap to quarterback of 2.37 seconds. So that shows that this defensive tackle is getting to the quarterback quickly. Okay, so how does that translate to what Atlanta has to do? If he's on the field, just like pretty much every other week, you better get the football out of your hands quickly. Because not only him, but Joe Tryon Shoyanka, he's also in there. He gets after the quarterback as well. So short passing game, quick passing game. Can't sit back there and tap the football. You can't sit back there and bounce. Because one of these guys is going to find their way in the back field. I want to note something about Kaleida Kansy as well. Obviously, Oroki doing incredible things after coming off of an injury. But he told Bedia, I'm not fully back yet. That's not the rhythm that I want to be playing with quite yet. I want to get better. I want to get faster. I want more pressures. And if I'm a quarterback, that's a lot of pressure throughout the entire game that I don't want to have. Well, they're saying that he's not in shape yet. Like that he's got to get back in shape. So he's causing this kind of havoc early on. And he's not even in shape yet. They're having to kind of manage his pitch count a little bit. That shows kind of the the upside that he has. And you talk to players on the Buccaneers. You talk to coaching staff. They are super excited about what this guy can bring. Once he kind of figures the NFL game out and then he uses the God-given talent that he has. So these are some of the issues that Atlanta is going to face, especially on the defensive side of the ball. Yeah, lots of issues coming off that defensive front, obviously for Tampa Bay. And last week, not the best performance that we've seen out of Desmond Murder. When you get him off of his rhythm, obviously he threw three interceptions. And so that's what Tampa is going to be hoping to do is get Desmond off of that rhythm, off of his cadence, out of his comfort zone a little bit, push them to where their defense can maybe capitalize off of it. But how can the Falcons offensive line help keep Desmond poised? Yeah, well, I mean, it's, they're going to have to play one of their best games really good pass rush. I didn't even get a chance to talk about Vita Vaya, who's given the Falcons issues in previous matchups as well. One of the better interior defensive linemen in the National Football League. And I watched a little bit of tape. They're very smart on how they use these defensive linemen. Sometimes they will line up two tackles over guard, center and tackle to get, to force one-on-one matchups to where you can't necessarily double with another offensive lineman. That's how these guys are able to get free one-on-one matchups. So you get Vita Vaya, you get some of these other guys collage a can see. So the offensive line is going to have to play one of their best games of the year, but that's where the rest of the offense, the running backs in the tight ends have to come into the mix whether it's helping a tackle, whether it's chipping on your way out if you're Bijan Robinson, if you're Tyler Alger, you have to get a piece of those guys. If you see some color hanging off the side of the tackle, you got to bump him back on the tackle to make sure that gives Desmond Ritter maybe another half a second, another full second to be able to get the ball down the field. But then it's all about decision making for Desmond Ritter. You got to find where you're going to go with the football, you got to get the ball out of your hands, and you got to make sure that you're seeing the right color jersey because as you mentioned, cannot afford to have the interceptions again this week. Yeah, I'm glad that you brought up Vita Vaya because the big question mark this week was whether or not he was going to be able to play. And obviously the inactives have come out for both teams and he will be playing today, but something I want to note for the Falcons. The healthy slate for three weeks in a row now. That is a huge win for this Falcons team. Yeah, I mean, this even at this point in the season, you can be saying, oh, it's still kind of early in the year. Well, now it's this. There's teams that have plenty of issues with their with injuries at this point in the year. They have inactive lists that are long guys that are declared out early in the week. I mean, we get the emails early from the communications department and the fact that you see on a Wednesday that nobody is basically on the injury report. Nobody is out of practice. Nobody is limited in practice. Maybe you have a Kaleas Campbell taking the day off because of veteran rest. That is a great problem to have, if you will. Not a problem. It's a great scenario at this point in the season. Such a clean injury report for Atlanta. They basically can just decide, okay, which guys are just not going to factor into the game plan this week, but know that you've got all your playmakers. You've got all your best players at their discretion. That's how you can go on the road to find a way to get a victory. When you have to, Taylor, figure out how we're going to cover up for missing a guy. Let's just make up, if you don't have a Jesse Bates, you don't have a Kaleas Campbell, you don't have a Caden Ellis. It's hard to fill those holes in the middle of the season. No disrespect to the guys that are behind them, but they're not the starters. They're not the highly played guys that are starting in those positions for a reason because they're playmakers. So Atlanta has got all hands on deck and they need to go out and perform today. And I'll say something about the next guy you were kind of talking about, what the Caden Ellis was to go out, or Kaleas Campbell. Obviously, Troy Anderson went out earlier this year and you saw a new linebacker step up into that, and he has really, Nate Lambin has made a name for himself and he has stood his ground. He said, nope, I can handle it. I can, maybe I'm not Troy Anderson, but I can handle my own on this side of the field. He's done a great job. He is an inactive today either if we can see those inactives for the Falcons. Just a regular list for the Falcons that we've seen in the weeks past. It's probably the exact same as last week as well. Nothing too crazy sticking out to me, but a good problem to have of saying, let's pick some guys who aren't going to be able to dress today. That is a good problem. Yeah, all these guys are healthy. They're able. They've been helping out in practice and everything. This is just kind of, these are the situations where the rules of the NFL just works against these guys here that don't get a chance to actually go out and play on Sundays. But this is what you want. If you're any NFL team, nonetheless the Atlanta Falcons, they want to be healthy going into each and every week as healthy as possible. So it's been a great three weeks for Atlanta in the health department. The training room has not been getting a ton of work, I would guess. Some maintenance work, but having these guys all out in the field is going to be huge for them. Yeah, they're probably a little bored in that training room. That's okay though. I would prefer to be bored and to be really busy as a trainer. But let's go ahead and take a look at the Tampa Bay inactives. Obviously Vita Bay will be playing today. That is a big problem for the Falcons to have to look down the entire game of Vita Bay. Yeah, he was the only one that was on the injury report. Listed as questionable with the toe injury, but as soon as I saw Vita Bay and questionable, I was like, he's going to play. They're going to manage that one throughout the week and they'll find a way to get him in the game. The impact that he's had against Atlanta in previous matchups. So Tampa Bay actually pretty healthy as well. So they're going to have all hands on deck as well. So you can't sit here and make any excuses this week about oh, we didn't have X, Y, or Z playing for us. Everybody's going to be playing. Now you got to go out and execute. Yeah, this is going to be a dogfight. Like I said earlier in the show, it's going to be a dogfight. It's going to be all four quarters that counts. Let's go ahead and get to the keys to the game presented by well, it's far go. It's going to be a hard one to one for either one of these teams, but teams. But for the Falcons, what do they need to do to beat Tampa Bay today? Well, their first the first key is they got to win the first quarter and starting fast has been an issue for Atlanta at times this year. But oddly enough, it's been an issue for Tampa Bay as well. They've scored just six points in the first quarter this year. Two field goals. So let's just say that trend continues for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. A chance for Atlanta to get out in front. And what happens when you get out in front? It gives confidence. It gives momentum. It gets your defense excited when they get to go out in the field and they see a lead on the scoreboard. I think it's going to be important. Atlanta punch of touchdown in early on in this game and then maybe Tampa Bay we heard it from Baker Mayfield. Maybe they get off to another one of those slow starts for Tampa Bay and you have a chance to kind of build a seven point a 10 point maybe even 13 point lead early on in the game that also forces them to get out of their game plan get off script and maybe you get them to start throwing the ball more. Maybe that gives the defensive backfield a couple more opportunities to try to steal some possessions away on turnovers. You saw it last week with the Falcons they finally found that rhythm of how to get past a first down and get a new first down in your first drive. They had 11 plays in their first drive last week that was the most plays in our first drive the Falcons have had all season long. The question is now can they continue to do it and instead of a field goal which is what they finished with last week can we finish with a touchdown and be the first on the board this week. Yeah absolutely so let's get to key number two let's talk about ball security I mean take care of the football this is a very interesting match up here when you look at turnover margin I'm a big guy when it comes to turnover margin. Tampa Bay they're three and two but we're talking about some of the issues that they've had all season they're actually plus six in the turnover margin this year which is toward the top of the national football league and a lot of that is due to their ten takeaways that they've gotten this year Atlanta sitting exact opposite they're minus six we know they lost the turnover margin three zero last week so they've got to take care of the football I can easily sit here and talk about takeaways just kind of mentioned it a little bit but I think this one is just all about taking care of the football a lot of that goes on the shoulders of Desmond Ritter got to be smart with the decision making when the ball goes through the air a lot of times you can't do anything on tipped passes but things where it's just reading and seeing whether or not guys are open anticipation all those things fall on the shoulders of your quarterback but also the ball carriers anytime you get your hands on the ball I love the highlight of Bijan Robinson sandwiching that ball against his hip but as the old traditionalist I was like oh somebody's going to knock it out right so just ball security is going to be so big in this one how about we come away with a no turnover game on offense get a couple on defense and win the turnover margin and just see what happens Arthur Smith talked about in his press conference if you find yourself down in the turnover margin your chances of winning in the national football league they drop dramatically you've got to find a way to protect the ball steal a couple of way on defense especially when you're playing on the road you're fighting some of the crowd noise you have to the communications going to be a little bit more of a challenge on offense you've got to take care of the football and let me say this for the defensive side of the turnover margin I need someone other than Jesse Bates get an interception please yes I mean I would like to see Jesse Bates get another interception but he's the only person on the team who has an interception so far this year and there's only three interceptions for this falcons team I need more interceptions from this defense and I need someone else other than Jesse Bates to get interception I'm enough Jerry Gray was talking about that this week and he was telling the guys that they need to take the chances in practice they have to not be concerned with the collisions and the things that are going to happen in practice because if you're concerned about it in practice you're going to be concerned about it in the game so he's kind of telling the guys even on the practice field where we're working Wednesday Thursday Friday I need you to cut it loose like I need you to go full speed the balls in the air you have an opportunity to go get it let's go get the football because you're going to take that same mentality on Sunday if you're a little bit hesitant on a Thursday when you're going up against Desmond Ritter or the scout team quarterback maybe you're going to end up being hesitant on Sunday you cannot be hesitant on game day if you want to get turnovers and you've seen that frustration come from AJ Turrell throughout pretty much every game he's had an opportunity to pick a ball and every time he's like hitting the ground he's holding his head like he's so upset he obviously really wants that interception I would love to see him get his first one today but let's move on to the third and final key of the game presented by Wells Fargo shutting down the run game yeah we got to shut down the run game on defense and that's another one of those keys that you could basically put every single week and every single head coach is going to tell you we got to stop the run okay yeah it gets a little bit like coach speak but it's 100% to truth but also the fact I mentioned it earlier Tampa is not running the football very well this year 29th is a rushing offense Rashad White their leading running back has 232 rushing yards on the season so not necessarily running away from opposing defenses here's the thing that can't happen you can't let them get on track this week because then what happens you get balance then you've got linebackers and safeties that have to start keeping their eyes in the back field then you get the play action plays over the top but if they can stop it right from the jump force Tampa Bay to put the ball in the hands of Baker Mayfield and get the ball into the air yes I know he's got one of the better receivers in the national football league and Mike Evans he's got nine straight seasons over a thousand yards and he saw we saw earlier this year he had a six catch 171 yard game in a touchdown against the Bears so he can have that explosion type game I understand that putting the ball through the air gives him more opportunities but you want them to be one dimensional on offense shut down that run make them go to drop back pass especially you get a you get a lead like we talked about jump out it win the first quarter and then you stop the run you make them throw the ball now you're going to get some opportunities to rush the passer and to steal possessions away but it all starts with stopping the run game and if you can stop that run game for this Tampa Bay bucks team that is a throwing throwing heavier they they'd like to throw it more than they'd like to run it but this falcons defense is the fourth they're fourth in the NFL for passing yards per game they're average they're allowing on average a hundred and seventy nine yards that is not a lot of yards so if you can force this bucks team to throw the ball you're not giving them a lot of time they're not giving them a lot of opportunity to do well obviously Mike Evans has been a huge player for this bucks team and for that franchise as a whole but if you can get them on AJ Terrell or Jeff Ocuda and they are playing man it's going to be a long day for Mike Evans Jeff Ocuda is playing some good football since he's gotten back not necessarily reflecting in the stat book but he's making some really good tackles he's been playing really aggressively seems like he's getting comfortable kind of coming in his own in Atlanta Falcons jersey and you get those two guys out on the perimeter I'd like to see them start to steal possessions away look what happens is AJ Terrell gets one and then Jeff Ocuda says I want to get one and then Jesse Bates says wait a minute it's been a few weeks since I've gotten one I want to get another one it's just the momentum of the sport of football is just amazing but they've got to start establishing a little bit of that and it can happen with turnovers you just got to get somebody to get one and then everybody else jumps on the wagon I would love another interception for the team and I talked to Jeff Ocuda and AJ Terrell earlier this week and they're just great guys they came on the same year they were drafted they're both first round picks in the 2020 NFL draft they're great guys and they said I don't think we've had our potential yet of what this cornerback duo is capable of so they're doing very well right now as a cornerback duo but what is their potential what is their ceiling I'm excited to watch yeah let's let's see it let's see it manifest itself today against Tampa yeah let's just stop talking I mean Tampa Bay it's coming up Falcons in Tampa Bay they're going to be gone but for right now it's an NFC South matchup coming your way enjoy the game