 The Falcons are back in Mercedes-Benz Stadium as they look to extend their home win streak against the Washington Commanders. The Commanders have won the last two meetings between these two. And after three straight losses, they are hoping to get back in that win column today. They're hungry for it. Welcome back to the Atlanta Falcons Food Game Show presented by Ticketmaster. Of course, I'm your host, Julie Bismore. And next to me today is not Derek Rackley. No. Rackley is calling a game in London, which he wished him the best over there. But I'm with DJ Shockley today. I said it was going to be a dog on good time last week. And as two dog alumni, I think it's going to be a good one today. It is. And I'm excited to sit with you. I appreciate you allowing me to grace the stage with you up here. But I'm excited. We obviously got a great big ball game here. You talked about the Falcons trying to extend their win streak, trying to go to six games inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium where they get a dove. This will be an exciting game. Two young quarterbacks coming in. The Falcons feeling good about their last performers. Commander's not so much. Right. So it's going to be a great game today. Yeah, it's going to be a good one. And today is not just another home game. It is a red helmet game. Second one of three this season. We're matching today. Can you believe it? We're matching. I don't think Rackley would ever match me openly and willingly. But thank you for doing it today. It's just making my dreams come true. These are available on the team store and online. If you would like them, they also have a hoodie, some t-shirts for you guys. But it's throwback here. It's 80s day. I got my Jerry Glanville cowboy boots on. I got all black cowboy boots. I got the leather payers for Jerry Glanville as well. I mean, it's all black over here. And you'd be fully, no, not the hat. I'm not doing the cow. That's a little too much for me. What about the Dion jewelry? You're rocked at? I would do that. I would do the Dion jewelry for sure. It's much cooler. But before we get talking about Washington, let's take a look back at the last couple weeks that the Falcons have had at this on the rise clip. You know, you talk about efficiency. And I think another word you would talk about is poise. You know, we had a minute 49 with three timeouts left to go. And then I felt, you know, that's an eternity. That's a long time. We work that same minute drills every single day since, you know, OTA is when we first got here. So that's something that we're real comfortable with. And obviously in those pressure situations, we want to be at our most comfortable. And, you know, kind of have our bodies going fast, but our minds moving slow. And I felt like that's what everyone was doing. And we were just taking what the defense gave us. These are the moments you practice all the time in practice. You run two minutes virtually every day in practice. Kind of those moments that are the character builders and maybe legend builders. Another one handed catch by Bijan Robinson. Second and four. Ritter again throws, caught London. Forward progress should have that as a first down. And it is. Stay calm now. Humps now going to run to his left. Desmond going to get to the far side and get out of bounds at the 41. That'll stop the clock with 119 to go. Just know that you don't have to try to force anything. You know, it's not like there was 10 seconds left. We had to go like 75 yards. You have plenty of time, you know, letting them go work. First down in 10, the ball at the 47. Here's another one. That's Pitts near midfield. He took the shot from Nelson. Landon doing a really good job of staying calm. Keeping their boys. Ritter running the show. 57, 56, 55. Desmond going to look. Salem. That's London. First down at the 27th of Houston. Texans are going to take a timeout with 47 seconds left. Now you get down there towards 10. Then, you know, we have the best kick in the lead. Here's Ritter going to hand out. Geer left side. Tyler will die. Close to another first down. 41 seconds left to go in the game. We're going to let the clock run. Brown cooing here. Not booing, friends. Cooing. Youngway Coo is going to try and win the game for Atlanta on the final snap. Now kick is away. It is perfect. 21-19, the final. Youngway Coo kicks the game winner for the Falcons who go to 3-2 on the year. 3-0 at home. And Arthur Smith is now 1-6 of his last seven inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. Well, if there were any questions about this kid in quarterback, he has stood up big time today. He's got 28 completions for 329 yards and none bigger than that throw he made in London with everything on the line. I think what you saw today was pretty good young quarterbacks. Defense played well all day. That's what good teams do. You find a way, add our timeouts. You practice those situations. He was a lot of schools. You can see they executed the plan. Took control of the situation. And then when he needed to deliver one, we got the look we wanted. He did and Drake came down with it and essentially ended the game. And then Coo comes out. We got the most clutch kicker in the league. Falcons have won their last six home games out of seven. And like Arthur Smith said, they have one of the most clutch kickers and that was one of the best two-minute drills I've seen in a while. No doubt about it. You heard Arch and West talk about just the poise they had and primarily Desmond Ritter. But he said, you know, you go through this all the single, all the time. You do a great job in practice. You find ways to do it in OTA, mini camps. Now you get into a real live game situation and a minute 49, three timeouts. That is forever in a lifetime to do so. Desmond Ritter hit 10 different passcatchers in the ballgame. All the Titans play well. John Newkow, even Michael had a big catch. So then that ballgame, big 22-yard catch. Defense played well. Only gave up 64 rushing yards. This was a complete game. I thought in all three phases they did their job and got it done. And that's exactly what you want to see. Especially when it comes out to the end. Because pretty much every game in the national football league comes down to the end and they found a way to get it done and finish a game and leave with a dub. Exactly. And a big headline for this weekend for the Falcons is that Desmond Ritter found his rhythm. I mean, last week against Texans, he threw for over 300 yards, 329 yards to be exact. One touchdown, no interceptions and no sacks. First game this season that he has not been sacked. Huge game for Desmond Ritter and that offensive line. And to add to that, I mean, you made a great point about not being sacked. Give the offensive line a lot of credit. Give Titans, give everybody involved because receivers got to get to the right spots at certain times. He has to get the ball out of his hands because that was the issue everybody talked about in the previous weeks was, was he holding onto it too long? Was he looking at receivers? I thought he did a great job of using his eyes during that ball game and then the ball got out and his guys made plays for him. And the last thing I mentioned is they were really good on third down. To be 50% on third down is a big deal. Huge deal. And so Desmond Ritter obviously found his rhythm and we'll talk a little bit later about if he will be able to keep up and stay in rhythm today. But obviously when you go three and out you normally punt the ball and that's not normally something that people in the National Football League look forward to. But our punter Bradley Pinyin has put an initiative together called Punts for Purpose. Take a look. Punts for Purpose is in partnership with Compassion International. Compassion International is not for profit. They do centers all across the world. They partner with local churches everywhere. They help feed the kids. They help educate them. They kind of help the church empower their community. It's a cause that me and my wife are passionate about because we got a chance to kind of go over to Tanzania and go on a mission trip with Compassion this past year. And it really touched our hearts and our souls. Gotta give credit to my wife. She kind of came up with the Punts for Purpose idea of every punt inside the 20 we'll be able to donate money to Compassion. In doing that we're also trying to challenge fans, our friends and family to also pledge to donate a certain amount for every punt within the 20. There are a few other punters that are pledging to do the same thing with their own punting records. Every time they punt inside the 20 they'll be donating an amount. And then we'll have one game around the holidays where there will be a group of punters that are all doing it on the same game pledging an amount to donate. So if it's a good punt and it's down in the 20 then Compassion International will benefit from that. When we learned Compassion's mission and their whole main mission is to bring children out of poverty. And so that got obviously grabbed my attention. Raleigh has this platform. He will only have it for so long. So how can we make it like fun and exciting that maybe like even fans would want to get involved or our friends and family. And I love a catchy name. So Punts for Purpose I don't know. I was like let's call it Punts for Purpose and he loved it and it stuck. So that's kind of where it came from. We met Compassion last year at a conference called Pro Athlete Outreach. It's a Christian conference that a ton of NFL players go to. And we told them we loved their mission. We had seen them numerous times at this conference and we were like man we really want to get involved. We just don't know how and we don't know where. We were talking about like how we wanted to get back to Compassion in ways that we could make a difference. Started praying about it and we told him like you know what we just want to go where there's the biggest need. We don't really have a spot to land on our mark currently. So they were really nice and they were really awesome and they put a bunch of places that had really big needs. And they sent it to both of us and me and Kelly weren't even talking to each other and we both looked at the list and we kind of prayed over it and I think we both came to each other and was like hey we're doing it in Tanzania. So that's the good by the good guys to God he kind of led us towards Tanzania. And then we also kind of like I said got the chance to go over there which made it even more cool because we got to kind of start this up and then go see what was happening and it was really really awesome. So we got connected with Compassion learned a lot more about their mission and then getting to go to Africa and see these children. They are schools that they're learning in. We got to sit in some classrooms and listen to the teacher's teach and we had a translator that was helping us understand like what they were learning. It was so eye-opening. The poverty that we saw for these moms and babies while we were in Tanzania and it's all across the world you don't realize kind of how good we have it in the United States. There's definitely still poverty and there's definitely still struggle but these remote areas that literally have to walk miles to get water or the survival rate for moms during pregnancy is less than like 80%. When we're raised in it'll go for the fight for first program that Compassion is putting on and it helps babies fight for their first birthday because if they can make it to their first birthday they have a way better chance of surviving but a lot of them don't even make it to their first birthday. They also have these survival centers and it's for the moms before their give birth and right after their give birth. We got to see like how these moms are just either dying for a break because they have seven kids or they just need somebody to like hold their baby for a second or whatever it is. So while Bali and I were in Tanzania one of the most impactful days I think for me personally was the day that we visited a survival program and Compassion's Fight for First Initiative is working to open more of these survival programs and what they'll do is they'll find pregnant moms in the community and they'll provide them prenatal care and postnatal care and then they're really honing in on making sure the mom and baby has resources up until that first birthday and then they are able to kind of transition them into the other centers. When we went into the center and we're meeting these moms and we're holding their babies and we're like getting to hear their stories and what they've been through and how much access to a survival program and a community of women or healthcare or just resources that they needed was changing their lives and changing the lives of their family and then helping their baby make it to their first birthday was just like we got to be a part of this because all the centers are doing incredible things so many children aren't even making it to that first birthday and so we wanted to help try to combat that a little bit. You can sponsor kids that are in these centers and my wife and I sponsor too. We actually helped start some centers so we have one at each center that we started. Two of our little girls that we sponsor for Christmas when they get like a mattress or cooking oil or a bag of rice and that's feeding their entire family so it totally changes the trajectory for the whole family. It hits even more at home for us now expecting our little girl having some of the best doctors here in Atlanta and having some of the best doctors out there. Like they don't have that and for us to be able to just help in a small way of what we're going through right now. Preparing for our own daughter and our own baby has just been like made me infinitely grateful for what we have access to and just hoping to help with more of that for them too. So just being able to help in a small way really brings me joy and also like if we can do something that would help a mother and a baby have a tremendous life, why not? We would love to have as many people join us as possible. We as Bradley kind of talked about we're excited to have other punters joining along and some of our friends and family are getting involved but if anybody felt inclined to get involved to help us with this cause you can go to compassion.com backslash punts for purpose or if you wanted to go to Bradley's Instagram at BradleyPinion he has a link in his bio. You can click on and visit the site. We'll give you more information about what we're doing and we'll give you a place to pledge or donate if you choose to do that. We would love it. Washington Commanders punter Trust Way is joining Bradley in the punts for purpose initiative. For more information on the cause and how you can be a part of the initiative please visit compassion.com backslash punts for purpose or you can visit Bradley's Instagram at bpinion05 and click on the link in his bio. Such a great cause that he and his wife are doing obviously other punters around the league are doing it but speaking of opinion and then obviously Trust Way we got a matchup coming our way against the commander so let's talk about this commander's team. When you look at them what do you see? You know there's a lot of things that you look at and say okay this is a Washington team that has played what they started season two and oh and obviously lost the last three games played against Philadelphia Eagles who are right now undefeated in San Francisco Washington undefeated in NFC but they had a chance to beat the Philadelphia Eagles had a chance to go win that ball game and obviously came up short but it also comes down to the way they played they played pretty good in all those ball games except for their last outcome against the Bears where they lost that ball game you know by a huge amount but this is a game where I think they've had a lot of time to sit and wait they've had an opportunity to play on like that Thursday so now they have so many different times to sit back and say all right we've had time to look at what we did wrong now we got to come back and play our style when we come back and play again and they had a lot of time to prepare for this Atlanta Falcons team but I think the Falcons would be good and ready to go but this is a Washington team that comes in I think with a little edge a little a little something about them that wants to get going Yeah I think they're really hungry for this when after losing last week to the Bears 20 or 40 to 20 I mean and at home I mean that's not just a loss that's a substantial loss and after coming off three of those in a row is they are hungry for one and they got a lot of weapons too and wide receivers and Russia and running backs excuse me they have Terry McLaren, Curtis Samuel of course Brian Robinson making that comeback this year just a lot of weapons that Sam Howell their quarterback can use Yeah and you talked about Brian Robinson obviously a big part of it but it all starts with the quarterback Sam Howell he's a guy who's got six touchdowns and six interceptions on the season so he had a game where he you know through four interceptions versus the Buffalo Bears that was not a big game for him he struggled in that ballgame so it's gonna be a little bit to get after him to find ways to force him to football but you talked about it any guy who you call him scary Terry that tells you he's pretty good but they live by him they've done a good job of getting Brian Robinson to football obviously Chris Samuel is another guy who's a part of who can make some plays for him but it's all about their quarterback and how he plays now we have to be worried too because Sam Howell's guy who can run too he's got 15 carries for 101 yards on the season averaging over six yards of carry so he can take off with the football and make plays with his legs so this is going to be a unique office to have to deal with when you talk about Sam Howell his ability and he's a gun slinger now he's not gonna just sit back there and try to check it down he wants to stretch the field he wants to throw it he wants to have an opportunity to put some big points on the board so Sam Howell is one of those young quarterbacks in his league that's trying to grow up you know in his first start first you know season as a full-time starter and I know he wants to have a really good performance today we hope he does it I know when you talk about his rushing ability and being able to move out of that pocket and run the ball a little bit more he's the second he has the second most rushing yards on that team behind Ryan Robinson as you mentioned 101 rushing yards but he's not impossible to get to he's been sacked 29 times 29 times is he okay? how that's a lot that is a lot a lot of times been on the ground so now we're thinking could Clay as Campbell possibly get that 100? that'd be nice that'd be nice but Grady Jarrett got a couple more sacks save it on your mother already has a couple we'll see what that defensive line front but some other the other defensive line front I want to talk about is the commanders they have a big one four first round picks and Chase Young, Montez Sweat, Jonathan Allen and then of course, Darren Payne when you look at these four and that defensive front that they have it's kind of scary, right? yeah, this may be the best defensive front the Falcons have played all year long we saw Brian Burns in that first campers Carolina who wreaked havoc and made a bunch of plays this is a defensive front that they can just rush four guys and get after you're talking about four first rounders up there who came into the league with a lot of hoopla everybody been with Chase Young did Ohio State Darren Payne on the inside is the same kind of guy Jonathan Allen has been a physical force inside for a number of years now Montez Sweat, he's long he's rangy he's athletic so you got two guys coming off the edge that can really get to you they got 16 sacks on the season 29 tackles for loss and add two an exception to that so it tells you this is a front that's going to be very active today you have to know where they're coming from and you got to understand that these guys are very active with front and you got to find ways to get after them so it's going to be a big ball game for our offensive line the Falcons have to do a good job of when they get those one-on-ones you got to win those yeah and when you talk about these two defensive lines both for the Falcons and the Washington commanders they're looking to sack that quarterback two quarterbacks that are coming off huge performances last week obviously we talked about how on losing to the Bears but he still had the big week for him he was the had the most passing yards in the NFL last week and Desmond Rudder had the third most passing yards in the league as you can see Desmond had three hundred and twenty nine passing yards Sam had three hundred and eighty eight obviously Desmond was a little bit had a little bit more had a better completion rate and less sacks and interceptions as you see there but when you talk about Desmond like I said earlier and he's been you know the biggest question mark for the Falcons this week is can Desmond keep his rhythm how about the quarterback I mean you've been in there you've had to find that rhythm how do you find that rhythm and then keep it I think it starts early in the ball game and I think Arthur Smith always does a really good job of creating ways to get his quarterback acclimated to the game and for Desmond I think a good thing for him is maybe he's getting out on a perimeter using some bootleg get on the run a little bit and get outside but when he has some easy throws throw up a little hitch out there to drink or get him on the corner and and find John who will find Kyle on an easy completion or maybe sometimes for me I had to get hit first so sometimes you get hit first it kind of settles you down a little bit and you relax if that's the kind of game you have to have from Desmond I don't mind that at all he showed last week exactly what he's capable of so I think now the standard is nothing but what he did last week now can't expect him not to get sacked every week or not to throw an exception things like that happen but I thought he showed the ability to go out and play at a high level and be the quarterback that everybody thought he should be and we got to remember coming into this season Arthur Smith said you know what he's our guy they had opportunities to go out and get whoever else they wanted but they said he's our guy so I love the fact that they are you know kind of all about Desmond Ritter even when he had the tough game in London Arthur Smith stuck with him and said you know what he's our guy we're going to let him figure it out and last week was a great case of showing that he can get it done when he needs to yeah they've been riding with Ritter since the pre-season they've made it very clear and they have not wavered on him and like you mentioned sometimes some people need to get hit first and I remember way back during the pre-season he said that's I think I want to get hit I think I want to knock that rust off a little bit and thankfully he's found that rhythm the question now is will he be able to keep that rhythm going but like we said last last week he wasn't sacked one time he wasn't touched one time at all and that's because of the Falcons offensive line obviously Caleb McGarry walked was pulled out of the game in the second quarter with knee injury he will return but speaking of Caleb McGarry let's go and look go ahead and look at the inactive this week big question mark was would Caleb McGarry be returning to the game and to the 53 man roster this week he will and he is active to play he's ready to go obviously this inactive list is kind of what we saw last week nothing crazy no names really stick out to me or what about you? Yeah, no names really stick out obviously the key guys just think about maybe TQ's maybe the guy you thought maybe he could have an impact because he's been in and out and obviously getting pressured but you got you're so deep up front that it doesn't surprise you as much but obviously Logan Woodside who earned itself a team I would love to see at one point in time Clark Phillips find his way on the field but you know he just played well the offer is playing well so it's not really a role for Clark right now but nothing really surprised you when it comes to the inactive list and and seeing which guys are off and on so glad to see everybody pretty much healthy and these are the usual suspects we usually see only inactive list when it comes to the balkers Yeah, Janus Smith and Bud DePri we're light on practice on Wednesday but full participants on Thursday and Friday Janu with an ankle injury and bud with a little wrist injury nothing crazy obviously they are going to be active today let's go ahead and take a look at the commander's inactive list obviously that first name right there Christian Holmes that cornerback for the commander's when you see him on the inactive list what does that do to you? Yeah, the inactors for them I mean you're talking about their corner position they've had a lot of shake-up on the back end of their secondary you're talking about Kendall Fuller Cameron Curl Perry Butler and Benjamin St. St. Juice have been the guys for them they got three guys right now in their secondary that's already on IR so that tells you they got another guy that's already on the inactive list so that tells you they're deep into the depth that they have on their their defenses how to ball when it comes to the secondary and maybe that it bowls well for us this this week but they depend on their defensive line to get pressure and hoping that you know they don't have to put a lot of pressure on their defensive backs but having another defensive back that's inactive is a big deal I think for Washington and along with all the guys that already out that's right I mean it could give the Falcons a full ability to be able to throw the ball way farther downfield than they were maybe anticipating so speaking of Atlanta and what they're wanting to do against this Washington Commander so let's go ahead and get the keys to the game presented by Wells Fargo shock what is your first key of the game today I think number one this is a game where you have to stay on schedule you're at home you always play pretty well at home always play really good at home but staying on schedule is big for me because I think for one when you have negative yards plays it puts you behind a change you don't want to be in third and eight or nine versus this defensive front we just talked about that can get after the quarterback we just talked about four first rounders that on that defensive line so if you get into a third eight nine ten plus that puts a lot of pressure on your quarterback stay on schedule no negative yards plays and it's not just on Desmond really I think this goes for the offensive line this goes to the receivers tight ends the backs you know hitting those key holes when you got to hit him stay on schedule in this ball game and give yourself a chance to be successful the only time the Falcons have really hurt themselves offensively and when they had a holding penalty you had something that's brought you behind the chains when you got a long third down early down success I think this ball game is going to be crucial if you can stay on schedule you got a chance to do some really good things and move the football like you've done pretty much the whole season yeah, staying on schedule is such a big part of this game and I would love to see them stay on schedule in that first drive I would love to see more than three plays being played in that first drive it's so key to winning in the NFL and in this league obviously we've been able to do it in the past without having more than three of those plays in one drive or a couple drives but and it's funny you bring that up because that's what happened last ball game first series of the game you go three and out and then your offense got going after that starting fast is another huge thing and it helps when you stay on schedule for that first drive and that go three and I gives them confidence as well like okay well now we got him off the field now we can go score and put pressure on them yeah and staying on schedule helps without getting Bradley pinion as much as we love his cause and we love how great a punter he is I'm sure he would love not to be punting yes, he said it's not a great thing when I'm out there but we're trying to put a fun spin on it so we would know he has a fun spin and hopefully we won't see him too much today but what's your second key to the game today I think the biggest thing is pressure pressure pressure we talked about it you've you said it 29 sacks that this Washington commander's office of line has given up you see Grady Jain right there you're talking about on your mind in the middle Bud Dupri you're talking about has the risk there's so many got you will claim to get that 100 sack that'd be great to do it today versus an NFC opponent but put pressure on their opposing team put pressure on their quarterback force him to throw the football we've seen he'll throw it to you six interceptions to six touchdowns that's not a good ratio for a quarterback so find ways to get after him Lorenzo Carter another guy who could get after the quarterback this is a game where I think if you put pressure on him you put pressure on their offense to be one dimensional and that becomes in the run game as well change in the line of scrimmage create penetration that puts pressure on the opposing team's office and puts pressure on their quarterback and then he starts to press once he press guess what you got a chance to get a couple that throw you to you so I'm I'm excited to see we can get some pressure on the quarterback today because last week we didn't have any sacks but we won sacks today sometimes creating chaos is good sometimes if you put pressure on him and you don't get him to the ground that's okay but you do want to get him to the ground we got to sack him today yeah let me say this about this defensive front that we have they're hungry yeah they want sacks and let me say this yep they're hungry they're looking for sacks and David on your moderate has a couple in his belt already which is great and they all want sacks on their own but of course they're a team and they want everyone to have sacks they want everyone to eat if you will but they are hungry so this could be a scary and a long game for Sam Howard I sure hope so I sure hope so and guess what that'll help your offense because then you put them in negative yards plays then maybe you change the field position and now your offense has a shorter field because if they're in second and long second and 18 now they're forcing the football down the field knowing you got to throw guess what here comes the pass rushes here comes Evacating the game here comes all these guys who can make some plays for you and you're hoping that happens so I'm expecting at least four or five sacks because he's been sacked at least four times in every ball game he got sacked nine times in one game six times and then five times twice this year so that tells you every game he's giving up at least four sacks in this game so expect at least four for the Falcons right I think that nine sacks was against the Villas and that's just a brutal time on the ground that's a lot of time but you said stay on schedule put pressure on the quarterback what is your third cue to get in today? This one is the one I love the most and it's feed your playmakers find ways to get those guys to football and not to say about the Smith has it because he's done a great job of creating those plays for us we've seen Drake London have some really monster plays down the field when you give him an opportunity I think we've seen the two tight ends and Janu and Kyle make plays down the field with their athleticism spreading them out put them all over the place and then we're not even going to talk about number seven I mean number seven every single week finds a way to dial the lesson one particular way and he continues to do that every single week and we can't forget about Tyler we can't forget about C.P. who's a part of it but Bijon is a guy that you know they have plays drawn up for him and they're gone to feed number seven I think he's you know accounted for over 35% of the Falcons you know output right now when it comes to offensive you know performance he is one of those kind of guys that you have to get the football to and play at a level that is really fun to watch so feed those guys Des did a great job last week of just getting those ball out of his hands Kyle Pence had his best game last week of this season I think the confidence is growing for this offense and we saw last week by Desmond Ritter hearing 10 different pass catchers that he's willing to spread it around and allow those guys to make plays in space and I think that's the other party is we can't expect Des just to go out there and just try to make all the spectacular plays he can throw a four or five-yard play and let those dudes go to work and let them get seven, eight, nine, ten yards after the catch I love that you mentioned that because of what I was going to say and I'm going to say it is that all these guys are fun to watch they are exciting whenever the ball is in the air you're like who is this going to? Yeah who's catching it and what are they going to do after they make that catch obviously Janu and Kyle Pitts we know that Arthur Smith is a Titans guy right we got a ton of guys in the locker room that are those Titans Jonu and Kyle are the first and second receiving leaders on the team Jonu has 246 yards already this year and I think it's only going to go up from here in big ways 11 yards per reception is huge that's telling you he's going to first down every time he touches the football he's been a big part of his offense I don't think a lot of people are expecting but we should have read between the lines because Arthur Smith loves him from Jonu Smith and he talked about it when they signed him he's a guy he knows really well from his Tennessee days so loved having Jonu on his team adds a whole another dimension takes a little pressure off Kyle takes a little pressure off the receivers he is one of those guys that can be a very versatile player for you yeah and speaking of expectations of players obviously the Atlanta Falcons signed Van Jefferson earlier this week from the Los Angeles Rams along with a 20-25-6 round or seventh round pick excuse me in exchange for the Falcons 20-25-6 round pick what are the expectations of seeing him on the field today? you know what I think it's going to be tough I think you may see him in some smaller package maybe seeing four or five plays because it's hard to come into a different system on a short weekend and learn an entire game plan or learn an entire system in just one week but I think they're going to have a couple set amount of plays that they say all right here's your four or five playbook for today and see if we can have an impact in the ball game and I think Van Jefferson can do that the reason they went out and got him obviously they were eyeing him for a while and he's the guy that you say hey he's got a brand new fresh start he feels good about being back in Atlanta this is going to be a really really productive player I think for the Falcons once he gets really acclimated to his offense but I expect to see him in a few plays today and I guarantee they're going to drop something for him to have an impact in his game yeah Jefferson was dropped by the Los Angeles Rams back in 2020 and in those years with the Rams he has had a hundred and one of receptions ten touchdowns and fourteen hundred ninety nine receiving yards only one yard away from fifteen hundred this season though in five games he's had eight receptions and a hundred and eight yards that's obviously averaging ten point eight yards per reception this guy is also a playmaker that they're adding to this wide receiver room yeah I think he's one of those guys that when you look at the body of work what he did in college then what he did when he went to the Rams this year he kind of fell behind the wayside a little bit with some of the playmakers a guy but he is still a guy that can make a huge impact and you talk about the numbers that he's had this season as well as what he's had of his career that tells you this guy can get it done this is a guy that can add value to the scene and I think doing it this early it tells you all right the Falcons are excited about what they have in him and he can absolutely come in and be a player that you look at and say all right he can bring some expectations value for what we want to do yeah so the three keys of the game today stay on schedule and feed the playmakers you got a lot of them they all need to be fed today big matchup coming your way in the NFC today Washington versus Atlanta who will take the win and Condescent Reuters stay on schedule and stay on rhythm all that coming up and more