 The Falcons audible presented by AT&T is back. We're gonna recap week two in the National Football League. We've got action on the field. We'll talk about the Falcons and some other things around the NFL. I'm gonna be your host for the next call at 20 to 30 minutes. I'm Derek Rackley. I'm along with my guys Dave Archer and DJ Shockley. And hopefully if you've been tuning in to our podcast, by now you know these guys. So we can go ahead and just surpass the introductions because these guys are chomping at the bit to get into some discussion about the Falcons. And of course the entire NFL. So before we get into that, let me give you a quick rundown of what we're gonna cover in this episode of the Falcons audible. Of course, quick reactions to the game last weekend. What did it all mean? We're gonna try to make sense of this game between Atlanta and Tampa Bay. We'll take a step away, talk about one of the teams in the division in the James Winston in the New Orleans Saints. Kind of still seems odd saying not without saying degrees at the Saints. And then we'll recount and we got two quarterbacks on the show. There's a chance for them to recount the best and maybe worst throws that they've ever made in competition. And then we'll look ahead for the next couple of minutes for the Atlanta Falcons. So that's kind of the rundown of the show. But DJ, I'm gonna start with you. We're gonna go with quick reactions here, okay? All right. I want you to tell us number one, if you're encouraged or discouraged by what you saw in the Atlanta Tampa game. And I want you to follow that up with your support. But here's the caveat, okay? Okay. What are two sentences and that's it, okay? So you gotta keep it short and sweet. What do they say to five Bs? B, brief, my brother, B, brief. All right, you're up. You made that up. What if he got like run on sentences? Run on sentences? Don't work dude, I guess not. All right. I am encouraged. Obviously in that ball game you're down 28-10. You find a way to claw and fight back and you're within three and things don't go your way. Some uncanny things happen, but I'm encouraged by what happened. This team fought back and I was excited about that. How was that? All right, Dave, what you got? Yeah, I guess I'll go counterpoint. I'm discouraged, but I think, because I thought this team got off to a slow start and then fought their way back ultimately to let it bleed away on some screwy plays. So I'm kind of encouraged, but I'm discouraged too. Sorry, Rack, I just, I think there's a lot of good things on both sides. Stop nailing me down, man. Rack, Rack, be the equalizer and tell us, are you encouraged or discouraged? Somebody's gotta break the tie and this thing, right? Okay, I'm gonna lean towards Archie and I'm gonna say that I'm discouraged because I expect in the NFL teams to be competitive with the amount of talent, meaning even though that the Atlanta Falcons are in a new regime, I still expect them to be competitive even if it is the defending world champs, but I'm discouraged how the way the second half and specifically the fourth quarter ended up going. One of the biggest things that we always learned and are preached about is finishing in the NFL. And as we all know, the Atlanta Falcons did not finish in their game against Tampa. And by the way, if you wanna get more podcast action and more breakdowns of the game, feel free to join our Atlanta Falcons Insiders, Scott Bair, Tori McElaney and Chris Rim on the Falcons final whistle as they get right into it after the games. You can find that information on all these same outlets to get some more podcast action of the breakdown. All right, so let's break it down a little bit more. Arch, I'm gonna come back to you. What does this mean? Because you guys kind of summarized it as far as Falcons in pretty good shape, it was a really good game after three quarters. And then for some reason, the wheels just fell off and things snowballed really fast. So what does this all mean? Kind of break down this game and what it means to you, Arch. Well, it means you're inconsistent. And I think that that probably is what you saw in week one. This one was a better version of that, but it's still inconsistency, right? You still lost the football game. You get off to a bit of a slow start defensively and then you make a play defensively. So again, a kind of back and forth type scenario, you get down 28 to 10, you claw your way back in the game and then it gets away from you again. I think that that is probably the word that sticks out to me is inconsistent. There's not a solid play, work of play on the offensive line. They're solid for a little bit and then there's inconsistency. All of a sudden we leak on protections. We leak on some of the types of, some of the stunts that come and force Matt Ryan to get the ball out too early. You can't throw the ball down field because can't quite hold it long enough. Yet we wore them out with that short passing attack underneath. So the inconsistency, I guess, is probably going back to your original question, Rack, is what kind of brings on the discouragement, if you will, is where is that consistency? Does it have, will it develop? I think it can and certainly it has to develop pretty quickly if you want to maintain some kind of competitive balance here inside the division. And DJ, what stuck out to you? Because, you know, we've watched these games. Obviously Dave's calling it. So he's right there for every single snap. You're watching this game as you got a vested interest in the team and covering them. But what sticks out to you? Because, yeah, there are things to be encouraged, but at the end of the day, DJ, you and Dave know that like, we're not in the business to be encouraged, right? The NFL is a business of winning. So how did you make this game, at least how it shook out in the end? I think ultimately you look at, you're doing things in this ball game that shouldn't have gone the way it did. I mean, let's be point blank. You can't have a quarterback throw for five touchdowns in a ball game against you. Now, you only give up 82 rushing yards. You were, you know, you held them to four of 12 on third down, but when they score five touchdowns in a ball game and the quarterback does that, that obviously means there are some other areas they're doing what's really good on. Maybe it's first and second down. You're not even getting the third down at times. Maybe there are things in the ball game. You look back and say, we had our opportunities, but I also am encouraged about how well you did in the red zone. There were times where you needed to score touchdowns in this game. As much as they were scoring touchdowns, you needed to have that a part of your arsenal in this ball game and be able to do it. I thought quarterback Patterson showed a lot of versatility in this ball game. I think he is starting to become one of those guys that you know you can depend on. Arsha talked about there are some of the things that are very inconsistent without this team. Well, there are some guys who are starting to be consistent and you know coming to a ball game, you can depend on it. You heard Arthur Smith talk about, I know I have some guys I can depend on now. And I think even though we're discouraged about the outcome, we're discouraged about being 0-2, I think Arthur Smith knows now exactly who is in that locker room with him. And a lot of times when you go into a new season with a new staff and a new regimen, that everybody's trying to learn each other. Well, I think now he's starting to understand the guys that he can depend on in certain spots and guys that can do certain things. And I think quarterback Patterson is one of those guys you see you're starting to depend on. We saw Kyle Pitts emerging this ball game. You've heard him talk about I understand the coverage is a little bit better in this ball game. Things slowed down a little bit more for him. So there's things that obviously we all want to see improved. We want them to be more consistent but there's also things that you can see where this team is starting to grow in this ball game. How about Matt Ryan on the zone, read Arsha. I mean jumping in the end zone. I mean, I know Arsha's yelling at that point when he went airborne to get into the zone. I mean, this is a guy who's been around for 14 seasons and he's giving his body up. And those are things that you can absolutely build on. And like I said, like you mentioned, there's still a lot to improve on. We don't want to be in the encouraging business but there's still a lot of things that we can be excited about. Yeah, and I agree with you guys. And one of my college coaches, Glenn Mason, used to always tell us that the point in the game there will be four to five plays that will make a difference in swaying it either direction. And as I'm watching every game, whether I'm scouting a game for that, I'm gonna be calling or I'm watching Atlanta kind of see like how is this getting gonna unfold. You see the stop in the third quarter defensively, the punt, they get the ball back. First down play, what is it? They pick up eight yards to leave a second and two and then it's come up short on second down, stuffed on third down, bad punt and then everything just went downhill from that point on, right? And that was the point where it was like, there's your three to four plays in the game that are potentially gonna make a difference and sure enough, it ended up doing that. I mean, Dave, did you kind of see that as your columnist? You're like, oh goodness, here we go. Like this was the opportunity. All we gotta do is pick up a first down and maybe it changes the complexion of the fourth quarter. I thought there were a couple of plays like that rack and I'll even take it back further, opening drive of the second half. You go down and get a field goal. Remember kind of an excuse me field goal right at the end of the first half to draw the score to 21-10 and you're gonna start the second half with the football. Now you get backed up, you get a bad penalty. Remember, Avi Williams catches that short kick and drives it and returns it all the way out over the 50-yard line. You're gonna start in plus territory. You get an illegal block, backs you back up to your 10-yard line. Okay, we still have the football, let's get started. Ryan on a short pass, he's got Russell Gage wide open for a little zone beater for about a five or six-yard gain. Ball's tipped in the air by Vita Vaya. Shaq Barrett picks it off. Two plays later, they throw a touchdown pass. Well, or three plays later, they throw a touchdown pass. But if you go to the second play of that drive for Tampa, Tom Brady tries to throw a back shoulder fade. Fabian Moreau drops an interception. They've got an interception to flip the script. Two-yard on it. There's just two sequences right there that started the second half that would have changed the potential of the complexion of the game. Have to make the plays when you have an opportunity. We saw Ball batted in the air. Shaq Barrett caught it, set him up in field position. We had an opportunity for Fabian Moreau to intercept it and flip the script. We didn't make the play. They scored a touchdown on Mike Evans' touchdown pass. Yeah, I mean, there's obviously, as you go back to a game like that, you think about the missed opportunities. When you scratched and clawed to get so close to really getting over the hump and maybe going down to Tampa and stealing away a game from the defending world champs and then you miss the couple plays that you're talking about, it's gonna be extremely difficult to beat that team. All right, guys, let's take a step back from this one because there's some other action and there's some fun things that I wanna get to. But there was a game as far as the Saints playing the Panthers, right? Obviously we're in this new generation, if you will, of a quarterback for the New Orleans Saints, not named Drew Brees. James Winston gets off to a great start a week ago and some would say he kinda came back to James Winston this past week, throwing a couple of bad interceptions. And I just wanna ask this question, DJ, I'm gonna start with you. You saw week one, you got a chance to see week two. Do you think the Saints are a contender in this division with James being the starting quarterback or do you think they don't have any lasting power? I'm gonna be honest, I don't. And I say that because of what happened, you just mentioned, what happened in week one and then what happens in week two. This is the same James Winston that we saw in Tampa. We'll go out and throw 30 touchdowns but also throw 30 plus interceptions. And in this league, you have to be consistent. I mean, Archie just talked about it with the Falcons. Consistency is key. And when you have quarterbacks in this league that can go out week in and week out and not turn the football over and can be the reason why you win games, those are the teams that are going to win ball games. Those are the teams that are gonna win divisions. They're gonna win, they're gonna be buying for it every single year. And that's the reason why Drew Brees is so beloved in that city and beloved as a quarterback because he didn't lose a game for you. He did everything to help you. Yeah, he had games where he threw interceptions to but he was consistent in his play. And over the years, that's been the mantra of James Winston is he has not been consistent with his play week in and week out. So when you come into a ball game, you're not sure which James you're gonna get. You're gonna get the guy who's gonna thread a needle and he's gonna go out and throw the 300 and look like, okay, the Saints are the real deal in week one and you come out in week two and you say, I don't know who that guy is. This is the same guy we're used to seeing. So until he becomes the consistent player and does it week in and week out, I don't trust James Winston and I don't trust him to lead this Saints team to where ultimately they wanna be. But consistency is all for me and I ain't seen it out of James. Arch, what about you? Over the course of a now 17 game regular season with what you've seen from James Winston buying or selling them in the NFC South. I'm buying, I'm buying Sean Payton. I'm buying the talent around James Winston. I'm buying their defense. They're legit on the defensive side of the football. And I think there's enough playmakers around James that he can make some plays. I would say that with Alvin Camero back on the field, those kind of guys can make plays for him. James Winston also has Sean Payton to kind of rein him in. Was it a bad throw? There's no question about it. But I can go back to look at numbers. James Winston is a Tampa Bay buck quarterback against the Atlanta Falcons. He was three to one touchdowns the interception ratio. He has the ability to do it. And there's been some other guys. Now I don't wanna compare him to a Brett Favre who's a Hall of Famers. There's guys that try to shove it into coverage. Now he makes some dumb throws and this certainly was a dumb one this weekend. There's no question about it. It cost his football team. But I do think that he has the ability and there's enough ability around them on that team. There's a winning culture there. I would not bet against the Saints with James Winston playing quarterback. It's interesting that you bring up Sean Payton and I would, I mean, granted, look, James is not a rookie, right? He's been around the league, but it seems like if Sean Payton can somehow, some way get through his head that we don't need the disaster throw, right? Like you never wanna compare two quarterbacks, especially a guy in Drew Brees that's gonna be a first ball at Hall of Famer. But I couldn't help but think when James made that bad throw, getting pressure falling over into double, if not triple coverage, that Drew Brees is not gonna make that mistake, right? He's not gonna throw that ball in the middle of the field and let somebody else catch it. So if Sean Payton can somehow, some way get him away from throwing that catastrophic interception, maybe they're competitive, but right now I'm selling it with DJ. I just don't know if I see it so far. Go ahead, Shock. I wanna add this. Did you just raise your hand? I absolutely raised my hand because I did not wanna interact in his soliloquy right there. I did not want to interrupt it. Who does that? But here's the thing I wanna pose to you Archie. You say he's got Sean Payton. This is not James' first year with the Saints. But it's his first year as a starter. It don't matter. He in his system though. He's been in it for a year. That's fine to be sitting behind a desk as I raised my hand to ask a question. That's fine to be sitting behind a desk and listen to Drew Brees answer all the questions. He's not a rookie either. Now you're on the field. But he's not a rookie. He wasn't on the field. He played last year. What in mop up duty? Here, come in, we're ahead. Come on man, you can't compare that. I'm just saying. He's been in the system. I get what you're saying. He's been around Payton. Like he should not be making these same decisions and bad decisions when he has that guy around him. I guarantee you Sean Payton, then he didn't go a whole year and tell James, hey look, wait till next year, we'll coach you and we'll make sure you don't make his decision. No, but I do think though saying it to a guy and having him go through it physically are two different things. So the only way you get that out of you is to go play through it. He didn't get a chance to do that. Sure, he had a guy saying, hey, don't make that throw. See this throw on tape? Don't make that throw, we can't have that. But he physically has to go through that process. You and I were talking before we came on. Quarterback decision making is in a split second. And so that's not something that just immediately goes out, it takes you a little while. You have to make some of those mistakes before you can get through it in that system. So I get it, I know what you're saying. He's made those mistakes before. This is the first time he's making those mistakes with Sean Payton sitting there who's gonna evaluate him after the game. All right, Arch, so you talk about making mistakes and learning from them. Let's have a little fun here. You guys are both quarterbacks. Arch, let's start with you. Tell us about the worst throw that you've ever made, maybe one that you made a bad throw and you learned from the mistake because it was so bad. Well, this is one that all quarterbacks and shocks made this throw too, so don't let him kid you. He made this throw as well. We're playing the San Francisco 49ers right here in Atlanta in Old Fulton County Stadium. And here's young Dave Archer and he's, I can run around, I can make plays. I got the arm to make that throw. I'm on the dead run to the right. I'm headed towards the 49ers sideline and I'm thinking, don't make that throw back over the middle, but it's like your body doesn't listen to your brain. And I go, ah, to throw it on the dead run. And what's the one throw a quarterback can't make? Back in the middle. Late over the middle. I was as late as can be. The bus had already left. I was off. They had left and I'm throwing it over the middle, picked off in the red zone, not, not in the middle of field, not in my end. I took points off the board, much like James did this weekend. Horrible decision, horrible throw. I'd like to say learn from it, Rack, but I'm not sure I did. I think I made the throw again another couple of times in my career, but that was the worst when it sticks in my mind. Here we got a chance to beat Joe Montana in the 49ers and I throw a yank over the middle of field with a chance to put points on the board. That's tough. Listen, I've known you for probably about 15 years, okay? And I've always seen you as a pretty confident guy, meeting confident with yourself, maybe with your athletic ability. And we know you can run, right? You use those legs. So tell us about one of the worst decisions you've ever made throw on the football. All right, so we're gonna go back to college year and we're gonna go to on the road my senior year. So this means I've been around for a minute. I played in a bunch of games and I understand certain throws you just can't make. We were, me and Archer's just talking about, he's talking about Jeff George making this unbelievable throw from one hash to the other. So we're playing against Tennessee on the road. I done completed probably four of these out routes from one hash to the other hash. I snapped the foot. We go play action to the left. We're on the right hash. We play action to the left. We're throwing an out route. I done completed the same out route on the same corner, at least three times in the game. I hit my back foot and soon as I let it go, I instantly, when I say instantly, I instantly took an angle to go make the tackle. Because before I even let it go, I knew it was picked off. And guess what? It was picked off. I ended up hitting the guy like the two yard line. So saving the pick six, but it was my dumb self that said, okay, I done completed this pass four times in this game on this same dude, he been off and he was off on this particular play, but as soon as I hit my back foot and I go to let it go, he is planted. I mean, he ain't moved and he drives on it and I instantly take the angle because I got to go make a tackle. So terrible throw, terrible decision. And I was just glad I was able to make the play. Look, DJ, that defensive back over there said, this quarterback is not completing that same pass on me again. If you want an out and a out and a pass, pick it off. And I guess sometimes defensive players have to guess right. Well, it sounds like he ended up guessing right on that one. I like that, fellas. Sometimes you got to get a little vulnerable, right? Like, hey, yeah, I was playing the NFL. I was, you know, big time SEC quarterback, but guess what? I made mistakes as well. Have you ever two, three bounce one back there to the punter? I mean, you have to have one. We're snapping a game back in a game. No, not two, three. But when I was in college, I did snap one over a guy's head when I was in college. And you know what? Talk about learning from a mistake. It was this was my red shirt freshman year. It was the first year that I started long snapping at Minnesota. I never forget I was at Purdue, right? And I got excited like there was a rush coming at me. So I had to snap it and get up right away to try to protect. And all of a sudden I hear the roar of the crowd. Right? When the puns going on, like, and you never heard the football hit a foot, and then you hear a crowd roar, it's like, uh-oh. Oh, no. And of course, I turned around and went over the guy's head. Well, Rack, at least you didn't hit the up back like the 49, or like the Ram guy did this weekend. Ram snapper snaps it right into the up back, and it goes sideways and costs the Rams a touchdown. Oh, man. It just might have been a little bit off target. All right, so I always like the story time stuff. That's good. Let's write it back in here before we close it out, guys. Let's look ahead now. We talked about the game. We had a little fun. Let's look ahead for the Atlanta Falcons. Giants, Washington, and the New York Jets next on the schedule for them. Let's just talk about, in arch, I'm going to start with you. If you're the head coach, if you're a player on this team, going into this stretch, which maybe you would say is more manageable, what's the emphasis? What's your goal in this stretch upcoming? Well, first of all, not think about three games. I'm thinking about one game. I'm thinking about the Giants. And I know that that sounds like the old adage, but it is. You've got to get better today, the next day, and all that kind of stuff. That's where this team is. They're not good enough to think about a stretch of games. The Giants are certainly a team you can go beat. You can also lose to the Giants. This is a team that's got a quarterback that can run. They've got Zone Reed. They've got Saquon Barkley, who's back off an injuries and outstanding player. They've got three guys on the perimeter. They can go back plays. They've got two really good tight ends, and Ingram and Kyle Rudolph, who comes over from the Vikings. And yeah, they've got some guys on the other side of the ball that can rush you. So I think that the number one scenario is, let's just get one. Let's go get a win. Let's win this quarter. Let's win this quarter. And let's put four quarters together. The inconsistency, let's get that out. And let's play four quarters of football where we win each quarter. And if we can win each quarter, hey, I think we're going to like what it looks like at the end. All four quarters. And then we'll worry about the Washington team. Because I think they create two different problems. Washington, we're going to the NFC East here. Get the Giants first. And then we get Washington back here in Atlanta. Washington's a different team to me than where New York is. And New York's scrambling too now. They're hearing it. That's the New York media up there. They've lost too straight. They lost the game where they made a stupid mistake at the end of the Washington game where they jumped offside on the field goal, gave them a chance to re-rack it, how about that and kick it through? It's off the cuff right there. Look at it. That's off the cuff. And kick it through. So they get the win. And so you're leaving. We should have won that game and you lost. So they're hearing it up there. So they're hearing the same thing our guys are hearing down there. So I think it's just a matter about focusing on this moment and trying to win each quarter-rack. Yeah, I mean, us players, that's what we're going to do. We're going to focus on one game. So DJ, I'll throw it back to you if we're going to talk about winning the next game. Give me one scenario or situation that the Falcons have to do better or win for them to win the game against the Giants. For me, it's kind of obvious. And it happened in the first two ball games. I think you have to win special teams. Obviously, that's a big part of the game. And I mean, our just talked about it where you have a sequence in a game where some plays don't happen and you have a bad pun or you have a bad situation where you don't change field position. That's the quickest way for a team to gain momentum. That's the quickest way for a team to feel good about this is, hey, we got great field position. Let's go get some points. Let's go put stress on another team. You expect your offense and defense to play up to the standard in which they're supposed to play. They're going to make plays. Things are going to happen. You get, obviously, you get 60, 70 plays in a ball game on offense or defense, special teams. You may get four or five a game. And, Rack, you talked about it. There are always three or four plays in a game that sometimes determine an outcome. And let's just say you don't have the right field position or you can change field position with a punt or get somebody within the 10-yard line. You talk them on kick return and you get inside the 15. Whatever it may be, make a team go full field. If you can win special teams, that gives you a chance to win the ball game. So I'm expecting this team to play a lot better in the special teams part of the ball game because we saw offense come on. We saw defense have some good moments in the last couple ball games. Now let's see the third phase come in as well and pick up that slack and also have a big part of helping the team win. Yeah, I agree with that, DJ. And I will just add on top of it, I would like to see, we talked a little bit about consistency or maybe more inconsistencies. I would like to see some more consistency on the offensive line. And I think we'll see a more consistent performance of the offense being able to move the chains and everything. If we can get things cleaned up a little bit in front of Matt when he's trying to sort things out defensively down the field. So let's go to wrap it up, guys. I enjoy having the fun. I think I might enjoy you guys talking about the bad parts of your career, maybe more than your analysis. Oh, man. So the guys that are helping us put the show together, let's make sure that we have more things where DJ and Arch can talk about what they did poorly with their careers. As it turns out, that might be the predominant part of what I would be talking about, unfortunately. What is it in baseball? You hit 300, you fail seven out of 10 times, but you're considered a great player. OK, completions. What, Shaq, we got a complete six out of 10. So you fail four times. Pretty good, yeah, right back. Maybe mine might have been the other way around. I don't know. Maybe like four out of 10. Plenty of average days. That have no problem taking a little shoulder of their mistakes. I enjoy it. OK, on behalf of DJ Shockley and Dave Archer, that is the Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. I'm Derek Rackley, enjoying you. One more time, we'll be back next week to recap Atlanta's game against the New York Giants. And we will try to find some time to have a little bit of fun in there. Thanks so much for joining us, everybody. Once again, this is the Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. Enjoy your week.