 And we are back on the Falcons audible presented by AT&T as always. I got my guys Dave Archer DJ Shockley I'm Derek Rackley. We're here for another episode. We're gonna cover all things Falcons, of course I'll give you a quick rundown of what we're gonna cover today We're gonna get the guys quick reactions on what happened in the game last weekend What went wrong in that matchup seemed like the Falcons were in control for call it three and a half quarters of that game The positives that they can take away that can potentially help them rebound in a game against the Los Angeles Rams And then we'll get a quick little taste of the NFC South as we saw it last weekend couple teams winning couple teams Dropping games. So let's go back. We saw the first regular season game of the 2022 season At Mercedes-Benz stadium you both were there All right before we dive into the X's and O's and what happened in the game Dave just talk a little bit about the atmosphere Because it sounds like from talking to you guys before we came on the air It was an atmosphere that was kind of unlike any other the last couple of years anyway Yeah, fellas, I thought that certainly whenever you have your rival in the building it's going to help with that right There was a lot of st fans there as there usually is just like there's a lot of falcon fans that find their way Into the Superdome when we go to New Orleans, but so that added to it There's no question but a lot of flag waving they passed out the American or they passed out the atl flags and they were being waved Atlanta got off to a good start to start the game that brought it even more to a fever pitch But I don't know shock. I thought it was as good a building as we've probably seen in a while To quote my man two chains. It was a vibe It was definitely a vibe and I mean it felt like Atlanta it felt like the spirit of what we saw years in the past And the excitement in the building felt like it was new felt like it was fresh And the falcons fans were going at the Saints fans, of course It's back and forth like like they've just mentioned But you just love the feeling in there where everybody was into it and looked like, you know, it was packed Look like, you know, you know a couple empty seats here and there But not like it used to be, you know, it was packed. It was loud. It was energetic The fans are into it and that's kind of the thing that I think the guys fed on man It was great to see it. I was glad to see the the fans show up and glad to see it wasn't, you know, all Saints fans in there And I mean, I love like like they mentioned they had the flags And I even saw they had like, you know, New Orleans has the umbrellas And they say who that on the umbrellas and said we that so Just a little small stuff like that that we're trying to create that home field was cool May not be one of the biggest things across the league or from a nationwide perspective But to me it's like when when Atlanta, New Orleans play close games, it's good for the NFL It's good for the state of the division just because the rivalry has been so good And as you guys mentioned it gets both fan bases up and excited And that's what at the end of the day the players are wanting to see Yeah, my partner on radio west Durham who does such a great job of calling the games for us Mentioned it now that was a good way to put it is there's a there's a college vibe To this rivalry, you don't get that with giants and eagles or giants cowboys or even bears packers Here is kind of because college football is king here in the south and and but you felt that kind of that college feel that pomp and circumstance a little the color the pageantry if you will for you could feel that Dave I'm going to come back to you and have you give me a quick newspaper headline and and we might have a couple people Because you know you might have younger generation watching our podcast right because podcasts are a thing for the younger generation They might be like, yo, what's a newspaper? Okay, so it was like these paper-ish type things that used to read to get scores and a rundown of the game That's actually what we're talking about just in case you're curious Okay, so give me a headline newspaper headline of what it would have been Let's call it monday morning after the game after atlanta and i'm coming up short I think it would be damn with a couple of exclamations points behind it all the little things Damn the little things Dave if you would have said jenna afterwards All right dj give me your uh newspaper headline man. I feel bad about mine. Mine's not as good now Think about ours and you coming up with one at some one right now Mine would just be three and out I mean you think about like you mentioned before we came on three pretty good quarters Yeah, not so good in that last quarter. So you were outside I think it was one of those type of things where you showed up for three and you know You were there in the end, but not really. Yeah, I'll just be real quick with mine And I'm gonna say failure to close and it's just it's one of those things where you always hear that phrase guys Football is a 60 minute game and even after three quarters, it's you're through 45 minutes You still got 15 left right and even some ask the Colts and the Texans. They still had extra time in their overtime game You got to finish in the nfl and and and we're going to get into some of the specifics of the game here But like michael thomas was pretty quiet throughout the course of the game And then what happens in the fourth quarter? Do you like jaylor dude? Dude just comes back and goes on a tear. So let's talk about what went wrong in this one, Dave I'm going to come right back to you Atlanta seemed like I don't want to say dominating right to me That's a little bit strong, but in firm control of the game call it through three three and a half quarters, right? And then things started to get weird in the fourth quarter. What went wrong for Atlanta? Yeah, I think the control of the line of scrimmage was something we had talked about last week It was going to be important This was going to be a game where Atlanta needed to stop the run game and be able to get their own run game going Through marcus mariota in in the running backs and then off of that all the things that can develop that happened You were you were playing on their side of the line of scrimmage both offensively and defensively against his team And I mentioned the little things And and little things more often than not and we all are grilled and pounded our head about fundamentals You know catching the football taking care of the football You know little things like taking a snap I mean shock will tell you in short yarded situations when they tighten down you got to that's a hard block for the center And so the center's got to get his paddle of what they're trying to do is trying to get a stalemate They're trying to get underneath the center right there to stop the play so there's no movement So as a quarterback, I got to really make be diligent about riding riding the center there ball comes out I talked to marcus after the game He said hey, I was trying to cheat the snap because we got the look they wanted we wanted He was he was gonna snatch it and step around that you know, they'd gone to a solid look over the guard center guard I was just going to step around that and pick the first down up Um, so he was he was trying to compete. He was trying to make a play And just he's he lost his fundamentals there a little bit. There were there were some things like that to me That's what crept in the into the fourth quarter And somehow some way james got on a rhythm and I likened it on the radio Trey young was in the building rang the train whistle for us. Yeah, it's like a three-point shooter You know you miss 10 in a row in the first three quarters of the game And all of a sudden boom you get one to go and then boom you're feeling it and he looked like he got a couple to go And he changed into a different dude. What do they say Dave shooter shoot? Yeah, like you you can't go for 10 if you're a shooter and stop shooting and at some point you keep it goes in You're right. James Winston. Let's let's dj. I'm gonna come to you But remember started the fourth quarter 23 10 lead, right? Atlanta's got the ball They go down second in goal. There's a false start, right little things exactly You just can't have him when you get in the red zone, right? And then on the third down play They take a shot to edwards. He looks like there's a window the balls dropped What ends up happening field goal instead of touchdown, right? And in some sometimes you have to feel the urgency of a game And it's like you got to score touchdowns and not field goal So even though Atlanta goes up at that point 26 to 10 as Dave mentioned here comes james Comes right back goes four for four on the next drive And he wakes up some guy named michael thomas and then they would say the rest is history What ended up happening in your opinion? You know what? I think you guys have I've hit it spot on I mean, it's not much more. I can add to it because The one thing that came to my mind was the thing that Arthur smith went back to and he talked about in the Preseason about the details of the things that they could control like the pre snap penalties Those things that got you behind those things that kept the drive from going further or kind of stymied your Your pressure as you started to to get things going I thought it was really critical in those situations that you had some of those key moments happen Where the pre snap penalties or you had a guy drop a ball here and there and then You allowed him you kick a field goal where you were moving driving and you weren't able to punch the football in I think that gave them confidence. I think that gave them a little bit of a We're still in this ball game because at that point we kicked the field goal And i'm sitting up in the press box and I said man It's still only a two possession game It feels like it should be more but it's still only a two possession game And like you mentioned they go down they get the two point and all that kind of stuff And they start to to kind of feel good about themselves So I think the things you did to yourself really is what hurt you Well, and you can wind it back prior to that too And you we're all told and talked about and we can believe it because we played the game That we can we can pick out two or three plays and say wow if we've done that different Well, if you rewind it oz gets a dime put on him on a deep end cut around midfield And you're gonna get the ball knocked out give gives new orleans credit for raking the ball out That's what they do got it out gave them a short field opportunity there defense came in and did a good job on that one Marcus gets out of the pocket has a great job avoiding rush gets out of the pocket Not sure where he is on the field didn't think he had the first down yet Although he had had it probably slides if he knew he were in that position gets inside the five ball gets punched out again So Those are things that again little things that can't happen that you got to make sure you take care of things Yeah, and guys, you know, I can't help I don't want to get off track too much But I can't help but think about the game last night, right? You know russia wilson and denver two times two times inside the five yard line They fumbled the football when they're when they're knocking on the door scoring seven points And one ends up happening. Seattle pulls out the victory, right? So they're just certain time You mentioned great job raking the football out How many times in your guys's career have you ever heard a coach say after a turnover? It's okay Right? Never To a fan you might say gosh that defensive player made a great strip like he raked the football out Never in my life has a coach said yeah, he did a good job Yeah, when you turned it when you fumbled it that was never so to your point There's never an excuse to turn the football over how no matter how good the defensive play was You've got to secure the football. That's what your job is Well, and real quickly to kind of back up what you're talking about with the denver game This is a big picture scenario here nine of the 16 games this weekend were decided by six points or less Nine of the 16 six points or less and there were a number of them that were two three one Ours was a one-point game. We had two or three or three point What what that means is is the things you're talking about the little You get a ball knocked out take points off the board for denver for us All of a sudden you look up and you don't have enough points to win the football game Exactly think about all the times teams had to settle for a field goal instead of a touchdown And they came up short in these games that you're talking about Yeah, I think if you got stoned on that drive where marcus got down to about the 10 or so large and still had to Kick a field goal. Well, that's the margin of victory, you know, and so it's not just him It's it's the entire team understanding a sense of urgency as you pointed out The fourth quarter has to look like or better than the first three quarters did And we've we didn't get that done yet and add one more thing to it As players we were always taught you never know which play is going to be in a game that matters And that's why you know, we're not harping on there's You know plays in the fourth quarter that mattered. That wasn't what lost you to game There's so many plays throughout a ball game That you say, okay, like you mentioned if we do that right or we don't do this or you know, we do some You never know what play in the game really matters the most or really can have a big influence on the game ultimately and you win in a game This episode in part brought to you by the home depot everything you need for your next home improvement project Is just a tap away on the home depot app The home depot app digital toolbox gives you access to how-to guides project calculators and image search So you'll know exactly what you need to pick up with the tap of the finger You can rent and reserve the right tools for the job Also browse through millions of items from top brands that you can have delivered right to your door Whatever your project find exactly what you need with the home depot app download the home depot app today So fellas we kind of went right to what went wrong, which made us kind of fast forward to the fourth Well, and we didn't even really talk about the defense. He said exactly Because it's not like the defense didn't get it right. So let's kind of like switch gears a little bit Let's talk about the first three quarters of the game where there was a lot of positives And how Atlanta can take some of those positives to next week because we don't we can sit here and dissect last week As much as we want dj But let's talk a little bit about some of the positives cordairo paterson marcus mario Or the things that he was able to do getting the ball out on the perimeter And how that can help atlanta to turn this loss from the saints into a potential victory against the rams next weekend I think you ultimately saw a new style of offense that That I think falgus fans should be excited about. I mean you saw this offense go up and down the field versus a defense last year That was one of the top defenses in the league running the football You saw mario on the edge. You saw eight different guys caught a pass I mean, there was so many things that you can like about this game But also the number one thing was you protected the quarterback and you ran the football And those are remedies that can go on any road that can play against anybody and win ball games for you If you can do that 200 yards rushing. I mean cp You know almost had a hundred yards in the first half. I mean those are things that you look at and say, okay Look at the big guys in front. Everybody's talked about offense line. We talked about the offensive line a lot How can these guys Be the guys that help you win ball games and help your offense be successful And I thought that was really cool. I thought oz had a good game other than all of the fumble He was there. He was you know, you know, therefore, uh, marcus mario throughout the ball game Uh, obviously drake london in his first appearance Since we've seen him in one play in the preseason I thought he showed up big in his ball game showed what he's exactly about It was fun to see this offense and the one thing that I love the most As the quarterback watching it was how multiple this offense was how many different formations I mean, there was so much movement at the line of scrimmage There was so much going on that the sanks defenders had to worry about Pre snap before the ball was even snapped that gives you something to be excited about because when other teams turn on To take it they're gonna say wow, we got a lot to prepare for Not only what's going on preach now, but then when they step the football where's this quarterback going to be? You never know. So I I enjoy watching his offense, you know, be as efficient and productive as it was at times You know, Dave, one of the things that we talked about And and atlanta made an effort in the preseason in the off season was getting more pass rush And I don't want to kind of pigeonhole you here's but there was some really good things on the defensive side of the Ball from jared grady jared that we've talked about so often how he is just steady eddie He gets in the backfield a couple times arnold ebba katie michael walker What did you see from the defensive side or what else? Maybe it's something that you want to build off offensively Do you feel like they can build on for next week? That's it's going to be a positive thing for them to get a victory against the ramp Well, I'll just use one word in backup what shocks talking about offensively real quickly and the word comes to mind For me is sustainable. This is not something it was a one weekend scenario Right, they have the ability to make this work throughout because there's too much Multiplicity to it. It's the formations the players the quarterback adds to that I mean marcus's ability to stretch you sideline to sidelines a problem And we saw it come to bear Cam cam jordan is one of the best defensive players in the league. Yep. I called his name once on sunday He didn't do anything. I mean and you could see him take a step and stop This is a guy that in 22 career games against the falcons had 23 sacks And he was just standing there watching. What do I do? What do I do? That's what's presented there defensively Dean peas his multiplicity came to life in the game I think what it did was is it gave you a glimpse Of what can happen if grady jared is singled. Yeah, he got so he gets singled You're not blocking him. He even fought through a double team to get one of the half of half the sack was phenomenal But so that creates. Okay, so now I've got players potentially up front Ebba katie coming off the edge one clean that was given one on one with a tackle off the edge gets home gets the sack You'll love to see that. Um, I do think that there's some multiplicity in their ability to bring the bring blitzes We saw jail and hawkins get home. We saw michael walker get home There was a number of guys that came clean I think even richie grant came got got clean on a play With some of the looks that you're going to see you talk about studying tape and having to get ready Wednesday thursday friday to play this team. There's so many different looks at dean peas and give at you Now there's also some teaching moments here And I think you have one of the best young corners in the national football league in aj tarah I would imagine this is a really good teaching film for him. I thought his coverage Was about as good as you could do Against one of the best receivers in the league Sometimes the other guy just a little bit better than you are no doubt And that's what happened in this game and you said michael michael thomas came awake and woke up Yeah, no question about it. I mean because those were not easy play. So a j's a gunslinger He'll forget about it move on the next week and he'll be better for it But uh, I thought there was a lot of really cool teaching moments in this thing as as much as it's smarts one thing I wanted to come back to you about dave and Tell me your opinion whether it had anything to do with it Do you feel like the defense struggled with some of the tempo? Or do you think it was just more of and back in the fourth quarter? I'm talking about or was it more of just james got hot and he found thomas and landry No, I think it was a combination of it. I think that there was some technique errors You know when when you got when we get the throw to landry down the sideline Okay, just from a technique standpoint in that part of the game that landry catches the deep shot That's going to put him in field goal range That's a scenario where defensively I've got to lose ground as a corner. I got to take that throw away I can give away the throw in the flat. I can we can rally up and make that tackle I can't let the ball go over my head, right And subsequently the corners got to understand or the safety's got to understand that too I got to get over I got to get that ball knocked down the ball was in the air a long time on that play So again, I talk talking about teaching moments and things that hurt to have to teach it that way But I thought those are some of the things that kind of came to bear in the game Another moment landry catches a seam ball down the middle of the field. Nobody touches it Nobody reroutes him. Those are the some of the small details You went a guy like that who's running out of the seam You got to find a way to get your hands on reroute just a little bit because it was all time So James hit the back foot. He was hitting them come across the middle Those are some of the small things that Dave talks about. I do think the tempo you bring up a good point Rack, I do think the tempo bothered him and it came at the right time because I think the defense had balled out for The better part of three quarters in a couple of minutes um, I almost wonder Did you get a little bit tired in game one? There was a lot of emotion. There was a lot of adrenaline flowing You were balling out getting after him taking a ball away hitting people playing physical Did that a little bit take a toll on you and the four and again another one of those deals where I've got to understand that I got to play 60 minutes as you talked about off the top Yeah So, uh, you know, we talked a lot about some of the good performances The special teams guy and me wants to make sure I mentioned young way coup I mean a couple of 50 plus yarders in the first half and I mean it was like It was no brainer like it was splitting the uprights. I mean not even close You know, those are little things I think a lot of fans take for granted But at some point those are going to end up winning games for us when you have the faith in a guy that can just drill a 50 Plus yarder doesn't have to keep it low and potentially get blocked. He's got the leg to get it up in the air You talked about drake london a lot of really good performances cp I thought play was burst not to say that he didn't last year, but he looked fresh. He looked fast He looked physical great point and let's give arthur smith some credit there Grady jared to sack and a half I thought he had both sacks, but sack and a half was extremely active cp Ran like, uh, you know a young spring spring spring chicken Those guys were not overused in in training camp. Remember he rested those guys He got just enough snaps out of him in a couple of games. They didn't do a lot. They practiced I thought, you know, if somebody deserves some credit think about arthur smith there and his management of some of the older players And it paid dividends in the game. Absolutely those they don't need to see what those guys can do in the pre season Regular season gamers Plus in the regular season. All right guys real quick before we head out. Um dj I'm gonna come to you first. Let's just talk about the nfc south I'm gonna give you panthers and browns baker mayfield goes back to cleveland He plays them hard, but they come up short 26 24 anything stick out to you in that game Uh, I felt the browns got after baker in that game I think at four he got sacked four times in that ball game and the browns ran nick chubb had a hundred and 44 141 yards in that game robbie anison had a good game. He was five for one or two But I thought they got after uh that offensive line and uh of the carolina panthers with four sacks That's never good. It's as we know, you know, the quarterback is different and uh, the browns did that We I mean, we know the browns front is it's pretty pretty doggone good Uh, but I think ultimately that was a big part of the ball game And then we got sunday night football day I I read this the article and real quick about like tom brady is his absence away from The buck and ears during training camp and basically I read that Like he had made a promise to his wife that he would take her on a vacation and like he goes to bahamas Like 11 12 days during the preseason I'm like i'm reading this and I look at my wife and i'm like Who who who gets to go to bahamas during preseason like how many guys get to do that? It's no big deal. Come back. You start week one and you go ball out, right? Tom brady gets things afforded to him that basically no other nfl player does I don't know if i'm vita bay and I look at my phone. I see tom drinking a rum drink And i've been trading Backwards fellas fill away, but you don't fill away But but david works out the buck and ears go and they beat dallas Obviously dak prescott gets banged up in that game, but tamper bay comes away with a 19 three win Yeah, I I still think that there was some effect to it I they were they did not look well oiled to give dallas some credit defensive Micah parsons was a monster that he'd get him blocked Oh, by the way, there's gonna be a lot of teams aren't gonna get that guy blocked But I thought they struggled their offensive lines in trouble donovan smith. I think got hurt in the game Is that I think that's the uh, I think so you got uh one the left tackle I believe they already have lost two guys in the interior. Um, they did have some problems with some pressure Um, godwin's got a hamstring now. We know that he's probably gonna be out for a little while There was a familiar face that made some plays. Um, so By the way, he caught vert I'm tired of hearing this I keep hearing it on local radio Julio jones caught some vertical passes in his career here in Atlanta, by the way Okay, just want you to know that just go these down at tom brady and caught a 45 yard for tom brady over the shoulder That's great. He got a whole bunch of those here in Atlanta. I don't want to start hearing about all Oh, he's with the goat now. So now he's going to shine out the dude had like 10,000 yards I think he had 300 yards receiving in one game that was Did you see to it was kind of like a cock-eyed like like I'm not really making eye contact you but y'all need to stop You're talking tamper No, I think I think tamper the one thing I will say about the about the con for the division. Yeah Is There were some questions as to how good Atlanta was going to be and maybe even how good caroline is going to be And then there was kind of this overwhelming. Okay, it's tampa And it's the saints and maybe it's the other way around saints in tampa It's a lot closer than that right The carolina and Atlanta are going to have a say in what happens not saying that both win the division And they're going to be playoff But they're going to have a say as to what happens because they're better teams Then people are giving credit for especially here in Atlanta. Yeah, and we're going to we're going to see it this weekend They're going to go ball out as best they can out in la Yeah, it was it was cool to see a couple familiar faces of who the old jones rustle gauge both over there with tampa So we'll see how that thing ends up working itself out moving forward and mentioned godwin, of course They need him back on the field. He's obviously dynamic All right, so that's going to wrap it up for this week, of course we talked about it la rams Falcons are going to be doing a west coast trip followed up by seattle So we'll see how atlantic and handle the going across the country dealing with the time change and all the stuff that goes along with that Part should be good by then right? He'd be good I keep hearing about how all the rams lost the they're going to be upset. Who cares We lost we're upset. What about our mindset? I don't care about their mindset. Yeah Basically, I'm starting to hear about oh, they're the champs and they're going to be up. So we we drew out the wrong time I don't care about that. Yeah Maybe you need to start listening to a different radio station I'm going to send you I'm going to send you a playlist of like smooth rmb They're like to cool you down a little bit like told me before the games. He drinks a it drinks a uh, A blueberry red bull. I had one before the game showed I'm fired up. I'm ready to say they're jumping out of his stool over there Maybe we got to get blueberry red bull for every show that arches on hey, thanks so much for joining us again On whichever way you get your podcast material spotify itunes a lot of falcons.com or youtube Make sure you like subscribe and review us and of course join us next week Not sure if arch is going to make it because he's going to be out over west coast But maybe I'll get one of his um Energy drinks. Yeah, I'll be over here bouncing around with dj. We'll do this thing Thanks so much for joining us. We'll be back. We'll be back for another episode of the falcons audible presented by AT&T next week. Thank you