 13 and the NFL and the Falcons are in MetLife Stadium today taking on the New York Jets six games left in the season and each one matters the most as we move forward. So thank you guys for joining us for the Falcons pre-game show presented by Ticketmaster. I'm your host Elizabeth Moore, that's Derek Grackley. We've got a lot to talk about today. Only six more games in the season and both teams looking for a little bit of a playoff berth in the fourth. Yeah I mean it seems like it wasn't too long ago that we just got started with the pre-game show and now we're into December already. And it's just gone. Hey this is when you win football games in December for the right to play in January but you take it one week at a time. Exactly all the players in the facility have said that December, November games this is what you play for. This is why you're in the NFL. It's these very vital division games and non-division games. Every game for the rest of the season they matter the most and today we're taking on the Jets. It's the most important game with a season as Arthur Smith says every single week each game that you're taking on that week is the most important game of the season. Yeah you get limited opportunities in National Football League and every win is so so critical and even for the Atlanta Falcons where they're sitting right now at the top of the division but every single win is going to be so huge for them. Yeah so both Falcons and Jets looking to get in the playoffs this year obviously but during the summer I actually sat down with some of the guys from the 1998 team which was the first team in Falcons history to go 14 and 2 and still the only team in Falcons history to go 14 and 2 and they started a cultural phenomenon. It's called the dirty bird. I don't know if you've heard of it or seen it. I think Kyle Pitts has done it. Cleo Campbell has done it. We wanted to get down to the nitty gritty of who actually started the dirty bird. He's a two-stepper. Yeah I'm a two-stepper. People were really surprised but I think it was getting to the NFL and I think it's different than college man. There's just a celebration when you get in that end zone. It's just such a big deal. The one that everybody loves and knows is when we were playing the 49ers again and I scored and I saw the red light from the Fox camera and I was like I knew I knew I was going right home. I was like mm-hmm and I started rocking and then I just did it. I got riding home. My dad was like man everybody was talking about that dance and I was like I hope somebody recorded it. Alright so part one is already out on YouTube right now. Part two comes out. We're talking about the postseason and part two that comes out on Wednesday so go ahead and make sure to put your little bell on to the notification tab for the Falcons YouTube channel. It's gonna be a good time we talk about all things postseason but I made it clear like who actually started the dirty bird and they did give OJ the props of like he started the dirty bird. He came up with it but then of course Jamal made it what it is today. Well it's interesting because Taylor I am born and raised in Minnesota and I went to the University of Minnesota and I was I guess when you grow up in Minnesota you kind of become a Vikings fan by default right so everybody now kind of knows how that whole season ended up shaking out between the Atlanta Falcons and the Minnesota Vikings so I saw the dirty bird stuff get started from afar but then a year and a half later I didn't know that I was actually gonna end up signing with the Atlanta Falcons and when I come down to Atlanta my first year I played with all four guys that you got a chance to sit down with and guys that kind of helped mentor me in a sense and Ray Buchanan was such an awesome guy too. He has been around the league for a long time. Terence Mathis had done a lot of things in the National Football League. I came in as a reserve tight end in the same position meeting group room with OJ Santiago. Got a chance to run into him at one of the Falcons games a few weeks ago. A guy I hadn't seen in probably 20 years so it's kind of cool for me as a guy that played in the early 2000s to see you now sitting down with them talking about the dirty bird. It was 98. When were you born? I wasn't even alive. I'm a 2000. I'm a Y2K and you know we sat down and they were like so like where were you in 1998 and I was like I wasn't even a thought. I wasn't even alive. So it was fun to like learn and talk with those guys about that really historic season and obviously that comes out part two comes out on Wednesday. We're talking about all things of the postseason all of those games and all the things that happened in between them so go ahead and check that out. Check out part one before part two comes out. But let's go ahead and get into this Jets conversation because this is going to be a big game. You don't want to talk about how young you are anymore. No. Let's talk about this Jets conversation. Obviously they've lost last four games in a row and they've had this new matchup come up. It's called the six great games. They want to finish in a great fashion. Hopefully getting Aaron Rodgers back a little bit later in the season. Obviously he's not back on the active roster right now after that Achilles injury but when you look at this Jets team that got a new guy under center today and he started last week but who is Tim Boyle? What is he like? So Tim Boyle is a journeyman that came into the National Football League. He's spent some time with four, I believe, four NFL teams now. But here's kind of the timeline of how things have shaken out with the New York Jets. Maybe one of the biggest stories in the offseason as far as how they rebuilt their roster of course with Aaron Rodgers. He gets hurt in the very first game of the year. They turn things back over to Zach Wilson. Things don't go very well with Zach Wilson so then they decide to give Tim Boyle the start. A guy that has spent time with the Packers, the Lions, the Bears and now the Jets and they're giving him an opportunity to be the starting quarterback. He ends up facing probably the most explosive offense in the National Football League last week against the Miami Dolphins and I didn't get a chance to see the game but I'm curious to know why he ended up throwing the ball 38 times in that game because you get a guy that's been down on the depth chart. You have him throwing the football that many times and bad things are going to happen. Well what happens? He ends up throwing one touchdown, two interceptions, one of those getting taken back 99 yards for a touchdown. So you've got Tim Boyle, a guy that has an 0-4 record, has a starter. He's got four career touchdown passes against 11 interceptions. We're going to get into the nitty-gritty of this when we get down to my keys but that's a match up that you've got to be excited for if you're the Atlanta Falcons. We're the guy that's still trying to figure out his way as a starting quarterback. They did bring in some weapons for this entire team for Aaron Rodgers to start this season. So he does have some weapons but they've just been in a bad place lately. They haven't been able to score the football, they've lost four straight games, even the game they did win was against a Giants team that's not very good this year. So they're kind of one of these teams that's piecing things together with a backup, backup, backup quarterback right now. And it's interesting when you talk about Aaron Rodgers coming in and they're bringing all these pieces for Aaron Rodgers to use. Aaron Rodgers has the best touchdown interception ratio in NFL history. So over training camp they were learning this offensive scheme with someone that was like money every time making these great passes. And so now you have Zach Wilson in there, now you have Tim Boyle and it's a very different feel in the offensive front and the offensive scheme. And there's got to be a lot of patience but there's not many more games to have patience with. Well and it's not been so much about the weapons around them too. I mean you've got to look at the fact that this is an offensive line for the New York Jets that's been in transition the entire season. They have not had the ability to have a healthy offensive line basically the entire season. They're going to probably start their ninth different combination on the offensive line this year. They are getting some reinforcements back. A couple of guys are getting healthier and Dwayne Brown and Mackaybeck than even Wes Schweitzer, a guy who was with the Atlanta Falcons early on in his career back from 2016 to 2019. It's been since week five that the New York Jets had the same offensive line starting combination in back-to-back weeks since week five. So you can sit here as a quarterback, as a head coach, as an offensive player and you can say until you're blue in the face that I trust the guy that they're putting in the lineup. I trust the left tackle. I trust the right guard that's in the lineup. If they are not the starters that were planned to start the season and they're not guys that have got experience, that have been to Pro Bowls, that maybe have been an all pro player, you're not going to be the same type of offense. And I bet you if you got a candid conversation with Aaron Rodgers, he would tell you the exact same thing. He dealt with that same transition when he was in Green Bay. David Bakhtiari, his star left tackle, battled injuries his last couple of years and they weren't the same offense when they don't have a good offensive line in front of them. Transition that to Atlanta, they've actually had a lot of continuity on their offensive line, part of the reason why they've been able to move the football and they've been able to run it so well. If you don't have continuity on the offensive line, sometimes it doesn't even matter who your quarterback is. Aaron Rodgers, Tim Boyle, Patrick Mahomes, if you don't have anybody that can block pros coming across the other side on the defense, you're going to struggle on offense. Yeah, and I love that you mentioned how great this Falcons offensive line has been and how long they've been a part of this team. I mean you look at Chris Lindstrom, look at Jake Matthews, he's made the most starts in the NFL or Falcons franchise ever. Like 155 starts I think consecutively which is awesome. And then you have Caleb Magari as well, you have Rookie in there who's learning from these guys. But let's talk about Desmond who made his first start back as the starter last week against the Saints who's behind all of these guys on this offensive front. What did you see from Desmond? Obviously he had two interceptions last week but what were you seeing from him that he might have learned in his time on the bench? Yeah, I mean it looked like a guy that to me was not playing hesitant. He still was being aggressive, he was not afraid to take some chances down field and every once in a while when you do that you're going to throw things into harm's way especially when you're going up against a guy like Tyrone Matthews. He's a savvy veteran, this guy knows how to take the football away and ended up having a couple of interceptions. But I like the fact that he used his legs as an advantage. I mean Desmond Ritter had I believe it was seven carries for 30 yards in the game so using that when the defense gives it to you go ahead and tuck it down and use the athleticism that you had again. That's something that Atlanta hasn't had in a long time. Yes they had it a little bit last year with Marcus Mariota but when Matt Ryan was the quarterback here he was a pocket passer that was not trying to tuck the football down and pick up yards with his legs. When you've got that ability to do it as Desmond Ritter does use it to your advantage. If things are covered up down field you see a seam up the middle or if it's third down and four and you feel like you could pick up five go pick up five and keep this drive going but a couple of the plays that not only he made the throw to Bijan on the wheel route down the sideline going up against the linebacker was the next level throw but we just talked about the offensive line. There was a couple of plays in the game where the offensive line was awesome. One of the big runs that Bijan had the blocking on the right side of the offensive line was perfect. You had two great stretch blocks by your right guard and your right tackle. You get an awesome seal block from Bergeron on the backside that kept the defense out and he was able to see the seam and he just burst north and south. Those are the type of plays we just talked about offensive line that you have to have if you're going to score points specifically in the red zone. So did he make a couple of mistakes Desmond Ritter last week? Sure. He made a couple mistakes and throws that he probably wants back. A lot of times all that happens is you look at the quarterback when you see an interception but sometimes the tip at the line of scrimmage which means maybe somebody didn't execute on the offensive line. It was a wide receiver that didn't have a good enough clear out route. It was a wide receiver that got too close to another wide receiver that brought another defender into the area to end up picking off the parcel. What happens is the quarterback gets the finger pointed at him because he threw an interception when there was probably somebody else in the offense that could have helped that interception not happen. So yes, you don't want to see turnovers, but if you have a guy that's aggressive and he's playing with confidence and he's still taking chances down field, I'd probably rather have him than the guy that's playing hesitant and not wanting to take the chance for the big play. Yeah, it's funny that you see that hesitation. I spoke to Kaden Ellis which is a linebacker for the Falcons earlier in the week and I wanted to ask Kaden this because he studies the quarterback. He knows how to get to the quarterback. He kind of thinks and how they feel. And I said, you know, you've been in this league long enough to know how much tenacity it takes for a quarterback or anyone in any starting position to be put on the bench and then to be put back in that starting position. As Desmond Ritter, what kind of guy is he? What kind of quarterback is he for this team that he was able to do that? And he said, you know, when you look at Des, you see a young guy. But what I saw against the Saints is a guy who has confidence, who's got a cannon for an arm, who wasn't afraid to air the ball out. He was taking shots. And he said, obviously, yeah, you have two turnovers and those things happen in games. Obviously, you don't want that and you don't excuse it. But at the same time, what you're seeing are these turnovers that happen because he wasn't afraid to throw the ball, which is better than being afraid to throw the ball, throwing it and getting an interception because of a bad choice. He has always looked in charge of the offense. He doesn't look out of sorts. Play comes in from the sideline. He's got everything under control. He's got an offensive line set up. If he needs to make an adjustment to the play call, he does all that. When he does make a mistake, he doesn't look like he gets rattled. Those are the things that you can control as a quarterback. And I think all of those things are the reason why he continues to pass the test, if you will. If you throw an interception and you go to the sideline and it looks like you lost your puppy, you're probably in a bad situation as an organization because you don't know where the mindset of your quarterback is. That's one thing I bet you this team has never had to question with Desmond Ritter. He sits in front of that press conference every week and he faces the music, whether it's good or bad. That's what you want to see from your quarterback, but you want to see those little lessons, those little things that he learns by turning on the tape each week. Sometimes it happens to be after an interception. You want him to learn from it and maybe when he gets to the next game, he sees that same look and he's like, you know what, I remember that. The last time I did that, I threw an interception. I'm going to go to my number two in progression or I'm going to tuck it down and run with it. I'm having fun watching him kind of grow in the NFL, especially this season, but he's going to have a big challenge today in New Jersey, it's not New York, because it's raining there and it's cold. I looked at the Jets all of their editorial writing and they all said something about how the weather could affect this game. Obviously the Falcons play in Mercedes-Benz stadium, which is normally a closed roof, so it's an indoor field, technically. So when you've been in the league, you've played in a dome and then you've gone and played in the Northeast in December when it's cold and it's raining. How does that affect a quarterback, a tight end? How does that affect the game itself? Listen, it's one of those situations where you say as a football player, it doesn't affect you because you play in any condition. You do all this from growing up. You play high school football and you end up playing in rain, you end up playing in cold temperatures. It's just part of playing the game of football. You're going to play in inclement weather. But for somebody to say that it has zero impact on the game, they're lying to you, so much about playing the game of football as a mental game that you're not going to let the weather be a factor or an excuse on whether or not you're going to win or lose. Forecast for today's game looks like it's going to be wet, the entire game. So what happens? A lot of times that favors the team that's able to run the football. Okay, so let's look at this matchup. Atlanta Falcons, they can run the football. We know that. That's one of the strengths of this team. In the New York Jets, their defense is 31st in run defense right now, allowing 140.3 yards per game. What is that matchup favor? The Atlanta Falcons. So again, just because I talked about the stats doesn't mean that that's going to work. You still have to execute, but there's been holes in the run defense for the New York Jets and that's been a strength for the Atlanta Falcons. So you try to rely on what works well and you don't have any issues with ball security for the most part in wet conditions when you run the football. You just turn around, you hand it off to one of your running backs and let them in your offensive line do the work. So that matchup would seem to favor the Atlanta Falcons, but still you're going to have to put the football through the air. Here's the good thing. You've got ball boys on the sideline. Their job is to keep the ball dry. Usually the officials try to keep the ball dry. They'll put a towel over it right until they put the ball down on the ground. It's not going to be a torrential downpour. It's not that type of situation, but there's going to be moisture on the football. So you just got to deal with it. Because guess what? The New York Jets got to play with the same wet football as well. Exactly. Exactly. So who executes better? Yeah, it's going to be an interesting game. And be sure to look at their feet today. That sounds really weird. Make sure to look at their feet because today is my cause, my cleats throughout the NFL, and especially today with Falcons and Jets going against each other. It's a great cause that everyone in the NFL does. For the eighth straight consecutive season, the Falcons players and coaches will raise awareness and show support for nonprofit organizations and causes on the field during Sunday's my cause, my cleats game in New York. Beginning in 2016, the player led NFL campaign has provided players the opportunity to showcase and bring awareness to organizations and causes that mean the most to them. In total 43 Falcons players and coaches have selected causes to represent on their cleats and shoes for Sunday's game. To learn more about their participating players' causes, visit atlantafalcons.com backslash my cause, my cleats. These pictures are insane. They're done by our team photographer Shawna Lockwood and they're insane. They're great. The art is great. It's going to be really fun to watch all of their causes come to life today on the field. You have a cause. You have your cleats. I do. I don't have cleats. I have tennis shoes but it's an initiative that actually was expanded to broadcasters last year, I believe. I participated in it last year and was able to do it again this year. I thought about trying to hoist my foot up here, but I thought maybe I would end up pulling a hamstring, so I'm not going to do that right now. However, I am wearing a pair of, I believe they're Air Force ones. I'm not a sneaker head, okay? But it's for Garth Brooks, his teammates for Kids Foundation, which I was an ambassador for his teammates for Kids Foundation when I was playing in the NFL. Garth Brooks is one of the most generous people that I've ever met. We've joked about this before. I'm not a country music guy. However, I do know about Garth Brooks because he's kind of the goat when it comes the country music. It was actually really cool last year. I put pictures up of my shoes on Garth Brooks' teammates for Kids Foundation. He not only liked, but he commented on my Instagram post how cool he thought it was and just basically appreciated the fact that I was still thinking about Garth Brooks' teammates for Kids Foundation. This is not all about me. It's about the NFL and it's about the players and how they continue to give back. This is an initiative that I think is awesome because the NFL kind of gets this mantra sometimes as the no fun league, right? We were so regimented when it came to uniforms in colors and types of cleats and everything. But this is one where the NFL said do what you want. Put all the colors, put all the designs out that you want because of the cause is more important. So not only do the Atlanta Falcons participate this, but everybody around the National Football League. It's a cool weekend because all the television cameras get those candid shots of the players whether it's in between plays before the game, after the game and the causes that they're representing. Very cool weekend. It's a super cool weekend that we got last week and they started rolling in like two weeks ago maybe. Just some shoes here and there, but we got all of them in before the game today and they look insane. They look so good. So if you see a shoe that you like and you're like, oh, what's Michael Abernathy his shoes look cool, go on the Falcons website, read about his cause and what his cleats are for. Really cool moment and really cool week for this cause and throughout the NFL. But I'm glad that you didn't put your leg up because you could be inactive for the rest of the day. Cover for everything and you'd have to go through my keys and then it just might be a disaster. So I'll keep everybody safe and I'll keep my feet down while the table. But speaking of inactive, let's just go ahead and get into the inactive conversation today for the Falcons, Mack Hollins and my cues are the two names that you're going to see right off the bat. Mack Hollins is still inactive. He's been inactive since leaving the Vikings game before the buy. He's still dealing with an ankle injury and so miss on Mack Hollins today, but what are you seeing in this inactive? Yeah, Mike Hughes has been dealing with a hand injury as well. He's going to be inactive and this doesn't necessarily reflect that they're not healthy. That just means maybe they haven't factored into the game plan yet for the Atlanta Falcons and so they're going to be inactive and they're going to give them another week to potentially get a little bit more healthy and get them on the field so they can get closer to 100 percent. Couple other guys, Jake Matthews had a hip and Nate Lambin had a thigh. Those guys are both going to be active. I don't think they're going to have an injury designation at the actual injury report at the end of the week, but guys that have been dealing with some nagging injuries, you talked about it. We're in December. I mean, lots of players on the team are going to be dealing with some nagging injuries, but again, fortunately for the Atlanta Falcons, they've been a pretty healthy team so they get to go out there with some of their best players and that's not common with a lot of teams around the league right now. Yeah, we've been fortunate as a team to have a really healthy team for the most part this year. It's been crazy on their inactives less. It's more of the IR story that's been kind of going on all season long. Of course, you have Randall Cobb and Bryce Hall at the very forefront of that. So obviously, who do you see right here? Yeah, I mean, we talked a little bit about the offensive line. You got Austin Deculas, Billy Turner, the couple of tackles that are going to be an active in this game and of course Zach Wilson is the quarterback. He'll be an active. I believe Trevor Simian is going to be the backup for the New York Jets behind Tim Boyle in this injury as that third quarterback, but they they are banged up, but I feel like they're getting a little bit healthier. We talked about their offensive line getting some reinforcements back on their offensive line. So it looks like you're going to have two teams here that are going to be fairly healthy if for a December football game that's very important, especially for Atlanta having pretty much all of their playmakers on the field. Yeah, I'm Bruce Hall had the game designation of questionable. He will be playing today's on that and get into the keys to the game presented by Wells Fargo of how this Falcons team is going to come away with two back to back wins in week 12 and week 13. Well, I think they've got for they've got to play the game and not the opponent and what I mean by that is just worry about going out and executing the football game and don't think about who you're playing, what their record is, who the quarterback is because you start looking at all that stuff and you're going to see, oh, a Jets team that hasn't hasn't and if you just go back a few weeks, you're going to face some Minnesota Vikings team that ended up having a Josh Dobbs that just got there five days prior and Atlanta ended up losing the game. Will Levis starts for the Titans. We end up losing that game and his first start as a rookie go to Arizona. Kyler Murray, his first game back after dealing with an ACL injury, thinking maybe well, he's going to be rusty a little bit, right? They end up losing that game. So think about playing the game, executing each individual play, putting points on the board, keeping points on the board, don't even worry about who's on the field, don't even worry about what color they're wearing, don't worry about what the quarterback looks like or not. Yes, the Jets have struggled to score points lately, but the last time I checked this is National Football League. They got professionals as well. And those guys are out there competing just like Atlanta is. So execute the game and not play against the opponent. That's what's fun about the NFL. Anyone can win any week, doesn't matter of a match up, honestly. So let's get to the second key to the game, the Jets, as I said, they have not scored a lot of points, 13 points, the most they've scored over the last five games in a game. They've been struggling to score in Atlanta, even though you go back last week against the Saints and yes, they gave up some big plays, they had some opportunities for New Orleans getting in the red zone, but they had that Ben Not Break defense. They did a great job once they got down into scoring territory, making them settle for field goals. 0 for 5 as far as red zone goes and they ended up having to kick field goals down into scoring territory. I'm not saying that give up those explosive plays, but if it does happen, just keep them out of the end zone. If you can keep the Jets from scoring touchdowns, force them to kick field goals and then Atlanta can stay on schedule with running the football and sprinkle in the passing game like they have to the Drake London's, to the Bijans coming out of the backfield. They'll be in good shape, but defend the zone, keep them from scoring touchdowns in this game. They did an excellent job of that last game. They did turn into turnovers both created by Jesse Bates, so we'll see what the Falcons defense is able to do today, but let's get to the last key of the game, how the Falcons are really going to make sure they get this win. Get explosive on offense, and what I mean by that is let's get some big plays happening, and I don't necessarily mean they have to be passing plays that are thrown 50 yards down field. This could be a quick slant route that's caught, that you get a broken tackle in a 7 yard game, turns into a offensive line, and Bijan Robinson takes what looks like a 4 yard game, and he turns it into a 44 yard game. Those are the ones where you start to get points on the board quicker, because you have faster drives, right? You go from your own 30 to the opponent's 20, put a couple plays together, and boom, you got a touchdown or a field goal, and all of a sudden things start to roll, so let's get some more explosive plays. Find a way to open up the offense a little bit, and then when they start respecting things down the field, that's when the run game starts, and as I mentioned, it doesn't have to be Arthur Smith calling shots down the field, it could just be a good block down field by a wide receiver, some broken tackles, you've got some big wide receivers here, get physical, break a couple of tackles and rip off some explosive plays. You're seeing those explosive plays kind of start coming together last week, so it's going to be fun to see what they're able to do. I want to mention this from last week, you said keys in the keys of the game, what was it? Five touches for Drake or five touches or more. So if y'all are listening on the Falcons team, if y'all are listening to this, get off the phone, go finish your warm-ups and beat the Jets. We're going to let you guys go though. What did he say, get explosive? We have some explosive plays, we're coming with you. We're going, we're going, we're going. So we'll let you guys get back to getting in that spirit, to watch the Falcons hopefully get a win against the Jets. Thank you guys so much for joining us for the Falcons Pre-Game Show. It's been fun. We'll be back with our annual Coach Knapp Stair Climb in support of the Coach Knapp Memorial Fund, which raises awareness around distracted driving. For 25 years, Coach Greg Knapp ran the stadium steps before every NFL football game. And today we're going to honor him and we're going to run the stadium steps here at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. And next up, we challenge the San Francisco 49ers. I would just like to personally thank the Atlanta Falcons, Coach Smith and Arthur Blank certainly for helping us raise awareness for continuing their support of the Coach Knapp Memorial as we climb to bring awareness to the epidemic of distracted driving. So thank you guys so much for improving. Thank you.