 What's up everybody and welcome to another edition of the Falcons final whistle podcast My name is Scott Bayer, and I'm here with Tori McElaney and Ashton Edmonds And Falcons final whistle has resumed its status as a post-game podcast We are coming to you after a difficult loss for the Atlanta Falcons the New Orleans States won 27 to 26 it was a nail butter. It was a dramatic finish It was not a result that the Falcons were ultimately Ultimately looking for after really controlling both lines of scrimmage and the tempo for three plus quarters The New Orleans Saints ended up erasing a two-score 16-point lead in the fourth quarter, and we're going to get into that a little bit and then really try to see Where the positives were from this one and what the Falcons do from here How you know like how they advanced on what is a long road trip? They're gonna go to Los Angeles to play the Rams, and then they won't come home They're gonna fly straight to the state of Washington to play the Seahawks So that's kind of sets the stage for everything that you're gonna hear about over the next 20-ish minutes or something like that My filibuster is now over and I will pose a question to you both What went wrong in that fourth quarter? Where did things get out of hand for for Atlanta when it seemed like they were in such firm control over the first three periods? Yeah, for me it kind of Lies in what we saw at James Winston and the Saints skill players do in terms of stringing Explosive place together after the game I really looked at those explosive place because at the end of the day in the first Three-quarters James Winston had less than 60 passing guards in the fourth quarter alone It was over 200. Oh my gosh That's crazy that number to me is Wild and then you break it down even further and I was looking at okay. How many plays did they have over? 15 yards a pop Seven that's seven over 15 yards a pop four of those over 200 yards that James Winston threw for 174 came off of those seven plays alone. I'm not saying that this is The reason the Falcons lost because we could go and say the opposite for the Falcons offense They didn't do anything in the red zone in the fourth quarter when they absolutely needed to to hold off what the Saints were doing offensively this whole thing this whole game and It's on both the offense and the defense and To me it's the explosive plays. It's not producing in the red zone It's all of these things that I feel like we're talking about That didn't happen in the first three quarters that you're excited about what the Falcons did in the first three quarters And then to go a complete 180 in the fourth quarter. It's really a hard pill to swallow Yeah, yeah, I mean I definitely agree I feel like the Falcons secondary did a great job at containing players like Jarvis Landry players like Michael Thomas in the first Three-quarters, but you know like Tori said they came alive in the fourth quarter James Winston found them deep field, you know in open pockets, and I feel like that's what really hurt the defense They kind of lost tempo late in the fourth quarter, and you know, I feel like that is what really hurt them, you know Yeah, now I would just say I think that's what that's what really hurt them You know, they started to I don't know if the communication was lost between You know the linebackers or the secondary But they just were all over the place and you know once James Winston found his rhythm, you know, it was it was a green light from there Yeah And I think that the Saints offense and the Falcons defense will kind of be analyzed for what happened in the fourth quarter I looked to what they were doing or maybe not doing offensively Because the offense a good running game can be a real closer And the Falcons running it was pretty good to the tune of 200 plus rushing yards Cordero Patterson was running very hard Marcus Mariota was was moving with the football There were a lot of good things to like and with a couple minutes left They really had an opportunity to just not give the Saints the ball back right and too often We saw young Wayku who is who is as reliable as anyone, but he was kicking too many field goals too many long field goals You're talking to field goals that were it was what 50 yards and then 54 yards That's that's tough right because you you you want to be able to put more than three points on the board in those Scenarios because when you do get down to the fourth quarter and the Saints are coming back You want more of a cushion right and look everybody saw this game And it was obviously not what the Falcons wanted to achieve here in the regular season opener But there were a lot of good things that we saw Especially along the lines of scrimmage in the first three quarters. I mentioned the rushing yards I was impressed not only with the total, but how they were able to run And when you look at this offense and how Arthur Smith ran it under Matt Ryan and how he's running it under Marcus Mariota Completely and totally different and they were balanced Yeah, just something that you don't often say about a Falcons team in recent seasons. So I to go off of that I've been covering the Falcons since 2020 and Every time that we saw a game Like this or a loss Something that Matt Ryan said over and over and over again in his post game press conferences was that the Falcons got to one dimensional Today after the game we heard Marcus Mariota say that we weren't one dimensional as an offense And I think that's the major thing that I take away from those first Three-quarters of what we saw this offense be They were not one dimensional and that's something that I have don't feel like I have been able to say about a Falcons team in a long time and so if you're holding on to anything in terms of hope in terms of progress That is what I think you hold on to because that is something that I could not get out of my head the fact that for so long We've heard Being one-dimensional being an excuse as to why an offense wasn't working You cannot use that as an excuse because they were not one-dimensional any longer We saw so many different facets and so many different wrinkles of what the Falcons offense was able to do Just couldn't get it done in the fourth quarter. I think that that Marcus Mariota really Kind of like was an example of how good things were and how things kind of also went south because what do you look at? The way he was able to make tight window throws the fact that he was doing RPOs He was tucking the ball and keeping it But they have a bot snap on like on a third down He fumbles in the red zone, which is not something that you can do in this league So you look at his performance and I think that he kind of speaks to that he's a good example of both That the Falcons did some it did some really good things But also didn't do enough to win and that's ultimately what happens Ashton when you look at this Falcons pass rush, right? They were getting after the ball They created a turnover. Why do you think that they were able to be so? Impactful especially with Grady Jarrett in the middle man I think the communication was there Jarrett of course led the pass rush, but they were all on one accord They all they all were buying in and you saw Evacating you saw Jarrett you saw Michael Walker You saw all of those guys like just firing at the ball making sex making plays and I think like I said There's the communication was there between that that front line You can tell that they've been working on that over the course of training camp That's been like a main focus for them and you can tell that Grady He's been adamant about you know, just mentoring the young guys getting them ready for the season And we saw that today it was on full display. We saw that in that front line and something I'll add for a team that only had 17 sacks in 2021 to come out in the first half and have four Yeah, that is a stark difference from what we saw this team do this defensive line do in all of 2021 and I really think that the difference was was they were getting after James Winston in the first three quarters. They were getting him off of his spot. They were making him uncomfortable in the pocket Consistently in the fourth quarter. They speed up the tempo. James Winston is able to hit a couple guys for 10 15 20 yards Starts getting the ball of his hands a lot quicker Find some open guys. That's the difference. Yeah, if you're talking defensively They weren't having that they didn't have the time to get to James Winston in the same way that they were in the First three quarters in my opinion and I think that that has a lot to do with the fact that Michael Thomas and Chris Alave were getting open really fast creating separation quickly and it's crazy to say because AJ Terrell doesn't make many mistakes ever I don't know if he will say this is his best game or not But it's something that really this falcons team has to look back at this score. It is a I mean There's no bones about it. It's a like it's a difficult loss, but what do you do from here? How do you make sure that one loss doesn't impact a second one? And I think the Falcons were really good at that last year in that you look at what happened to them against Washington Here and then they came back. They went to London and beat the Jets They had a bye week and then they went to Miami and beat the Dolphins. They were a resilient crew I think that's a trademark of an Arthur Smith football team and they're gonna have to turn the corner quickly I talked to a bunch of different people in the in the open locker room period Rashawn Evans Jake Matthews Grady Jarrett from the the apodium Patterson all kind of said the same thing don't let this define us I thought Jake Matthews said something interesting in that he said we don't need to course correct here We don't need to make a big speech everybody understands how to work around here How to keep moving forward and it's not something that needs to be super dramatic You just got to get back to work And I know that even Grady Jarrett said kind of a boring answer, but it's exactly true How quickly they they move forward if they can really do the old 24 hour rule that's gonna be key because the Rams are good Yeah, and the Seahawks are far away, and you never know what could happen up there So they do need to to turn the page quickly. I think Ashton you you you wrote a story on number eight overall NFL draft pick Drake London had his NFL debut today What did he say post game about what was really a pretty solid performance from the USA product? Yeah, man. I mean he really the gist of what he said was he has a lot to learn from He was really excited to be out there. You know, he missed the remainder of preseason He was out for two to three weeks just in rehab and recovery trying to get his knee back in place But the main things he's been focused on is just you know really learning how to run again You know what I'm saying and just getting mentally prepared for this game. This is a big game This is a big rivalry and he showed improved today. You know, he came out and did his thing He led all Falcons receivers, you know, he led the whole core with 74 yards and I think you know, that is going to translate well Moving forward in the season one thing I'll add to about that is when we were talking to Drake London post game And this is the first time that we've talked to Drake London since before Detroit before the game that he hurt his knee He was very candid, which I was very surprised. I think for the last three weeks that we have not seen Drake London I assumed that the knee was not really that big of an issue and I assumed that his whole like That the Falcons were not playing him because it's the preseason and you're like, okay Like first play first catch in Detroit and he hurts his knee like he's done But the more we talked to him in post game after this game I think I realized how more how significant the knee injury actually was and I think I got more clarity on that Because he told us after the game Someone asked him, you know, if this same injury happens in the middle of the season Does it still take you three weeks to get back? And he said yes and that was very surprising to me So then I asked I was like, what did the last three weeks actually look like for you? Like how much were you actively able to do and he said he was like I was just working back to running again and then also rehabbing every single day That was very shocking to me because I did not think that this injury was as significant as it was Yeah, and I think if if he can get back to 100% he's in him. He's an explosive impactful player Yeah, he definitely is that's the thing is like this may not have been 100% Drake London. Yes And that's something that like when I when we were talking to him after the game That was something that I really hung on to it's like, okay That's if that's not 100% Drake London. What is 100% Drake London look like right? Yeah And I I thought there were lots of encouraging signs. Look the Falcons are gonna be able to move the football Yeah, they just will it just a matter of in close games What they were so good at six and two in one score games last year is not making that fatal mistake in the fourth quarter And they need to avoid that in the future. I'm obviously nobody likes to start oh and one I'm sure the Falcons don't especially when they really had firm control over the course of three quarters But I I just go back and I look at it And I think this team has firepower this team if it can rush the passer with the talent in its secondary They're gonna win some football games. So I think it's gonna be really interesting to see how they do Moving forward here. So anyway, that's gonna do it for us We're gonna go ahead and wrap it up right here head home on our respective drives away from Mercedes-Benz stadium Do what you always do, please rate review subscribe all that fun stuff and tune in next week for another exciting edition From LA