 Welcome back to another edition of the Falcons Ottawa presented by AT&T. Thanks so much for joining us on Spotify, AtlantaFalcons.com, YouTube, and of course iTunes. All of the different channels to get your podcasts. I'm Derek Rackley. He's Dave Archer, and this guy did his job last week, just like we talked about. Again, if you're an Atlanta sports fan, DJ was in Houston last week. No, I missed it. I missed it. He was eating W's. DJ, first of all, before we get into the Falcons, thanks so much for securing that Braves World Series when you're down in Houston. Real quickly, for the folks that are watching, tell us about the atmosphere and experience in the Braves Win the World Series. I want to thank you for obviously putting it all on my shoulders. I really went out now. We do what we can. I did a swell job. I got to save. You know, I had to come home right now. No, but it was an awesome experience though, man. It was cool to be able to go to a World Series and be a part of it. I don't know if you guys ever been to a World Series. I have not, no. It is pretty cool. I mean, it's equivalent to Super Bowl and all that. I mean, just the atmosphere around is cool. I didn't see the whole team do it was making it be more sweeter. So I was a surreal moment for real. Braves take care of business and grand fashion down in Houston. But then we're not going to talk about the Braves. We're going to talk about the Atlanta Falcons and all things NFL today. Before we get started, fellas, here is the rundown of what we're going to cover. Our quick hitter is going to be a Houdat edition. Of course, a victory over the Saints gives us an opportunity to give a little Houdat going on. Atlanta Falcons style. We'll talk about buying or selling. Are the Falcons closers as they closed out another game against New Orleans in the fourth quarter? Storytime. Dave and DJ are going to tell us some of the most satisfying New Orleans wins or victories that they've seen, whether they were a part of them or not. We will take a look at the playoffs because it seems like every week the Atlanta Falcons, they get that victory, kind of pushes them back into that discussion. We'll talk about what it takes, even though there's a lot of season left. Speaking ahead, looking ahead to next week, Dallas Cowboys on the road. Guys will tell us what it's going to take to beat the 6-2 Cowboys. So let's go ahead and get it started. Dave, I'm going to start with you. This is our Houdat edition, a quick hitter. So basically what we're going to do is you're going to tell me a player that you thought was Houdat. Because you know the Saints fans are always screaming a Houdat. I don't even know if there's a definition of it, but we're going to Houdat here, Atlanta Falcons style. So you give me a player that you thought was Houdat in the game last week. Let's go. Here we go. One, two, three. Houdat, James Fodders that. James Fodders. James Fodders had the strip sack, of course, did an outstanding job of creating a play for the Falcons. All right, DJ, Houdat for you from the Atlanta Falcons. All right, Houdat, Alamadez, the key is that dude. I mean, you're talking about a guy came in, had three targets and two of them go for touchdowns, three catches. And the thing I love most about OZ was his awareness within routes. Like the second touchdown where he has to kind of pin, pin Billy back, back out and go back to the right side and just kind of uncovered from that for the touchdown was big and knowing what to sit down on the first touchdown was big. So Alamadez, a lot of credit, man. Two big touchdowns in that ballgame. All right, we got Fodders is Houdat because of his strip sack. We got Zaccheus is Houdat because of his three catches, two of them going for touchdowns. And I'm going to say Matt Ryan is Houdat for his performance last weekend. When you complete 76, 77% of your passes on the road against the Saints and divisional opponent. Three touchdowns total, no interceptions. That's taking care of business and it's giving your offense the best chance to succeed. And ultimately your team, the best chance to win a game. So as much criticism as Matt Ryan takes is the quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons. I think he's also got to get some credit. Speak that right is due. Speak that right. Ryan is Houdat. All right. So there's your three Falcons that are Houdat. So let's dive into this a little bit more. So this is one of the fourth time this season. Maybe that we've seen the Atlanta Falcons close out a game in the fourth quarter. I think a lot of people would say this is not necessarily how you draw it up. I mean the game was in control for Atlanta and then New Orleans give them credit for scrapping their way back into it. Maybe Atlanta got a little bit too complacent towards the end of the game. Tough to manage when you have such a big lead. But Dave, your thoughts on Atlanta, have they shown enough to be closers or is it still TBD for you? So always be closing. Glinglary Gunn-Ross, right? Always be closing. So I think that there's, and I, you hate to hedge it, but I think they are learning what it takes to win at the end of football games. I think Arthur Smith is learning how to win games at the end too. I've talked to Arthur every game, pre-game, and always talked to him after the game. And he talks about how do you call a game? How do you finish a game? Offensively I think he's getting that done. I still think there's some ground to travel defensively as to how you win games. Can you win the game with your defense on the field? I think you'll love the fact that if Ryan gets the ball at the end of the football game with a chance to win the game, I mean, he's only done it 41 times. No big deal. He's going to find a way to get that done. But how do you play complementary football in the fourth quarter if you have a big lead like this where you get first downs, work clock, run it down to where the defense is it back on the field after consecutive three and outs? That's the one they got to, that's the one they got to figure out. If they can get that figured out, they truly are. Do have that dimension of being a closer. Listen, closing a football game with a lead is like a double-edged sword guys because it's like, especially from a fan's perspective, a fan's going to say, okay, you got a big lead. What are you supposed to do? Drain the clock. Well, how do you drain the clock? You run the football, right? Well, the Falcons try to run the football and they go three and out basically, right? So then you flip the coin over and you say, oh, well, they're being too complacent. They're being a little bit too conservative. Why don't we mix some throws in there? Well, then guess what? You get a couple incomplete passes and you're stopping the clock, right? So everything is good when the plays are working. When you're running the ball and you're picking up first downs, when you're throwing the ball and picking up first downs, yeah, that's the ideal situation, DJ, but it wasn't necessarily like that. So do you feel like Atlanta is a closing team or still something to be determined? You know what's crazy is the QB brain of Dave and I is so spot on because it is exactly what I was thinking when, you know, we were talking about this particular topic. And for me, what I wanted to say was similar to what Dave said was, which is it comes from the top. It comes from the coaching. It comes from being the style in which they called the game at the end. And the one thing that I'll add to what Dave said, I'm not going to repeat what he said because it's absolutely right. And I'm on that same kind of wavelength on their learning how to do it. But the fact you do it on the road, the fact you do it when everybody's against you, that you can keep everybody together and everybody's against you and things aren't going your way. Like you just mentioned, hey, you got a lot of stuff going for you. You're up 18, but then here they come storming back. You get some penalties that go against you. You get some guys doing some maybe some foolish things. They're laying the ball game that kind of helps them. But you find a way to get it done in a hostile environment and you continue to do that. So that gives me a lot of confidence to know that this team will absolutely do it and will continue to do it because they've shown it on the road, which is it usually you don't hear about it. Usually it's the team that's at home. You can find a way to do it. You got your home crowd. You can build on all that. But when you're away, that makes it even tougher. So give a lot of credit. Like I met you last week to the leaders of this team. And I mean, we were talking about it before we came on. A minute ago, and you got to go down to score. They just took the lead. And number two, it doesn't even blink. He walks in the huddle. First play. And they asked him as the game. What did he say? He said, he said, we're going to go win. Like that kind of stuff you need to have around your team and your environment. And you got a bunch of guys on this team that's doing it. And then give, like I said, a lot of credit. Arthur Smith or not just trying to, you know, hey, just didn't get dunked. Let's pick up a couple yards here. Hey, let's go back to what worked. Usually a lot of coaches don't do that. If something works early in the ballgame, you don't see it happen too often. They come right back to him, run a slug, runs, you know, and put your best player up the bat and you go win. And I love the play call. The thing that I think that we got to keep into consideration of this closing thing. And it's tough. You see it all over the league. We saw Baltimore what a couple of weeks ago on a Sunday night come back from 17 down to win a game. It's not just happening here in Atlanta. It's hard to hold on a lead like you said, Rack. So how do you do that? So Arthur Smith has dramatically changed his play calling in that situation. And he did in this game. He was very aggressive. You remember they scored the touchdown, missed the two point conversion. It's now 24-19 is the score. We come right out. And he's throwing the ball. It's a play-action two-man route where they're trying to hit a big shot. And if they don't tackle Kyle Pitts, it's going to be a 40 or 50-yard play. They get defensive holding. They come back out. They run the zone read. A different look out of that. Then they come back and try to throw the ball again. And Alameda Zaccheus falls down. He's trying to do a little retrace back outside against man coverage because he knows they're committing resources to stop the run. So this wasn't one of those scenarios where he ran it three times and just ran the clock. The beauty of that sequence that's going to get lost on the fan, and I want to try to remind him, is your quarterback who you just said completed 75% of his passes in the game. He also thinks through, OK, if I throw an incompletion here, the ball, it's going to stop the clock. Take the sack. I'm taking the sack. And they talk, that was strategic in that situation. If you don't have it, take the sack. Don't throw the football away to conserve yardage. We're going to need the clock moving. That was a play that dictated that's what you need to do. That's a cerebral type play. Even though you look at it, that's a negative play as a sack. On the defensive side, remember, Dean Pease is having to manufacture pass rush. That means five, six guys coming at the quarterback. We saw Faya Lua can come clean. We've seen Dion Jones come clean. Guys coming off the slot. When you go into that prevent defense, you can't manufacture pass rush. Now the four guys have to get home. And they're not doing that to our satisfaction yet, which means the quarterback has enough time to throw the football. So you're damned if you do, damned if you don't. If I bring six at you and you beat me in man coverage for a touchdown, you're saying, what the hell are you doing? Why are you playing so aggressive on defense? The guy just ran by you. Or you play back and say, why are they giving up all those throws? It's a really tough nut to crack defensively for Dean right now because he doesn't have fire breathers. Maybe one, occasionally another one, but maybe it's just Grady that can come after the passer to create that pass rush where I can drop seven in the coverage. So it's easier said than done when you look at it. And one last thing I'd like to add to the one particular play that Archie's talking about where Foyer comes clean. And this has made something that fans may not even see and maybe recognize. You got Grady Jared outside in a nine technique. You're moving him all around to try to create ways for guys to get pass rush. And in that particular play, they use all three guys on that defensive line and they push everybody to the right side. Guy crossed his face and it forces that guard to come by and now you've got a free runner and Foyer and he has to let that ball go maybe a half a second sooner than he wanted to, but everything is working together. They dropped Dante Fowler out right under where Camaro is going to be. You see Dion Jones dropping to his area. Well, I mean, all 11 guys are doing it and Pease is doing a heck of a job of like, like Ross just said, trying to manufacture some pressure so that it's not where you're damn you do, damn you don't. Yeah, the interesting thing that we talked a lot about the fans, right? Fans is watching this. And I think it's easy to be critical on this game, especially with the Falcons performance on, they had such a commanding fourth quarter league and they let it slip away, right? So a lot of people want to criticize, but here's what I'll say. All three of us played this game. There's three things that came out of this victory that I want everybody to understand. They want a game in the NFL, which is extremely difficult to do. They want a game against a divisional opponent. Big. And they want a game at a divisional opponent. Okay. So for everybody who wants to be critical, these three right here will tell you that is a great win. And as we sit here today, those Falcons and the coaching staff and the personnel sitting across the street, they are happy right now. They are extremely happy because it doesn't matter whether you win 27 to 26 or you win three to two in the NFL. If you win a game specifically against a divisional opponent, it's a great week for you. We all agree. Absolutely. You run and don't let the door hit you in the rear end on the way out. We're going to go watch the film. We're going to get better for the stuff that we've made a mistake about. But guess what? We got to win. We're four and four and we're still in this hunt. And we can all say in here, it is far better to get teaching points than all the coaching points after you win a game than when you lose a game. So there's no question that, yeah, they know they have a lot of stuff to fix and get better at and we're in week eight and we're making some of those progressive moves. But it's a lot better to do it after W. 100%. 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 let's maybe take a half a step back away from this game and let's just let's kind of wrap up the Saints discussion with the guys to give us an opinion on the most satisfying win over the Saints. Because as we know, this is a bitter rival and they like to take their shots at the Falcons whenever they can. So when we get a victory, I want you guys to talk about maybe was this the most satisfying win? Was there one in recent memory or does it go back 15 or 20 years? Does anything stick out to you, Dave, as far as a most impressive victory over the Saints? Well, I gotta tell you, Rack, I've been a part of this rivalry for a long time. I played in this game five or six times. I never lost to the Saints in their building. So anytime you go in that building, you love beating those guys. We beat them 31 to 10 and 86. I mean, we have beaten... In recent memory, I think that the game in 19 was one that Atlanta was really struggling, right? And just couldn't get a win. And New Orleans and San Francisco are both on their ways to, you know, win in the division, or at least being the representative in the playoffs. You go to New Orleans, beat them, and you go to San Francisco and beat them. I thought those were two really good wins. But that win in New Orleans specifically, Sean Payton and Drew Brees' team had never been held without a touchdown. Grady Jarrett, I think, had two or three sacks in the game. They sacked Brees seven or eight times and won the game, I think, ironically enough. It was like 24-9, which is kind of what the score was, I think, or 24-6 was what the score was before they began their comeback. So that one sticks out in my mind. This one ranks up there. Because this is a game... You just lost the game at home. You were supposed to win. Yes. And you needed to go on... And I don't think... Did anybody give them a chance to go beat New Orleans? In New Orleans, after New Orleans, just beat Tampa, the World Champs? Yeah. Nobody. This was just right up there. DJ, how about you? Yeah, I'm on the same boat. I mean, there was... I'm gonna be a prisoner of the moment because of what this meant and ours just lined it up as far as what just happened the previous week. We just talked about it. Winning a division game is big and you just didn't do that the previous week. They were coming up for big win. They had a quarterback who gained a lot of confidence after beating the World Champs in his own building. So he's coming and feeling really good about yourself. And you come into a ball game where you feel like if you don't have this, then you fall way back behind in the division. And you think about being at the bottom. Now you're talking about, hey, you got a chance to be at the top of the division and playing for January football, which is what you all want. And if you don't get this win, it hurts you. But the fact that everything going into this ball game tells you you should not win this ball game. You got one of your main weapons that's been out for a couple of weeks now and you're still trying to figure out who's gonna be that next guy to step up on the outside. We just talked about what they were coming in with. So everything pointed to you not going into this building and getting a win and you come out and you get the win. So this absolutely was a big win for this organization for this year. One last stat on this game real quickly. When you start thinking about improvement, are we improving as a team? When you look at the defense, you gave three touchdowns to the fourth player. They're not improving defensively. Let me give you just a quick stat. You've been run over the last couple of weeks in the run game. We talked about Carolina 198 on the ground. Miami was 125 plus. This was a same team that was averaging 125 yards a game on the ground. Alvin Camara, Ingram running the football. They got 83 yards rushing in the first half. Okay, you think, wow, okay, I mean, that's more of the same, right? And it looked like at the first three or four, maybe the first 20 minutes of the game. They had 26 yards rushing in the second half and it's not because they didn't run it. Alvin Camara had seven carries for 42 yards. He had six yards of carry in the first half. He carried it six times in the second half, eight yards. They shut the door on the run game. There's a lot of reasons why there's some names that we want to tell you about, I guess, here in the show. But they're doing some things on that side of the ball that's improving. They're getting bigger bodies on the field. There's some things happening there. So pump your brakes on this defense is not very good because I think they're really trying to reach out. Dean Pease is doing a good job. But Terry Fontenot and Arthur Smith are going out and putting guys in that they're developing here in practice. They put some of those guys on the field. We saw Votters make a play. Anthony Rush, six-foot-five, 350-pound nose tackle, created problems in the run game. That's some of that stuff you're looking for for an improvement standpoint. Well, DJ, you talked a little bit about the playoffs. And we discussed it a couple of weeks ago. And then that discussion kind of went away with the loss to the Panthers, right? Because like you guys said, it was like you let one slip through your fingers. But it's back into the discussion now because if you look at projections, and again, we understand there's a lot of football left. But the Falcons sit in the seventh playoff spot right now. And just like you said, DJ, it's just about getting into the dance, getting into the postseason, and then anything can happen, right? So what are you guys feeling as far as the Falcons being a playoff contender? What do they need to do throughout the rest of the season? Obviously, it's win games, DJ. But we got to go deeper than that, right? What does Atlanta need to do to keep themselves in the discussion of a playoff berth? You know what I think, you know, first off, you talk about winning games, it's critical. You're going to have some games at home you have to win. I mean, we've got to call a spade a spade when you're winning games on the road, which is great, which is, you know, what you want. But you've got to be able to win in your own building to get to January, which is important. But I think the next step is, offensively, we have to find a semblance of a run game. We have to have it. I mean, obviously, Matt goes out and he's 23 or 30 and, you know, 340, whatever it is, two tubs. But we can't expect that every single week. We can't expect teams to play that man free and allow quarterback Patterson to be one-on-one on the outside and win. That's not going to happen every single weekend. We're going to go against defenses who are just as good as New Orleans, but they're not going to allow that. They're going to see that, hey, this is what you do in crunch times. You find your playmakers. We have to be better than one point whatever it was running the football. Matt Ryan was the leading rusher in the ball game at five carries for eight yards. I mean, are we kidding me? I mean, we can't have that. We have to find some semblance of a run game. We said it since day one. This offense is predicated of having the play action. Everything has to go into one. And when you have that value in your offense, it makes it that much better. And you think about it, if you have that, how much better this offense will continue to be when you already got a quarterback who knows going to take care of the ball and is going to distribute the football the right way. But if you have a run game involved in it, it gives you an even better chance to win and makes you even more valuable. I'm always been a run game guy and if you've ever spent any time with Alex Gibbs, you're a run game guy. And I'm with two quarterbacks here, right? But they understand the importance of a run game and how it ends up helping your passing game. You've got to be able to take that second safety out of the backfield. And you've got to get the linebackers to respect the line of scrimmage when there's a play fake in the backfield to open up those slants, to open up those skinny posts. Dave, is it similar for you? Is it run game or what else does it land and need to do down this stretch to get themselves into the postseason? I think you have to play really clean, Rack. I think that this is a team that's going to have to eliminate some of the dumb mistakes. I don't think that they're so dynamic on either side of the ball. There's certainly some semblances of it on the offensive side. Defensively, it's a little bit finer edge. You can't have the pass interference calls. We can't have the rougher-than-the-passer calls. Got away with it this weekend, but you have to play cleaner in the game so eliminate some of those negative plays that extend a drive. You're always going to have a bad call or two in a game and you just got to live with that. But you got to play your techniques properly. I just think playing cleaner, and I'll give you, for instance, we were talking about it before the show started. Fabian Moreau, who I think has done a pretty solid job at corner, I've got to understand that if I'm on the goal line, I can't backpedal because they ran a speed out for a touchdown. I can't give any ground there. I've got to play my technique a little bit tougher. So that means that just that little, and it's a little thing, but play it a little bit cleaner. I'm there. I knocked the ball down. I'll tell you, that's the most dangerous though you can make. Go ask Joe Burrow how that throw worked out for him on the goal line this last week. I went 100 yards for a touchdown. You have the back line to protect you. You've got the sideline to protect you. Don't backpedal. You don't need to go anywhere. Just squat on the route. That's my fear as a quarterback. They're going to squat on the route. Throw a speed out. That's a dangerous throw. Boom. It's going in the direction. So just little things like that. Richie Grant makes the tackle and the kickoff. He throws the guy out of bounds. You don't need to do that. Even though you're just kind of trying to get off him, he throws the returner out of bounds. You get a 15-yard penalty. Now you shorten the field. Those things have to go away coupled with what you guys are talking about. Being able to run it, protect, keep play action involved, those kind of things. But I just think the technique stuff has to be a little bit cleaner for Atlanta maybe than it needs to be for other teams. You're not quite as talented across the board maybe as other teams are. Yeah, DJ is talking about run game needs to be better. Dave is talking about being maybe a little bit more situationally smart and not necessarily third down in everything you're talking about. Moreau, that's understanding the situation where you're at on the field, right? One of the things that comes to mind, actually two things. Number one is when I was in college, my head coach Glenn Mason used to always tell us, I swear every single week there's going to be four to six plays in a game that swing it one way or another. And can Atlanta make sure that one of those four to six plays is not like that passenger clearance that gives up 60 yards. Is not the holding penalty after a 60 yard completion on offense that backs them back up. Because when I look at it, I feel like the Falcons margin of error is small, right? Because they're just not a complete team yet. Another thing that comes to mind is and this really hasn't been a problem for Atlanta, it was for New Orleans in the game last weekend is drops can't be an issue in the passing game. We know that Matt Ryan is a very good quarterback and he's going to give his wide receivers and running backs opportunities to make plays, but drops cannot become a problem later in the season. Every time you get a step on the defense and the ball's there, you've got to make the play. Whether it's TaJay Sharp or it's Kyle Pitts, you've got to make the play. If it's as simple as a four yard catch or maybe a 44 yard catch, these are all the little things that these three here feel like is going to help Atlanta get into the postseason. Well, getting into the postseason might take a victory over a team like the Dallas Premier, Ben, kind of one of the class teams of the NFC. Falcon's got to go on the road this week to play Dallas. Dave, I'm going to come back to you. This is kind of a special matchup for you too. Before the podcast, you're telling me that you don't necessarily have the best taste in your mouth about the Cowboys. Yeah, I can give you a couple of quick stories about Dallas. We played them my second year in the league. We went out there, we're up 10-0 at halftime. I do three interceptions second half. We lost 21 to 10. And after the game they're a venerable coach with the little fedora and stuff. We're talking about how they intimidated me. And they didn't. I just didn't play well. I just didn't throw very well. They said they intimidated you? They said we think we intimidated the kid. It was on my second year in the league. It was only like my fourth start in the league. So I said, okay, well I filed that away. I had no idea we were going to play in the third game of the season the next year. Both teams are undefeated. We won our first two games going in and we go to Dallas. Atlanta had never beaten Dallas in Dallas before. And we won a classic game, 37-35. We made a couple plays late in the football game to win. Mick Luckers kicked the game winner a little bit like Young Waikoo did this last weekend. And we won the football game. And we left there with our chest stuck out and all that kind of stuff. But I just remembered, you always think about bulletin board material, right? Does it really exist? I never forgot that they had said that they had intimidated me and I could not wait to play against them the next year. And we went in and got a W. So you got to kind of go in when you play on the road. You guys, we've all played in games on the road. We all won games on the road. You got to go in a little bit of chip on your shoulder, circle the wagons mentality. This team seems to have a little bit of a bunker mentality about them that they kind of dig doing that. And I like that. I like that they've got it. Now we got to get it figured out here when it's all of us in the same building. We're all Falcon fans. But on the road I like their mentality. Make no mistake though this Dallas team, they just kept knocked off by Denver kind of got surprised. Dak Prescott didn't play well. They're going to be ready to play. This is not going to be a surprise if Atlanta wins the game. Dave, let me tee you back up on something that I've thought about. I know Falcons fans. I know the players across the street again. They've got a familiar matchup this week. Dan Quinn, defensive coordinator for the Cowboys is going to be going up against Matt Ryan, a guy that he coached for a number of years. Do you feel like that favors one matchup or either side of the fact that Dan Quinn knows Matt Ryan some of these players so well or do you feel like it's just going to be business as usual? I think there's a little bit of a probably a little bit of bonus on both sides. I mean Ryan understands what Quinn wants to do defensively and Quinn his defense ebbed significantly from the time he first got here as a cover three rush four guy to essentially bring in kind of like what we're doing now bringing more pressure playing some more man coverage and Ryan watched that evolution and saw that. And so he understands how to compete against his defense here in practice. But I also know that Dan Quinn knows the throws Ryan doesn't want to make. Yes. And can he force him into those throws and force him into a situation where he's uncomfortable. Dan will know that as well. So maybe that's in the wash. Right. You know but it still will be a factor. It'll still which which guy can impose his kind of his thoughts on the other one. And Q knows a personnel too. I mean sometimes we think about okay a guy knows a particular person like I just mentioned the particular throws maybe Matt doesn't want to make but he knows okay this guy and this protection really doesn't favor well when we bring this kind of blitz or you know this receiver he doesn't really run this type of route every time he's out. So there's going to be a little bit of cat mouths going back and forth but I think once the game gets going it's going to be how do you match it and how do you know play your style against them because at the end of the day he's not going to be thinking about that's Matt I know he likes to do this he's going to be worried about how to get his guys in the right spot. I'll tell you one thing that might play in though. Remember DeMonte KZ playing in the back end of that defense and Keanu Niels playing in the second level. So if there's a player to player scenario Ryan knows those guys extremely well what did I beat those guys on maybe in some one-on-one stuff here in practice that stuff will resonate as well if potentially those matchups come together. Definitely some familiarity I think you make a great point DJ you know Dan Quinn around here when some of these offensive linemen were drafted and maybe he knows from watching in practice that maybe it's a footwork maybe it's going left versus going right and that's can help him in his play calling maybe he brings one extra to a certain side that he feels like there's a weakness on the offensive line so those are some of the cat and mouse things that go on in a matchup like this. I want to go back to you guys real quick on this game just give me one key on you think DJ I'm going to start with you and I'm going to play for ten seconds to give you a chance to think about it. One key that is going to be important for Atlanta going on the road we talked about him being tough going on the road that they're going to need to do in this game to give themselves a best chance to win it could be offense defense or special team. I'm going to deep inside a ball and talk about the obviously being aware of what Dak is because you just mentioned it didn't play his best ball game last week he's going to be salivating to get back and play at a higher level and something that has hurt the Falcons throughout this season is guys who can create once they get outside the pocket we've seen Jaylen Hurts in game one we saw Tyler Heinecky practically bring his team back and win that ball game with the way he moved around so they're going to be situation in this ball game where you have to have eyes on four and if you don't know where he's at or how he's going to improvise or how you stick to a guy on the back end that can hurt you and that's a big part of this ball game is his extension of plays and if they allow that it will be a long day. I will tell you this guys not to digress or anything but I always thought Dak Prescott was a great college quarterback I did not see this I did not see him turning into this type of NFL quarterback so credit to him and the work that he's put in Dave key for you what sticks out to you is most important for Atlanta well we're going to score points this weekend guys I think that Dallas is going to put some points on the board I think it's their offense is going to play much cleaner Dak had been on the bench for three weeks so he looked rusty made some throws that you normally see him make pretty easily didn't make them very well give Denver credit for for being on coverage and being able snuff out the run because Dallas was not able to run it they'll be a better version of themselves this weekend Dak will be a better version of himself so I think that Atlanta is going to have to score points so offensively you're going to have to operate extremely sharp you can bet that Quinn is going to try to take the run away Denver ran for a hundred and ninety yards in the game against them there that's like getting beat over the head you do not want to physically give up that kind of run game they're going to crowd the run I would think early in the football game play action is a major operation for you had success with it I think Ryan was seven of eleven on play action this last weekend for over a hundred yards I think you'll see more of that this weekend on first down take advantage of those opportunities one last big stat that I remember from this last ball game was the Falcons had four plays of thirty plus yards something that this offense was lacking for a while explosive players have now been added to it and that's something that I know DQ and that Dallas cowboy team will be looking forward to and say hey we can't allow that yeah gotta gotta find a way to slip free get behind the defense whatever ends up being so I think it's great insight from you guys as always DJ great to have you back in the studio always great to be back man so hopefully we can continue this momentum a serious victory a Falcons victory and hopefully Atlanta Falcons victory on the road arch always great from you and I just wanted to remind everybody that he was not intimidated my dude don't get intimidated never intimidated that was not it my dog don't get intimidated he's played crappy you said I just played bad you guys didn't intimidate me that could happen I think at least it did for me that's going to wrap it up here on the Falcons audible presented by AT&T once again thanks so much for watching on atlantafalcons.com, YouTube, Spotify and iTunes wherever you get your podcast we thank you so much for joining us we'll be back right here next week to recap against Dallas Cowboys and for all three of us and all those people across the street hopefully it's a victory because there's a lot of bees going on thanks so much for joining us everybody