Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
What's up, everybody, and welcome to another edition of the
Falcons Final Whistle podcast. My name is Scott Barret. I'm
here with Tory mcelhaney and Ashton Edmonds and Falcons Final
Whistle has resumed its status as a postgame podcast. We
are coming to you after a difficult loss for the
Atlanta Falcons. The New Orleans Saints won twenty seven to
twenty six. It was a nail biter. It was a
(00:29):
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, sixteen
point lead in the fourth quarter, And we're going to
get into that a little bit and then really try
(00:49):
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 and 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 going to hear about over the next twenty ish
(01:12):
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 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
(01:33):
Jameis Winston and the Saints skill players do in terms
of stringing explosive place together. After the game, I really
looked at those explosive plays because at the end of
the day, in the first three quarters, Jamis Winston had
less than sixty passing guards. In the fourth quarter alone,
it was over two hundred. Oh my gosh, that's crazy.
(01:56):
That number to me is wild. And then you break
get down even further and I was looking at, Okay,
how many plays did they have over fifteen yards a pop? Seven?
That's seven over fifteen yards a pop. Four of those
over two hundred yards that Jami Winston through four one
hundred and seventy four came off of those seven plays alone.
(02:17):
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 in the class that we saw in
(02:38):
the fourth quarter. 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 one eighty in the fourth quarter, it's
(03:01):
really a hard field to swallows. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
I definitely agree. I feel like, um, the Falcon secondary
did a great job at containing players like Jarvis Landry,
players like Michael Thomas in the first three quarters, but
you know, like Tory said, they came alive in the
fourth quarter. Um Jamis Swinston found them deep feel, you know,
in open pockets, and I feel like that's what really
(03:21):
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, um 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
(03:44):
the place. And you know, once Jamis Swinston 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 look 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
(04:06):
running game was pretty good, to the tune of two
hundred plus rushing yards. Cordio Patterson was running very hard,
Marcus Mariota was moving with the football. There were a
lot of good things to like, and with a couple
of minutes left, they really had an opportunity to just
not give the Saints the ball back. And too often
we saw young Waku, who is who is as reliable
(04:27):
as anyone, but he was kicking too many field goals,
too many long field goals. You're talking two field goals
that were it was what fifty yards and then fifty
four yards. That's that's tough because 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
(04:48):
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 and the first three quarters.
I mentioned the rushing yards. I was impressed not only
with the total, but how they were able to run.
(05:10):
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, which is 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
twenty twenty, and every time that we saw a game
(05:31):
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 two 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
(05:55):
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 onto anything in terms of hope, in
terms of progress, that is what I think you hold onto,
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
(06:16):
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 Marcus Mariota really kind of like was an example
of how good things were and how things kind of
(06:39):
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 botched 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
(07:00):
is 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 Jared in the middle man. I think
the communication was there. M Jared of course led the
(07:21):
pass rush, but they were all on one of court.
They all they all were buying in and you saw
eby Katie, you saw Jared, you saw Michael Walker, you
saw all of those guys like just firing get the ball,
making sacks, making plays, And I think, like I said,
just the communication was there between that that front line.
You can sell that they've been working on that over
(07:42):
the course of training camp. That's been like a main
focus for them, and you can sell that Grady he's
been adamant about, you know, just menstoring 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 else. Add For a team that
only had seventeen sacks in two twenty one to come
out in the first half and have four, yeah, that
(08:04):
is a stark difference from what we saw this team do,
this defensive line do in all of twenty twenty one.
And I really think that the difference was was they
were getting after Jameis 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,
(08:28):
they speed up the tempo. Jameis Winston is able to
hit a couple of guys for ten fifteen twenty yards,
starts getting the ball out of his hands a lot quicker,
find some open guys. That's the difference. If you're talking defensively,
they weren't having that. They didn't have the time to
get to Jameis Winston in the same way that they
(08:48):
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 Olive were getting
open really fast, treating separation quickly. And it's crazy to
say because 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
(09:10):
I mean, there's no bones about it. It's 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.
(09:32):
I think that's a trademark of an Arthur Smith football team.
And they're going to have to turn the corner quickly.
I talked to a bunch of different people in the
open locker room period, Rashaun Evans, Jake Matthews, Grady Jarrett,
from the apodium, Patterson all kind of said the same thing.
Don't let this define us. I thought Jake Matthews said
(09:53):
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
(10:13):
move forward, if they can really do the old twenty
four hour rule, that's going to be key because the
Rams are good and the Seahawks are far away, and
you never know what could happen up there, so they
do need to turn the page quickly. I think Ashton
you you wrote a story on number eight overall NFL
draft pick, Drake London had his NFL debut today. What
(10:35):
did he say postgame 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
(10:56):
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 him proved today. You know,
he came out and did his Thingum. He led all
Falcons receivers. You know, he led the whole corps with
seventy four yards and I think, you know that is
going to translate well moving forward in the season. One
(11:20):
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
(11:40):
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
and 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
(12:02):
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
(12:23):
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. Um, and
I think if if he can get back to one,
(12:43):
he's an explosive, impactful player. Yeah, this is that's the
thing is like, this may not have been one hundred
percent Drake London. Yes, I agree, And that's something that
like when I when we were talking to him after
the game, that was something that I really hung onto.
It's like, Okay, that's if that Drake Glendon, what does
one percent, Drake Glendon look like right, yeah, and I
(13:05):
thought there were lots of encouraging signs. Look, the Falcons
are gonna be able to move the football. Yeah, they
just will. It's 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,
and one I'm sure the Falcons don't, especially when they
(13:27):
really had firm control over the course of three quarters.
But 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 and 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.
(13:47):
We're gonna go ahead and wrap it up right here,
head home on our respective drives away from Mercedes ben Stadium.
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