December 31, 2025 • 50 mins
Derek Rackley and Dave Archer recap the Atlanta Falcons' 27-24 win over the playoff-bound LA Rams on Monday Night Football. From Atlanta's impressive defensive performance to Bijan Robinson's show-stopping greatness, they break down everything that led to Atlanta being able to hold off the Rams' comeback. Then they turn the page to a Week 18 finale vs the rival Saints and what a win could mean for the future of the franchise.
0:00 - Intro
2:05 - Instant Reaction
8:02 - Anatomy of a comeback
12:15 - Impressive defensive performance
18:50 - Bijan Robinson is SPECIAL
27:30 - Setting the stage for Week 18
32:20 - Gameplanning for New Orleans
38:00 - Building for the future
45:30 - Putting it all together
48:00 - Outro
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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into he is like littreat.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, you guy can get chills a little bit thinking
about what these two guys can do in.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Falcons Audible presented by AT and T is back and
yes we are light one pair, but there is a
reason behind it, folks. And if you've been a regular
viewer over the past few years, you've known that when
we get to this time of the year, shock usually
departs us because Georgia is playing in a bowl, well
a college football playoff. So uh, DJ Shockley's not gonna
(01:02):
be here with us this week. He is already down
in New Orleans with the Georgia Bulldogs getting ready for
their college football playoff matchup. Whenever you are taking this
podcast in so Dave Archer and myself Derek Rackley will
be holding it down here for the Falcons audible this week.
So normally you get three, this week you get two.
Our lucks of dogs. By the way, yes, good luck
(01:22):
to the dogs and DJ. If you're watching, feel free
to chime in. Okay, No, we're not gonna be.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Able to get it. We'll get a critique. We'll get
a CRI from here at some point.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
We will talk a couple of things later in the show.
We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna guess what shocks keys
to the game for this weekend might be me and
me and Arch. We'll go through that exercise. All right,
primetime matchup, final primetime matchup of the season is done.
Atlanta finishes four and one in primetime matchups this year.
I think everybody would say, well, Atlanta just needs to
(01:53):
play on primetime. Well, guess what that is out of
the Atlanta Falcons control and very much in the control
of the National Football League. However, twenty seven twenty four
win over the Rams. Arch good question here at the
top of our rundown was what was your instant reaction
to Monday Night's win.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, I felt like there was some validation I guess
is the word that would pop into my mind. That
we've talked about it all year long, You and I
and Shock have talked about it's a good football team.
They kind of get in their own way sometimes, whether
it's coaching or whether it's players. I think that all
have been culpable and some of the games they haven't won,
(02:34):
but it validated this was a team in the La Rams.
We discussed last week on this podcast, and I tried
to remind people throughout the week, and I was being
told by people throughout the week the Rams have a
real chance to win the whole thing. And so here
you are, playing late in the season when we keep
getting told and players, we don't ever buy any this,
(02:56):
but we keep getting told these games don't mean anything.
You're playing against the team that a lot of people
like and kind of fancy to win the whole thing. Well,
let's go test ourselves. Let's go throw ourselves against the
rock and see how we do. YEA guess what. We
broke the rock right, And I thought that was really cool,
the way the guys stood up, prepared and went in
(03:16):
and played. And I think that that's the part kind
I got kind of a warm feeling thinking about that
and what were your thoughts on how it went?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
You know, it seems like, you know, I do a
lot of work with Westwood One. So when I end
up going and I meet up with my Westwood One
colleagues on the weekend, and they start asking me like, Hey,
how's everything been going. What you've been up to this,
that and the other, And I'm like, yeah, you know,
I'm doing my stuff with the Falcons on the weekend.
So it immediately brings up a conversation about the Falcons
and everybody that I talk with from a more national perspective.
(03:45):
Arch says that that's a really talented team, Like they've
got some really good players on that team, and I
think everybody, not just them, but I would say, and
then national scope of things would probably agree, haven't been
able to put it all together right, talented team hasn't
really been able to put the pieces together yet. So
when we go to the Monday night football game, the
(04:06):
thing that I wrote down as far as what my
instant reaction was impressive but vintage. And what I mean
by that is Arch at halftime, when DJ came down,
We're about to do our halftime show, We're up twenty
one to nothing at the time. This was right before
we went on for halftime, and I said, shock, just
so you know, this game is far from over. Oh,
no question, this game is far from over. I said,
(04:28):
they'd better be ready to compete for thirty more minutes
here in the second half. And then what happens in
the third quarter. All of a sudden, you snap your
fingers and this game turns around and it gets real tight. Right,
So that's what I mean. That's vintage NFL, NFL period.
But when you're playing one of the better teams in
the NFL, the game is never over, especially with that
type of offense. You talk about one or two drives,
(04:49):
a special team's mistake, and all of a sudden, everybody's
starting to clinch a little bit because what looked like
a comfortable situation at the time started to get real tight,
real quick. To me, that's the National Football League. But
you've got pros all over the place, you guys, you
have guys that are prideful, and to anybody out there,
it's kind of funny. We had a pre meeting for
(05:11):
our pregame show. We were talking about draft positioning, right,
just so everybody knows. Current players don't give a rip
about the draft pick. Like they don't they don't ever
walk into you know, if we lose this game, we
get a better draft pick. Nobody ever talks about that, right,
Like they're all pros, Like your job is to go
win football games. So in one last comment, I'm gonna
(05:35):
turn it back to you. One of my my buddies,
that's our Sunday Night guy for Westwood On. He texts
me during the game while I'm sitting there watching the game,
and he says, who's the team in the black tonight? Right?
And I think everybody was probably in that same category,
Like where was this the entire season against that level
of opponent.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I think that it's always been there and we've
seen glimpse of it throughout and you talked about it,
how there's been, you know, this misfunction or lack of
efficiency in certain areas. But it's been there in every game.
I think we've seen it in every game. It just
hasn't manifested itself into finding ways to win. We went
(06:14):
into this game having played in eight to one score games.
We'd won three of them. Okay, you flip two of
those around, you're winning the division. I mean, that's how
close it is. This Rams team had played at eight
one score games, they'd won four of them. They'd won
one more than us. So now as you go into
week eighteen or whatever it is, into the seventeenth game
(06:35):
of the season this weekend, as we take on the Saints,
we've played in nine one score games. We've won four.
The Rams have played in nine one score games, they've
won four. They're eleven or they're eleven and five and
going to go to the playoffs. You know, we're fighting
to go to eight and nine and going to be
out of the playoffs. That's going back to what you
said originally. That's how close this thing is, these two
(06:58):
teams going in. Just do the math. Now, these two
teams now have played what thirty two games, the two
games that played on Sunday evening or Monday night, thirty
two games. Eighteen of the thirty two games have been
one score games. You have to win the majority of
those to go in. And you can go look down
the line. The Rams might be the aberration there that
(07:21):
they're sub five hundred and one score games. Go and
look at you know, Seattle, and go look at these
different teams that have played, you will find that the ledger,
they're higher on the one score game win total than
they are the losers. And that's what this what this
league is about. So getting back to your original point
about the whole game, and it was never over until
(07:44):
the final gun went off. I wish you and I
you and I would have been facing different directions saying
the same thing to different groups because I said, get ready,
because you're this is a heavyweight fight. And they got
knocked down a couple of times in the in the
early part of this fight. Yet ready, they're gonna They're
gonna come back. And people ask me all the time,
I'd be interested to hear what your thought is on
(08:05):
this rack. They talk about basketball games where team jumps
out to a big start and here comes the other
team back, and the same thing happens in football, and
we see it in the NFL a great deal. We
see it in college football some as well, but not
so much. It's more even in the NFL. What is
it allows a team to come back and some of
the inhibitions you have early in a game, or your
(08:27):
lack of aggressiveness, if you will in a game, relaxes
a little bit. When you get down. Now you start
throwing caution to the wind a little bit, you change
tempo a little bit. The other team is human too,
They naturally pull back a little bit, even though you say, oh, no,
we're not trying to play we're trying to play a
lou But you do that aggressiveness to go forward in
(08:49):
this situation or to throw it on that situation. You
kind of say, Now, a typical example might have been
and I don't know, I wasn't in the mind of
Zach Robinson or Raheem Morris' fourteen points. And you're in
the middle of the third quarter, you just had a
nice drive and it's third and two. You try to
run taller algery gets stoned for a no game or
(09:10):
one yard loss, and you settle for a field goal.
I was saying, pre snap, let's put the ball in
Cousin's hands. Let's let cousins try to trust cousins to
make a play here, get a first down. Because you
score a touchdown, you probably win the football game right there. Now,
the field goal might have done it anyway, but you
kind of settled. So, getting back to my original point,
(09:33):
you kind of pulled back on that aggressiveness. They weren't
They realize we got to throw cautions the way, We
got to do whatever we can. Verse makes the play,
and now all of a sudden, not being a seventeen
point game, it's a ten point play. It's a seven
point game. And as you talked about, everybody's booty starts
to tighten up a little bit, right, And so that's
(09:53):
the human piece to it. When you see teams storm
back like that, are what, why does that happen? In
your mind? Or we on the same page?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Kind of absolutely because and the difference too, is in
the NFL you're gonna get with quarterbacks and specifically in
this game, a game with Matthew Stafford where okay, two
things happen. You get behind what is that? Now that's
a license to put the ball in the air. And
you got the front runner for the MVP that had
coming into the game, by the way, had thrown five
(10:23):
hundred and nineteen passes and had just five interceptions. Okay,
so you got a guy coming into the game with
utmost confidence, arguably the best wide receiver in the National
Football League. And guess what, we got to put the
ball through the air now because we're playing catch up.
That to me is why in the NFL it gets
really dangerous. And when I was playing Arch, you were
calling the games. We were still playing against Peyton Manning,
(10:47):
we were playing against Tom Brady, we were playing against
Brett Farv and then it was Aaron Rodgers. In every
single one of those games. If we got to the
position to where we were up, I would always tell myself,
this game ain over until there's zeros on the clock.
I'll never forget playing Peyton Manning one time we were
up on them when he was with the Colts, and
I'm on the sidelines and I'm telling myself this game
(11:08):
is over, and tell there's zeros on the clock. Because
those guys can just make magic like they can make magic.
And there are still players like that in the NFL
right now. I would say Matthew Stafford's in that category.
I would say Patrick Mahomes is in that category in
their prime. I would say Josh Allen is in that category.
There's other guys that are getting there. Drake may might
be the next guy that's going to get into that category.
(11:28):
But because they are so talented, because they have weapons,
and there are some really really talented play callers out
here in the National Football League, and Sean McVay is
one of them. That's why all these things stacking up.
I'm like, this game is not over. And then all
of a sudden you see a block field goal for
a touchdown and I'm like, there you go, yeah, like
you just need these one play that's just massive momentum
(11:51):
swinging plays.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
And then it's like, uh, oh okay, By the way,
it was good for you to leave out the one
guy I knew you had in your mind that you
didn't mention because we do the Saints this weekend. You
had to play against Drew Brees and he might have
been one of the best that there was about coming
back if he was even down. Do a lot of
times he wasn't down. But no doubt, no question about it.
You got you played against some of the greats in
the game that the game was never over, no question.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So let's talk a little bit about how they were
able to get this done because we mentioned the interceptions,
and how about how this defense played arch I mean,
Jesse Bates, and I don't want to sit here and
say it was a quiet year, but what he was
kind of loud his first couple of years with the Falcons,
right and it And not to say that this has
been a quiet year for him. He's still been one
of the most productive guys. But the way that he
(12:35):
that play ends up unfolding right, comes down close to
the line of scrimmage, gives a look like they're going
to all out blitz. He ends up popping back out
to the middle of the field. Then the entire time
he's just playing center field back there and he's just
reading Matthew Stafford and he sees that football come out
and he's like, oh, that ball's getting overthrown, right, And
the ball just goes right in his hands and takes
(12:55):
it all the way back. So not only him, but
then Xavier Watts with two in this game, right, Like
when you're playing against a quarterback that's in the front
runner for the MVP race who had only thrown five
picks coming into the game and they pick them off
three times, Like how huge was that in this game?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, And it's ironic that you bring up Jesse Bates
because I talked about Jesse Bates last week because I'd
had a chance to visit with Jesse and how people
perceive it to be in a quiet year for him.
He's closing in on one hundred tackles again for the
third consecutive season. The interception you're talking about was his
(13:32):
twenty seventh is career. It's his fourth he taken back
for touchdowns. The interception to the piece of it, And
you talked about defense and how the defense played it
was the back end really did a good job of
servicing some of the pressure that was applied. Thought that
they did a really good job of not having to
blitzeim a ton because you were concerned. You talked about
(13:55):
some of the numbers for Stafford a week ago, and
I don't care what covered you throw at and what,
but if you come after him, you make yourself extremely vulnerable.
He's very good against that. So with the pressure in
the front four, which he had to kind of dice
through on that particular play, kind of sidestep and pressure
to his left, didn't quite get his feet set air
(14:15):
mails it. Jesse makes the play then gets it in.
But Jesse's conversation with me about Xavier Watts and how
they kind of are like minded, although there may be
not quite from different eras, but certainly he got a
veteran player and he got a young player, and how
he's they've kind of nurtured one another really, but how
(14:36):
Jesse has been a leader for him. He said, they're
very similar in the way they think about the game,
and you can see it. Watts has the ability to
kind of perceive what you're doing, like he jumps the
underneath ro out for the interception, his range to go
get the other one deep in territory. Now, you got
to beat a couple times, but you know, hey, you're
(14:58):
a young player and you're still learning what can I
get away with? What can I get away with? What
do I need to do to make sure I don't
get beat on a slot fade? But his ability to
kind of mirror his big brother, so to speak, and
Jesse Bates. I thought those two guys played arguably their
best football game together this season, and they've had some
really good ones. Those are two guys that both have
(15:19):
over eighty tackles on the year, and both of them
now are three plus interceptions and now Xavier Watts has
broken the record for a rookie interception. So just an
incredible season for the young guy from.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Notre Dame fifteen interceptions on the season now for the Falcons,
eight of them have come from Baits and Watson. As
you mentioned, Xavier Watts first Falcons rookie to have five
interceptions in a season since Dion Sanders. By the way,
that's thirty six years. If my math does meet.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Right, by the way, the pressure piece of it, which
is a part of this and speeding up Stafford's thought process,
I thought that that happened a lot. I thought they
were made a really good job in the back end.
They were extremely prepared. How many times did you see
rack where Stafford had step up. They'd line up and
all of a sudden you see Stafford start changing stuff,
(16:04):
and then you looked over and Kate Nellison, Divine, Diablo
and Jesse are changing things in the back end. The
chess game in this game, I thought was even more
so than most football games. I thought the communication on
both sides was impeccable and then being able to match
Because we play a ton we play a lot of
man coverage. We come after people a lot, but a
(16:24):
lot of times we play match coverage in the back end,
which means is a zone start and then they'll jump
guys late in the routes, whereas an over route there'll
be a guy waiting on him to take him man coverage.
It's some of the nuances that Brick has in his
system and that Jerry Gray have in their system in
the back end. I thought they were impeccable with some
of that. Now, we missed some guys late in the game.
(16:46):
There was a couple of guys that doing that kind
of stuff makes you vulnerable. He got a couple guys clean,
and Stafford missed a couple of guys. But all that
being said, I thought it was an incredible performance by
the entire defense front to back. They sackeding three times.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
He came in with the second least sacked quarterback in
the National Football League, got him on the ground three times.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Brandon Dorles one of those to get a sack in
the game, and that puts him along with James Pierce
Junior at eight and a half sacks for the season.
Its first time that Falcons have had two players that
have had eight and a half sacks or more since
two thousand and four. I was on that team, Patrick
Kearney and Rod Coleman the last time that happened for
the Atlanta Falcons. We talked so much about James Pierce,
(17:28):
especially recently because he had that streak of getting sacks,
but Brandon Dorles has kind of been there all season long.
And I talked about this during pregame show just because
of what Cleveland did the previous week. They had moved
above Atlanta. But with the three sacks, Falcons second in
the National Football League, behind only the Denver Broncos. Right
now second in the National Football League. Think about that.
(17:49):
Where this team was last year with just thirty one sacks,
they're now the second best team in the National Football League.
That's quite an improvement.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And just two away from the record was set in
ninety seven and Travis Hall was on that team. We
talk about defensive tackles, you know, Brandon Dorles, and we
don't know at this point about Brandon's injury, and obviously
it didn't look very good. And MRIs are gonna be
done this week. And I'm sure Raheem Morris will make
an announcement whenever you see this. You may he may
have made this announcement by the time you see this podcast,
(18:19):
because we're recording this on a Wednesday, on New Year's Eve,
but hoping crossing our fingers at Brandon's. It's his spraining
or something. But it didn't look great. But Dorles was
We're going in that rarefied air. You mentioned your guy
Rod Coleman eleven and a half and oh four, ten
and a half and o five, Travis Hall ten and
a half in ninety seven. That's kind of the realm
(18:40):
that Dorles was creeping into. So he just a monster year.
Good good to bring him up.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
So Arch we have gone for a little over eighteen
minutes and we have not mentioned Bejon Robinson's thing one time, Like,
how does that work? Right? The type of right you know.
So let's go ahead and talk about him as I
mentioned that last week and weeks before, Like you could
just go down the gamut of the accomplishments that this
(19:06):
young man has done. But I'm going to start by
saying just in this game alone, became the Falcons all
time leader in scrimmage yards in the season. That's a
forty two year record that has stood since nineteen eighty three.
William Andrews held that record. It's now held by one
guy named John Robinson. And what he did this season
longest run from scrimmage and Falcons history happened last Monday night.
(19:31):
Ninety three yard touchdown. I don't think each and every
week people truly well, maybe they do truly appreciate how
good he is and how easy he makes things look
arch that are tremendously difficult, tremendously difficult. His move to
(19:51):
make the player miss in the hole for the ninety
three yard I believe it was was unreal. He had
two or three other runs that should have been two
or three yard losses that he turned into seven yard gains,
longer gains than that. He makes things look so much
it's to me like some of the best quarterbacks that
(20:11):
have played the game, the best quarterbacks that have played
the game, in my opinion, Arch make it look super
easy when it is tremendously difficult. And that's what Jon
Robinson is doing. To me.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
He's brilliant. He's there. You think about geniuses in different
walks of life, where it's a scientific genius that just
knows math problems. You look at that and you think, wow,
I don't even understand that language. But they walk up
and they solve it for you. Actors that just have
this natural ability to make you laugh, like a Robin Williams,
(20:43):
God rest his soul. Guys that just could come with
stuff off the top of their head. That's what you're
experiencing with Bijon Robinson. This guy is on another level
from a genius standpoint in doing his job.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Like I was thinking, artist Arch, Yeah, it's like he's
painting something miraculous no nobody else can do. Completely agree
with you. Yeah, you think, wow, how did I didn't see?
How did that come together?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
That's beautiful? You know, how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know? He does that and in just the ninety
three yard run like you're talking about, he's got a
defender that's clean in the hole two yards deep in
the backfield, and it's his eyes are He's not even
looking at this dude. He's already talking thinking about that
second third level because it's boom booming. That guy's.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Was the chance.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I don't know, if you go back and it's like
he goes into some kind of trance or something like
that where you ask him about how'd you make that
guy miss? What was there? Gather? I adin't see him
because his mind is working at such a different in
a different place, and his body matches physically, he matches
(21:58):
his mind to be able to see it. You know,
I made the analogy a couple of weeks ago about
think about yourself trying to if you've ever gone to
a subway, whether you're in New York or wherever, or
here in Atlanta with Marta and there's it's rush hour
and there's people spilling off the train and you're trying
to get by people to get on. Maybe you're at
the maybe you're at the airport and you're trying to
(22:20):
get on the plane. Train you and you know you're
you're in the B gates. I need to get the seagate.
My plane is getting ready to leave, and there's people
spilling off. He making people miss to get on the train.
That's who he is. It's it's amazing his ability to
make people miss. But now you're you're exactly right, racket.
There's a brilliance to what he's doing. Take advantage of it,
(22:44):
Falcon Fans, because you are seeing and I've mentioned it
a number of times, whether it's on interviews on the
radio here, We've talked about it on our podcast. You've
mentioned it as well. Rack you're seeing one of the
potentially not potentially one of the great football players of
his time, weaving his magic and he's on your team.
And yes, we want to get him into the playoffs,
(23:06):
and we'd like to see him on the grandest stage
in the super Bowl, and hopefully we can do that
here in the next year or so. But you're witnessing
one of the great players INFL history. The only player
I can think of that even is that Bijan is
creeping into I've mentioned to him before, the best running
(23:27):
back I've ever seen in my life was Walter Payton,
and that's because he could do everything. That's what this
guy is. He can do everything. You know, we talk
about him catching the football, making people miss speed, power,
run through guys. Watch him pick up blitzes in this game.
They came with pressures, but Jean Robinson steps up. He's
your number one back. He's the leader in yards from
(23:48):
scrimmage in the National Football League. He's shortening guys necks
that are coming on blitzes to protect his quarterback. That's
what Walter Payton was. Go back and throw Sweetness's film on.
That's who this guy is. And it's just I mean,
I get chills, save down your back. You and I
are we kind of get kind of giggly and goofy
think talking about this guy, and then you throw in
(24:10):
the fact that he's one of the one of the
best human beings ever met. I mean, I get a
chance to be around him, probably more than I should.
But he is such a gracious, team oriented dude. Enjoyed Atlanta.
You got one of the greats.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Listen. I said this to myself. I think I might
have said it to the guys that were in the
control room when I was doing the game on Monday night,
and I said, this guy better get a new contract
like pronto, because guess what, thirty one other other NFL
teams are going to be in line.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
No, he ain't getting out of here.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I'm telling you right now, like every single team in
the national footing is ready to open up their check books.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I saw mister Blank out here, big truck. He was
backing it up himself.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
You know they truck breaks trucks. He ain't getting out
of here. Listen, you you said it eloquently. Arch. You
just you can't find a better package. In my opinion,
you can't find what he does, or shall I say
what he can't do, combine with the person that he is.
You just can't find him. And I think everybody is
(25:09):
now understanding why the Falcons drafted him in the first
round the year after they had a thousand yard rusher,
because they saw all of that. They sat down with
him as a person, and they saw who he was
off the field, and they saw the magic that he
could make on the field. And Guys, he's doing more
in the NFL than he did in college, because I
(25:30):
called a couple of games in college, and he was
pretty darn good in college. Do any of that stuff
that he's doing with the Atlanta Falcons.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Sitting there going, damn, what did I miss?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Why did I what did.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I give it to? The other game?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And you mentioned Walter Payton. Listen, I mean the other
accomplishment that he ended up getting on Monday night is
he now has the most scrimmage yards by a player
under the age of twenty four in NFL history. The
two guys that he passed on Monday night, Barry sand
You get in the conversation with Barry Sanders, I don't
care what it is we just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
And Barry Sanders and you're gonna mention another guy that's
probably he's still playing and he is the closest thing
to John Robinson right now as far as what he
can do or to your point, arch what he cannot do.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And now Jon Robinson sits atop that list, how many
other lists is he going to sit a top before
it's all set?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
It's like going when you go to your refrigerator, you
know there's milk in the refrigerator.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Should be okay, Well maybe maybe at the Racy Rackley's
responsible for that if he's not heavy, but no, it's
one of those deals where you expect, Okay, when I
go to the utensil drawer, there's gonna be a knife
in there.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
There's gonna be a fork in there. Right. That's who
this guy is when you come to the game. This
is his fiftieth career game. He now has twenty seven
games of one hundred plus yards from scrimmage. That's like
going to the utensil drawer and saying, yeah, I know
where the knives are. When I bring Brejon Robinson to
the game, I know I'm getting one hundred yards in
some capacity out of the guy.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
So I know.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
We sprinkled a lot of sugar on net and hopefully
you guys have enjoyed that because he's he's all of
that in a bag of donuts.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'm telling you, five games this year alone with one
hundred and seventy five scrimmage yards. That's three more than
any other player in the league this year, three more
games than any other player with one hundred and seventy
five yards or more scrimmage yards. So that kind of
sums up twenty seven to twenty four. Big time win
for the Falcons over one of the best teams in
the National Football League on Monday night in Week seventeen.
(27:34):
So let's let's turn a page and talk about Week
eighteen Arch, because unfortunately, there are fourteen teams that make
it to the postseason. There are eighteen teams that are frustrated.
Either they just missed out, either they had a disaster
of a season, or somewhere in between. But regardless, they
(27:54):
have fell short of their goal, which is to get
into the postseason tournament, to give yourself a chance. You
never know what's going to happen. Now, neither of these teams,
the Atlanta Falcons or the New Orleans Saints, are going
to be in. But oddly enough, this game has implications
to who does get into the NFC South which is
wild to think about when Atlanta was eliminated from postseason contention,
(28:17):
But now that they have gotten on this winning streak,
now it's not really gonna matter because the game is
going to be between Carolina and Tampa's going to be completed. However,
if Carolina loses that game and Atlanta wins, Carolina still
goes because of some weird tiebreakers that end up, so
the Atlanta's game still has some postseason ramifications, which is
(28:40):
a little wild, but even more wild arches you think
back and you're like, one victory over Carolina, Yeah, just
get one victory over at Carolina, and now look at
the different situation that we would be in right now.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, if you beat Carolina, you lost him in overtime here,
remember it's a thirty twenty seven loss. You can throw
away Week three because that was that was kind of
a disaster football game. But yeah, in the second game
here in Atlanta, you win, you lose thirty twenty seven,
You could even and I know the fan out there
(29:14):
and there there's a lot of sports talk here in
town that are not necessarily looking at the things that
we just talked about with John Robinson and all that
kind of stuff. There may may be more angst about
the fact that you did have a couple of games
on the hook that you could have won. I mean,
pick one even let's say you lose to Carolina twice.
(29:35):
Pick another game out the Colts, pick out the Patriots game,
the Jets game. I mean, you could go through a
list of games that if you got one of them, now,
all of a sudden, you win this weekend, there's a
chance you go ahead and win the division anyway, even
with the law. And think about on the other side too,
we're going to talk about the Saints. Saints are on
a four game winning streak now. Tyler Shuck, their quarterback,
(29:56):
has slid in, the young quarterback out of Louisville Young.
I say, he's bit like Pennis. Played a lot of
college football, but now he's playing at a high level.
And they've won four straight. He's playing a pretty good level.
And they beat Carolina, they beat Tampa. If they win
this game against Atlanta, they finished second in the division,
(30:17):
they're gonna be they're going to slide into that spot too.
So they're playing for a great deal from a pride
standpoint to So here's here's a class I don't know
if you were in these as Saint games Saint games,
but I played in a lot of these games where
we were eliminated from playoff contention, but it was the
Saints late in the year. These end up being rock
(30:37):
fights between these two teams because they don't like each other.
This is truly Bears Packers, you know, you can pick
one out, maybe Raven Steelers. There's a couple of rivalries
in the league that kind of go outside the realm
of National Football League stuff. And we're both in the South.
Came into the league one year apart from when our
(30:59):
Atlanta came in first, and then New Orleans came in
the next year. You kind of got shoved in the
NFC West, you were, you know, and so there's been
kind of that little brother big brother, or we deserve
this and you guys don't. And so there's a lot
of pettiness going on between the two. So there's a
lot on the line for this, even though you don't
have any playoffs stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Well, just think about it. Kind of does support the
point that I made earlier about players and coaches don't
really care about draft positioning. Go back four weeks ago,
the new Orleans Saints at the time were two and ten.
Don't you think if there was a care about whether
or not you wanted to get the highest draft pick possible,
that would have been the time for the Saints to
quote unquote tank their season and have an opportunity to
(31:40):
get the one or two or three overall pick. Well,
what have they done. They've won four straight games, and
they've done it with arguably their most dynamic player not
being in the lineup and Alvin Kamara and don't know
what his status is going to be against the Falcons
this weekend. But they're now six and ten, as you mentioned, Arch,
and four straight wins. Tyler Shuck has been over three
hundred yards passing each of the last two games, three
(32:03):
hundred and thirty three yards in a couple of touchdowns
last week, and not even having Kamara in the game,
and they're still finding ways to win football games. So, Arch,
I'm gonna ask you this, what can Atlanta kind of
go back to the first matchup and Harness and have
a better start to finish, because I think that's probably
(32:23):
been one of the biggest issues for Atlanta this year
is start to finish. Solid performance from the opening kick
to finishing the game hasn't quite always been there. What
can Atlanta take from that first game arch and improve
on to put a better performance out there this Sunday
at home.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, I think that you continue to want to take
away the two way go. We talked about the rams,
and can you take away Stafford's two way go. I
think you did that early in the game where you
took Kyron Williams and break Korum to a certain extent
out of the game where they weren't able to run
the football and they had to lean kind of on
their passing game, and so you built that twenty one
point lead. I think that in this game, if you
(33:01):
can kind of take that away. Now, Shuck has been
really good, as Rak has said, He's completing over this
four game stretch of wins, four consecutive wins. That's over
Tampa Carolina. Two teams are gonna play for the division,
the Jets and Tennessee. He's completed seventy two percent of
his passes and averaging about two hundred and sixty yards
(33:21):
per game through the air. He's only thrown one interception.
I think in those those two games, those four games,
he's got four touchdowns. He's run for a touchdown and
that might be the piece to it as well. In
the three games, he's run the ball twenty one times.
This is something he did in college. He was at Oregon,
he went to Texas Tech. Got kind of injured in
both places, more at Texas Tech than maybe Oregon, as
(33:43):
he started as a young guy at Oregon and then
went to Louisville and had a really good final year
at Louisville. His ability to run with the football is
kind of massed a little bit because he's a big
dude sixty three six four two hundred and forty pounds,
but he's run for over one hundred yards in the
last four games, so that'll be something that will have
to kind of corral. He had seven carries for twenty
two yards against Atlanta in that first game. That was
(34:05):
just his third start of his career. This guy has
blossomed a great deal over the last eight games since
he started. So I would think, okay, let's make them
don't give up the big play, which again that's plagued
Atlanta's defense a little bit. Rack you're doing such a
good job, and then the explosives, the rams, that's who
(34:25):
they are, but they had ten plays of fifteen yards
or more in the game. That's something you can't give
up to New Orleans. Don't help them out chuck through
the ball forty three times in the game. It's against
Atlanta for two hundred and forty three yards. So when
you factor that out, it's if you do the math
real quick, that's like six yards in attempt. That's where
you'd like to kind of keep it. If you let
(34:46):
him get into that seven eight yards at attempt. Now
all of a sudden, you're having some problems and they're
making some plays against you. So that's kind of what
I would lean into there. What are your thoughts on
how you kind of keep New Orleans from staying on
this train?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
They're on back to back challenges for the defensive backfield.
After the game against the Rams, Raheem Morris ends up
giving aj Terrella a game ball because of his performance,
most notably against Pukuinakua throughout the course of the game,
and Pukuinakua had his second worst yardage performance of his
season this year mostly due to Terrell and what this
defense was able to do to him. I reason why
(35:21):
I say that is Chris Olave is coming off to
of his best performances of his season. He's got three
one hundred yard games this year, and two of them
have come the last two weeks. They have been force
feeding him the football. He's a guy that we've known
about for a number of years, right.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, and I think he's heard us a couple of
times before, if a couple of times. Yeah, it's like
he's banged up every time we play him.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Twenty seven targets the last two weeks, eighteen receptions, So
they are they are force feeding him the football. So
this is how life is in the NFL. Right, you
get one challenges behind you, guess what, you better turn
the page because you got Christal Lave coming into town.
And I would imagine it's going to be similar story
for them, especially if we don't see an Alvin Kamara
in this game because of his versatility. So rise to
(36:02):
the challenge there, find a way to get takeaways. Last game,
Shuck did not throw a touchdown pass or they had
one interception. Beauzavier Watts ended up picking him off that game, right,
So we saw three last game. Are they able to
do that again? So those are some of the things
that come to mind. We mentioned the one most consistent force.
We talked about him a lot, but Jean Robinson, Like,
what has he got up his sleeve, you know, the
(36:23):
last week of the season, Like, what is he going
to show us this week that's different than every other week?
I don't know, but it's a surprise and it's a
pleasant one every single week that we see him on
the field.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, and they're going to throw the tape on it.
They're going to see be Jon Robinson making plays on
him in that game in mid season too, so Beijon
had a pretty good game against New Orleans. A couple
of numbers for you, real quickly. I don't want to
get lost in the menagerie of numbers, but this Saint
team has been really pretty good against the pass. They
only giving up one hundred and eighty yards through the air.
They've been one of the best teams in the league
(36:51):
on third down. Teams are converting at just thirty seven
percent or I'm sorry, thirty four percent on third down,
which is third best in the National Football League, and
they're getting the ball out. They've got nineteen takeaways on
the year, I think, nine interceptions, ten fumble force fumble
fumble recoveries, so they've been getting some takeaways in this
stretch where they've put the four games together. Schuck started
(37:12):
eight games. We mentioned he's won five of his eight games,
so there's a little bit of a changing of the
guard and changing of the feeling under Kellen Moore down there.
They've kind of been losing the last couple of seasons,
and all of a sudden they got this young quarterback
that they're feeling pretty good about, especially in the last
four weeks, like you talked about. So I think they're
coming in as a different football team, one because of
(37:33):
the quarterback and two because of the kind of the
feeling that's going on. And we're kind of feeling different
about ourselves as well. So just two sacks away we
got to get. We need three sacks. You set the
all time record, and I know it's you know, it's
like icing on maybe a pile over in the corner,
but it's still some stuff that you kind of begin
(37:55):
to build on and think about for next season.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
That's so that's great that you mentioned that, because that's
what I'm going to end up kind of combining here
in our last comment is going to be building First
of all, you have the rivalry matchup, right, Like, there's
enough to get excited for this game because of that. Right.
Then there's this thing about going into the off season
on a solid note, right, three game winning streak as
(38:17):
it stands right now, can you go into the offseason
with this positive note, right that you beat a rival,
that you had this winning streak going into the off season,
that you might have set the all time single season
sack record for the franchise that but Jehan Robinson's been
able to do. Give this team promise. Yes, there's going
to probably be some changes, There's gonna be some new personnel.
Whatever it ends up happening, we don't know that's in
(38:39):
the future. But I know this in my career is
that when you're out of the postseason, you want to
send yourself into the offseason on a positive note. So
let's get to some keys here and it's just the
two of us, But how does Atlanta do that? Get
the rivalry matchup, maybe get the sack record, go into
the off season, and on a positive note it ultimately
(38:59):
beat the Saints this weekend. What's one of the big
keys that goes through your mind?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, I think that the energy rack that you're talking
about is real. I think people say, wow, it doesn't
carry over from your year. Teams are different. That potentially
is a little bit more associated I think with college football.
I think that in the NFL because of personnel, if
you've got a fifty three man roster, a big turnover
in the roster would be twenty players, fifteen players. A
(39:25):
lot of times you get the same core of guys
coming back. And certainly this team has got a young
core of players that are going to come back. So
because they're a young team, and I'm gonna throw this
back at you, Yeah, how much did this does this
team because of eight years of inactivity in the playoffs
counting this season, and the core of those players has
(39:47):
not been here the eight years. You've got guys that
have come from winning programs. Jalen Walker, James Pearce Junior,
Jean Robinson, Drake Lennon, different guys have come from winning
organizations in college and realize and have kind of been
mired in this, you know, losing scenario. How much did
(40:07):
they need to kind of learn how to win at
this level? Is there is there is there anything to
that or is it that?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, absolutely, because you could make the same argument for
the Kansas City Chiefs, like what was the difference with them, Yes,
they had a really good quarterback. But what did Patrick
Mahomes do and Andy Reid when they turned things around
in Kansas City is they turned around the belief that
we are winners and we're gonna win every single year.
(40:36):
Now that's not the case this year with the Chiefs,
but that's everybody's mentality. Go back to the Patriots, Like
I always joke around about this, but like tell me
who Tom Brady's. Yes, he had some stints where he
had he had Rob Gromkowski, one of the greatest tight
ends ever played the game. He had Randy Moss for
a couple of a cup of coffee, Okay, but his
(40:58):
wide receiver corps thout the majority of his career was
Julian Edelman, Danny Amondola. Like he made these guys stars.
But more than that, the organization became to the point
to where the expectation was winning, Like that's all we know,
that's all that's accepted here, and we have a relentless
effort to do just that. Right. Yeah, everybody's gonna argue
(41:22):
with me and say they had Tom Brady. You're right,
they had Tom Brady. Who's to say that Atlanta Falcons
don't have John Robinson. He touches the football a lot.
Michael Pennix needs to turn into that player. But there
has to be that belief that not just we're getting
to the postseason, but like that's just the first step. Right.
Like the teams that are really good, like the Buffalo Bills, now,
(41:44):
their goal is not getting into the postseason. They've been there,
They do that every year. Their goal is to win
a Super Bowl. How do you change that tenor? That's
the tenor that has to be changed in this organization.
And to your point, it's a collective effort of the
players learning how to win, but then having such a
(42:04):
sour taste in their mouth with defeat that they don't
allow it to happen again, right, And they get themselves
to where they're an eleven and four team going into
Week seventeen and not where they were at right. So
you're right, it's a whole lot of shifting of the
brain in heart, if you will, And that's where this
organization has to get to.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
These the teams that play and we just talked about
one score games here early on in the in the podcast,
and so what allows you to win some of those games?
And some of it has to do with what you're
talking about most these teams, the difference between the team
that's going to pick first in the draft and the
team that wins it. You could put those teams on
(42:44):
the field and they could play pretty evenly with one another.
It's just it's weird how this league, the parody in
the league. So what is it that gets you over
the hump? It's expectation of you know, obviously doing the
work during the week, but the expectation level you go
in to the game with.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
I expect to.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Win and if things go wrong, I'm going to do
something well collectively with my teammates. So it's going to
change the tenor of the game. The Rams tried to
do that. They expected to win that football game the
other night. They're down twenty one, twenty one to nothing,
and they storm back in the game. They made some plays.
We fortunately made enough plays to win the football game.
(43:22):
But that's what it's about. But the mentality that you
get and I don't know, maybe we're brocking up the
wrong tree, but here, but to close out the season
with four straight wins, beating your division rival in Tampa,
beating your division rival with the Saints, beating a team
that could have a chance to win the football win.
The whole thing builds a momentum when you go into
(43:44):
the offseason because the bulk of these guys are going
to come back. Yes, there's a question market the key position,
the quarterback position. We don't know when Michael will be ready.
We don't know what Kirk's plans are, what the organization's
plans are for Kirk, and so we'll figure that out
the next month. But the core guys around him have
done a great job. And I'll point to the game
(44:06):
in Tampa. You're down fourteen points in the fourth quarter,
you come back to win the game. You're down ten
points early to a cardinal team. I know that's not
it's going to be picking in the top five, probably,
but they had you down in their building by ten points,
and we're pretty much dictating the way those game was
going to go. And you came back in that game
one finding way to win and win those games and
not saying, oh okay, well we've lost. We've lost five
(44:28):
in a row and we're down fourteen points to Tampa.
It's their building. They're going to go win the division. Yep,
that didn't happen. And so that's what Rack's talking about,
that turn of mentality a little bit that when you
show up on practice day on Wednesday, that now you're
preparing to expect to win, and I'm doing the work
to put that together. There's a lot of mental peace
to this fans, and I know the physicality that we
(44:51):
talked about with with what Jon Robinson brings to the
table or Brandon Dorles brings the table, is definitely pre
piece of the equation. But mentally going into the game
thinking I'm supposed to win this game and I'm gonna
do everything I can. If it goes sideways in the
game somewhere, which it inevitably will, I'm going to make
something happen to change that course and not say, oh man,
(45:12):
we're not going to get this one. And there is
something to that, because you just mentioned one of the
great organizations in this league, the Kansas City Chiefs, have
been doing that for the last decade. Didn't happen for
him this year, but hey, that's who they like.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
It arched like that relentless determination to win is what
you're looking for in this game. And mine's kind of
to a similar fashion. It was like, let's put it
all together, right, Like we saw a team on Monday
night that's got off to an extremely fast start, right,
got up twenty one points to a team that had
not happened to all season long. Right, but they finished.
(45:45):
But it looked a little clunky coming down the stretch.
But that's the other thing is finish and win a
turnover margin in sacks? Can we set that new record?
And can special teams be stronger? We've seen way too
many issues this year on special teams. There was a
field goal that was blocked and brought back for a
score this week. Can we put that all together? Can
you put everything together in the final performance of the
(46:08):
season to give everybody in this organization that glimmer of
hope is not necessarily the right phrase, arch because that's
like you're trying to grab onto something. That was just
like there was a lot of really good moments to
this season, but like put it all together where you
can say two weeks in a row, after a Rams
game and after a Saints game in Week eighteen, to
(46:29):
say that's two really good performances of a team that
I feel like has got the pieces to put things
together in twenty twenty six and to make some noise.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
Is that fair?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:39):
I think it's it's certainly fair. And I know the
fans sit there saying, well, wait a minute. You know
you guys are trying to your guys are again putting
sugar on that pile in the corner, and there's there's
there's certainly validity to some of that what you're saying,
But what you're trying to do is you're trying to
build that mentality that goes to win, and so there's
a building process that goes on. We talked about the
(47:00):
young players and all that kind of stuff, and what
Rack's talking about is exactly right. I know you don't
want to hear that. You want to say, well, who
do I blame because we didn't make the playoffs because
there was a thought that this team was a playoff
football team and not taking that off the table, this
team underachieved, if you will, So what do you do
with the back end of the season to make sure
(47:21):
that doesn't happen next year? Is there something you can do?
And I think they're trying to do that now. We
don't have any idea Rack and I don't have any
idea of sitting here right now, who's going to be
calling the shots or who's going to be throwing the
football or all that kind of stuff next year potentially
for the team. But we have a pretty good idea
that number seven is going to be here, number five
is going to be here. You know, James Pierce Junior
(47:41):
is gonna be coming off the edge. So some of
the guys that you've hung your hat on this year
are coming back next year, and they're trying to leave
a nice taste in their mouth so they can they
can build in the offseason.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Well, one thing that me and Arch do know is
that the Falcons have a Week eight team matchup at
one pm on Sunday, saying for New Orleans Saints.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
By the way, I didn't have my I should have
bore the Grinch again. Remember I had the gauns. We're
gonna steal, are going to steal last Christmas. We took it.
We took Stafford's Christmas from him.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
But uh, you could have worn it again. I wouldn't have.
I wouldn't have had it because it's still holiday season,
right you can still wear the Grinch in holiday season.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Let just throw that gon there you go there by.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
The way, Falcons doing the thing in their sixteen and
three in their throwbacks since two thousand.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Okay, I'm starting the campaign now. Red helmets, red helmets.
Who's with me? That's the helmet I wore with you.
I got a red helmet hanging on my wallet, my house.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
I look at it.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Red helmet.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
I never go there. All I wore was black helmets.
So and I'm kind of jealous of that. So sixteen
and three in throwbacks since two thousand, Okay. We'll be
back next week to wrap up the Saints game, and
we will also do a season in review next week
as the season will come to a close. But we
still got one more game left for the Falcons to
go out there and put a really good performance on
(48:55):
the field. Hopefully next week Shock would be back in
town and he'll be joining us here to recap every thing.
But until then, Shock, go dogs, Good luck to Georgia
in the college football playoff, and hopefully there's a couple
more games after the one coming this week, so on
behalf of Shock. Who's not here, Dave Archer, I'm Derek
Rackley by the.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Way, yeah, real quickly. Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota won their ninth
consecutive bowl game.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Is that the the kind of side joke was that PJ.
Fleck All he does is win ball games?
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Well, that's for sure pretty good. Now, it was a
you know, it was a bowl game, but they weren't
on the same sideline. It might have been kind of
a you know, a lesser bowl game if you will.
But hey, nine consecutive balls won.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I am proud.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
We don't get a chance to rain a lot of
accolades on the Golden Gophers.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
But here you go, right there we go, Minnesota gold
Gophers won their ball game. We'll see if shocks Georgia
Bulldogs can do that as well. Did didn't? I Alwa
State just play.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Too, Iowa State didn't go to a ball game. Mass
exodus as coaches left, and I think we've we've got
two guys on scholarship left. I always state it's a
different story. Thank concentrate on Minnesota A story.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
For another day. Yeah, okay, so yes, back next week
to recap everything from this twenty twenty five season. A
couple things for you to think about for the off
season and then we will take fortunately a little bit
of a hiatus, but until then, thanks so much for
joining us. This week. I'm the Falconatibo presented by AT
and T, and every week that you have done, hopefully
you've learned something and appreciate our comments and opinions, and
(50:27):
we'll give you some more of that
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(00:20):
stock items by four pm, subject to availability. We've been
told that we are the big boys in town. He's
into he is like littreat.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, you guy can get chills a little bit thinking
about what these two guys can do in.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Falcons Audible presented by AT and T is back and
yes we are light one pair, but there is a
reason behind it, folks. And if you've been a regular
viewer over the past few years, you've known that when
we get to this time of the year, shock usually
departs us because Georgia is playing in a bowl, well
a college football playoff. So uh, DJ Shockley's not gonna
(01:02):
be here with us this week. He is already down
in New Orleans with the Georgia Bulldogs getting ready for
their college football playoff matchup. Whenever you are taking this
podcast in so Dave Archer and myself Derek Rackley will
be holding it down here for the Falcons audible this week.
So normally you get three, this week you get two.
Our lucks of dogs. By the way, yes, good luck
(01:22):
to the dogs and DJ. If you're watching, feel free
to chime in. Okay, No, we're not gonna be.
Speaker 2 (01:27):
Able to get it. We'll get a critique. We'll get
a CRI from here at some point.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
We will talk a couple of things later in the show.
We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna guess what shocks keys
to the game for this weekend might be me and
me and Arch. We'll go through that exercise. All right,
primetime matchup, final primetime matchup of the season is done.
Atlanta finishes four and one in primetime matchups this year.
I think everybody would say, well, Atlanta just needs to
(01:53):
play on primetime. Well, guess what that is out of
the Atlanta Falcons control and very much in the control
of the National Football League. However, twenty seven twenty four
win over the Rams. Arch good question here at the
top of our rundown was what was your instant reaction
to Monday Night's win.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
Well, I felt like there was some validation I guess
is the word that would pop into my mind. That
we've talked about it all year long, You and I
and Shock have talked about it's a good football team.
They kind of get in their own way sometimes, whether
it's coaching or whether it's players. I think that all
have been culpable and some of the games they haven't won,
(02:34):
but it validated this was a team in the La Rams.
We discussed last week on this podcast, and I tried
to remind people throughout the week, and I was being
told by people throughout the week the Rams have a
real chance to win the whole thing. And so here
you are, playing late in the season when we keep
getting told and players, we don't ever buy any this,
(02:56):
but we keep getting told these games don't mean anything.
You're playing against the team that a lot of people
like and kind of fancy to win the whole thing. Well,
let's go test ourselves. Let's go throw ourselves against the
rock and see how we do. YEA guess what. We
broke the rock right, And I thought that was really cool,
the way the guys stood up, prepared and went in
(03:16):
and played. And I think that that's the part kind
I got kind of a warm feeling thinking about that
and what were your thoughts on how it went?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
You know, it seems like, you know, I do a
lot of work with Westwood One. So when I end
up going and I meet up with my Westwood One
colleagues on the weekend, and they start asking me like, Hey,
how's everything been going. What you've been up to this,
that and the other, And I'm like, yeah, you know,
I'm doing my stuff with the Falcons on the weekend.
So it immediately brings up a conversation about the Falcons
and everybody that I talk with from a more national perspective.
(03:45):
Arch says that that's a really talented team, Like they've
got some really good players on that team, and I
think everybody, not just them, but I would say, and
then national scope of things would probably agree, haven't been
able to put it all together right, talented team hasn't
really been able to put the pieces together yet. So
when we go to the Monday night football game, the
(04:06):
thing that I wrote down as far as what my
instant reaction was impressive but vintage. And what I mean
by that is Arch at halftime, when DJ came down,
We're about to do our halftime show, We're up twenty
one to nothing at the time. This was right before
we went on for halftime, and I said, shock, just
so you know, this game is far from over. Oh,
no question, this game is far from over. I said,
(04:28):
they'd better be ready to compete for thirty more minutes
here in the second half. And then what happens in
the third quarter. All of a sudden, you snap your
fingers and this game turns around and it gets real tight. Right,
So that's what I mean. That's vintage NFL, NFL period.
But when you're playing one of the better teams in
the NFL, the game is never over, especially with that
type of offense. You talk about one or two drives,
(04:49):
a special team's mistake, and all of a sudden, everybody's
starting to clinch a little bit because what looked like
a comfortable situation at the time started to get real tight,
real quick. To me, that's the National Football League. But
you've got pros all over the place, you guys, you
have guys that are prideful, and to anybody out there,
it's kind of funny. We had a pre meeting for
(05:11):
our pregame show. We were talking about draft positioning, right,
just so everybody knows. Current players don't give a rip
about the draft pick. Like they don't they don't ever
walk into you know, if we lose this game, we
get a better draft pick. Nobody ever talks about that, right,
Like they're all pros, Like your job is to go
win football games. So in one last comment, I'm gonna
(05:35):
turn it back to you. One of my my buddies,
that's our Sunday Night guy for Westwood On. He texts
me during the game while I'm sitting there watching the game,
and he says, who's the team in the black tonight? Right?
And I think everybody was probably in that same category,
Like where was this the entire season against that level
of opponent.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Yeah, I think that it's always been there and we've
seen glimpse of it throughout and you talked about it,
how there's been, you know, this misfunction or lack of
efficiency in certain areas. But it's been there in every game.
I think we've seen it in every game. It just
hasn't manifested itself into finding ways to win. We went
(06:14):
into this game having played in eight to one score games.
We'd won three of them. Okay, you flip two of
those around, you're winning the division. I mean, that's how
close it is. This Rams team had played at eight
one score games, they'd won four of them. They'd won
one more than us. So now as you go into
week eighteen or whatever it is, into the seventeenth game
(06:35):
of the season this weekend, as we take on the Saints,
we've played in nine one score games. We've won four.
The Rams have played in nine one score games, they've
won four. They're eleven or they're eleven and five and
going to go to the playoffs. You know, we're fighting
to go to eight and nine and going to be
out of the playoffs. That's going back to what you
said originally. That's how close this thing is, these two
(06:58):
teams going in. Just do the math. Now, these two
teams now have played what thirty two games, the two
games that played on Sunday evening or Monday night, thirty
two games. Eighteen of the thirty two games have been
one score games. You have to win the majority of
those to go in. And you can go look down
the line. The Rams might be the aberration there that
(07:21):
they're sub five hundred and one score games. Go and
look at you know, Seattle, and go look at these
different teams that have played, you will find that the ledger,
they're higher on the one score game win total than
they are the losers. And that's what this what this
league is about. So getting back to your original point
about the whole game, and it was never over until
(07:44):
the final gun went off. I wish you and I
you and I would have been facing different directions saying
the same thing to different groups because I said, get ready,
because you're this is a heavyweight fight. And they got
knocked down a couple of times in the in the
early part of this fight. Yet ready, they're gonna They're
gonna come back. And people ask me all the time,
I'd be interested to hear what your thought is on
(08:05):
this rack. They talk about basketball games where team jumps
out to a big start and here comes the other
team back, and the same thing happens in football, and
we see it in the NFL a great deal. We
see it in college football some as well, but not
so much. It's more even in the NFL. What is
it allows a team to come back and some of
the inhibitions you have early in a game, or your
(08:27):
lack of aggressiveness, if you will in a game, relaxes
a little bit. When you get down. Now you start
throwing caution to the wind a little bit, you change
tempo a little bit. The other team is human too,
They naturally pull back a little bit, even though you say, oh, no,
we're not trying to play we're trying to play a
lou But you do that aggressiveness to go forward in
(08:49):
this situation or to throw it on that situation. You
kind of say, Now, a typical example might have been
and I don't know, I wasn't in the mind of
Zach Robinson or Raheem Morris' fourteen points. And you're in
the middle of the third quarter, you just had a
nice drive and it's third and two. You try to
run taller algery gets stoned for a no game or
(09:10):
one yard loss, and you settle for a field goal.
I was saying, pre snap, let's put the ball in
Cousin's hands. Let's let cousins try to trust cousins to
make a play here, get a first down. Because you
score a touchdown, you probably win the football game right there. Now,
the field goal might have done it anyway, but you
kind of settled. So, getting back to my original point,
(09:33):
you kind of pulled back on that aggressiveness. They weren't
They realize we got to throw cautions the way, We
got to do whatever we can. Verse makes the play,
and now all of a sudden, not being a seventeen
point game, it's a ten point play. It's a seven
point game. And as you talked about, everybody's booty starts
to tighten up a little bit, right, And so that's
(09:53):
the human piece to it. When you see teams storm
back like that, are what, why does that happen? In
your mind? Or we on the same page?
Speaker 1 (10:02):
Kind of absolutely because and the difference too, is in
the NFL you're gonna get with quarterbacks and specifically in
this game, a game with Matthew Stafford where okay, two
things happen. You get behind what is that? Now that's
a license to put the ball in the air. And
you got the front runner for the MVP that had
coming into the game, by the way, had thrown five
(10:23):
hundred and nineteen passes and had just five interceptions. Okay,
so you got a guy coming into the game with
utmost confidence, arguably the best wide receiver in the National
Football League. And guess what, we got to put the
ball through the air now because we're playing catch up.
That to me is why in the NFL it gets
really dangerous. And when I was playing Arch, you were
calling the games. We were still playing against Peyton Manning,
(10:47):
we were playing against Tom Brady, we were playing against
Brett Farv and then it was Aaron Rodgers. In every
single one of those games. If we got to the
position to where we were up, I would always tell myself,
this game ain over until there's zeros on the clock.
I'll never forget playing Peyton Manning one time we were
up on them when he was with the Colts, and
I'm on the sidelines and I'm telling myself this game
(11:08):
is over, and tell there's zeros on the clock. Because
those guys can just make magic like they can make magic.
And there are still players like that in the NFL
right now. I would say Matthew Stafford's in that category.
I would say Patrick Mahomes is in that category in
their prime. I would say Josh Allen is in that category.
There's other guys that are getting there. Drake may might
be the next guy that's going to get into that category.
(11:28):
But because they are so talented, because they have weapons,
and there are some really really talented play callers out
here in the National Football League, and Sean McVay is
one of them. That's why all these things stacking up.
I'm like, this game is not over. And then all
of a sudden you see a block field goal for
a touchdown and I'm like, there you go, yeah, like
you just need these one play that's just massive momentum
(11:51):
swinging plays.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
And then it's like, uh, oh okay, By the way,
it was good for you to leave out the one
guy I knew you had in your mind that you
didn't mention because we do the Saints this weekend. You
had to play against Drew Brees and he might have
been one of the best that there was about coming
back if he was even down. Do a lot of
times he wasn't down. But no doubt, no question about it.
You got you played against some of the greats in
the game that the game was never over, no question.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
So let's talk a little bit about how they were
able to get this done because we mentioned the interceptions,
and how about how this defense played arch I mean,
Jesse Bates, and I don't want to sit here and
say it was a quiet year, but what he was
kind of loud his first couple of years with the Falcons,
right and it And not to say that this has
been a quiet year for him. He's still been one
of the most productive guys. But the way that he
(12:35):
that play ends up unfolding right, comes down close to
the line of scrimmage, gives a look like they're going
to all out blitz. He ends up popping back out
to the middle of the field. Then the entire time
he's just playing center field back there and he's just
reading Matthew Stafford and he sees that football come out
and he's like, oh, that ball's getting overthrown, right, And
the ball just goes right in his hands and takes
(12:55):
it all the way back. So not only him, but
then Xavier Watts with two in this game, right, Like
when you're playing against a quarterback that's in the front
runner for the MVP race who had only thrown five
picks coming into the game and they pick them off
three times, Like how huge was that in this game?
Speaker 2 (13:12):
Yeah, And it's ironic that you bring up Jesse Bates
because I talked about Jesse Bates last week because I'd
had a chance to visit with Jesse and how people
perceive it to be in a quiet year for him.
He's closing in on one hundred tackles again for the
third consecutive season. The interception you're talking about was his
(13:32):
twenty seventh is career. It's his fourth he taken back
for touchdowns. The interception to the piece of it, And
you talked about defense and how the defense played it
was the back end really did a good job of
servicing some of the pressure that was applied. Thought that
they did a really good job of not having to
blitzeim a ton because you were concerned. You talked about
(13:55):
some of the numbers for Stafford a week ago, and
I don't care what covered you throw at and what,
but if you come after him, you make yourself extremely vulnerable.
He's very good against that. So with the pressure in
the front four, which he had to kind of dice
through on that particular play, kind of sidestep and pressure
to his left, didn't quite get his feet set air
(14:15):
mails it. Jesse makes the play then gets it in.
But Jesse's conversation with me about Xavier Watts and how
they kind of are like minded, although there may be
not quite from different eras, but certainly he got a
veteran player and he got a young player, and how
he's they've kind of nurtured one another really, but how
(14:36):
Jesse has been a leader for him. He said, they're
very similar in the way they think about the game,
and you can see it. Watts has the ability to
kind of perceive what you're doing, like he jumps the
underneath ro out for the interception, his range to go
get the other one deep in territory. Now, you got
to beat a couple times, but you know, hey, you're
(14:58):
a young player and you're still learning what can I
get away with? What can I get away with? What
do I need to do to make sure I don't
get beat on a slot fade? But his ability to
kind of mirror his big brother, so to speak, and
Jesse Bates. I thought those two guys played arguably their
best football game together this season, and they've had some
really good ones. Those are two guys that both have
(15:19):
over eighty tackles on the year, and both of them
now are three plus interceptions and now Xavier Watts has
broken the record for a rookie interception. So just an
incredible season for the young guy from.
Speaker 1 (15:29):
Notre Dame fifteen interceptions on the season now for the Falcons,
eight of them have come from Baits and Watson. As
you mentioned, Xavier Watts first Falcons rookie to have five
interceptions in a season since Dion Sanders. By the way,
that's thirty six years. If my math does meet.
Speaker 2 (15:44):
Right, by the way, the pressure piece of it, which
is a part of this and speeding up Stafford's thought process,
I thought that that happened a lot. I thought they
were made a really good job in the back end.
They were extremely prepared. How many times did you see
rack where Stafford had step up. They'd line up and
all of a sudden you see Stafford start changing stuff,
(16:04):
and then you looked over and Kate Nellison, Divine, Diablo
and Jesse are changing things in the back end. The
chess game in this game, I thought was even more
so than most football games. I thought the communication on
both sides was impeccable and then being able to match
Because we play a ton we play a lot of
man coverage. We come after people a lot, but a
(16:24):
lot of times we play match coverage in the back end,
which means is a zone start and then they'll jump
guys late in the routes, whereas an over route there'll
be a guy waiting on him to take him man coverage.
It's some of the nuances that Brick has in his
system and that Jerry Gray have in their system in
the back end. I thought they were impeccable with some
of that. Now, we missed some guys late in the game.
(16:46):
There was a couple of guys that doing that kind
of stuff makes you vulnerable. He got a couple guys clean,
and Stafford missed a couple of guys. But all that
being said, I thought it was an incredible performance by
the entire defense front to back. They sackeding three times.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
He came in with the second least sacked quarterback in
the National Football League, got him on the ground three times.
Speaker 1 (17:07):
Brandon Dorles one of those to get a sack in
the game, and that puts him along with James Pierce
Junior at eight and a half sacks for the season.
Its first time that Falcons have had two players that
have had eight and a half sacks or more since
two thousand and four. I was on that team, Patrick
Kearney and Rod Coleman the last time that happened for
the Atlanta Falcons. We talked so much about James Pierce,
(17:28):
especially recently because he had that streak of getting sacks,
but Brandon Dorles has kind of been there all season long.
And I talked about this during pregame show just because
of what Cleveland did the previous week. They had moved
above Atlanta. But with the three sacks, Falcons second in
the National Football League, behind only the Denver Broncos. Right
now second in the National Football League. Think about that.
(17:49):
Where this team was last year with just thirty one sacks,
they're now the second best team in the National Football League.
That's quite an improvement.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
And just two away from the record was set in
ninety seven and Travis Hall was on that team. We
talk about defensive tackles, you know, Brandon Dorles, and we
don't know at this point about Brandon's injury, and obviously
it didn't look very good. And MRIs are gonna be
done this week. And I'm sure Raheem Morris will make
an announcement whenever you see this. You may he may
have made this announcement by the time you see this podcast,
(18:19):
because we're recording this on a Wednesday, on New Year's Eve,
but hoping crossing our fingers at Brandon's. It's his spraining
or something. But it didn't look great. But Dorles was
We're going in that rarefied air. You mentioned your guy
Rod Coleman eleven and a half and oh four, ten
and a half and o five, Travis Hall ten and
a half in ninety seven. That's kind of the realm
(18:40):
that Dorles was creeping into. So he just a monster year.
Good good to bring him up.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
So Arch we have gone for a little over eighteen
minutes and we have not mentioned Bejon Robinson's thing one time, Like,
how does that work? Right? The type of right you know.
So let's go ahead and talk about him as I
mentioned that last week and weeks before, Like you could
just go down the gamut of the accomplishments that this
(19:06):
young man has done. But I'm going to start by
saying just in this game alone, became the Falcons all
time leader in scrimmage yards in the season. That's a
forty two year record that has stood since nineteen eighty three.
William Andrews held that record. It's now held by one
guy named John Robinson. And what he did this season
longest run from scrimmage and Falcons history happened last Monday night.
(19:31):
Ninety three yard touchdown. I don't think each and every
week people truly well, maybe they do truly appreciate how
good he is and how easy he makes things look
arch that are tremendously difficult, tremendously difficult. His move to
(19:51):
make the player miss in the hole for the ninety
three yard I believe it was was unreal. He had
two or three other runs that should have been two
or three yard losses that he turned into seven yard gains,
longer gains than that. He makes things look so much
it's to me like some of the best quarterbacks that
(20:11):
have played the game, the best quarterbacks that have played
the game, in my opinion, Arch make it look super
easy when it is tremendously difficult. And that's what Jon
Robinson is doing. To me.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
He's brilliant. He's there. You think about geniuses in different
walks of life, where it's a scientific genius that just
knows math problems. You look at that and you think, wow,
I don't even understand that language. But they walk up
and they solve it for you. Actors that just have
this natural ability to make you laugh, like a Robin Williams,
(20:43):
God rest his soul. Guys that just could come with
stuff off the top of their head. That's what you're
experiencing with Bijon Robinson. This guy is on another level
from a genius standpoint in doing his job.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Like I was thinking, artist Arch, Yeah, it's like he's
painting something miraculous no nobody else can do. Completely agree
with you. Yeah, you think, wow, how did I didn't see?
How did that come together?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (21:10):
That's beautiful? You know, how did you do that?
Speaker 2 (21:13):
You know? He does that and in just the ninety
three yard run like you're talking about, he's got a
defender that's clean in the hole two yards deep in
the backfield, and it's his eyes are He's not even
looking at this dude. He's already talking thinking about that
second third level because it's boom booming. That guy's.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Was the chance.
Speaker 2 (21:37):
I don't know, if you go back and it's like
he goes into some kind of trance or something like
that where you ask him about how'd you make that
guy miss? What was there? Gather? I adin't see him
because his mind is working at such a different in
a different place, and his body matches physically, he matches
(21:58):
his mind to be able to see it. You know,
I made the analogy a couple of weeks ago about
think about yourself trying to if you've ever gone to
a subway, whether you're in New York or wherever, or
here in Atlanta with Marta and there's it's rush hour
and there's people spilling off the train and you're trying
to get by people to get on. Maybe you're at
the maybe you're at the airport and you're trying to
(22:20):
get on the plane. Train you and you know you're
you're in the B gates. I need to get the seagate.
My plane is getting ready to leave, and there's people
spilling off. He making people miss to get on the train.
That's who he is. It's it's amazing his ability to
make people miss. But now you're you're exactly right, racket.
There's a brilliance to what he's doing. Take advantage of it,
(22:44):
Falcon Fans, because you are seeing and I've mentioned it
a number of times, whether it's on interviews on the
radio here, We've talked about it on our podcast. You've
mentioned it as well. Rack you're seeing one of the
potentially not potentially one of the great football players of
his time, weaving his magic and he's on your team.
And yes, we want to get him into the playoffs,
(23:06):
and we'd like to see him on the grandest stage
in the super Bowl, and hopefully we can do that
here in the next year or so. But you're witnessing
one of the great players INFL history. The only player
I can think of that even is that Bijan is
creeping into I've mentioned to him before, the best running
(23:27):
back I've ever seen in my life was Walter Payton,
and that's because he could do everything. That's what this
guy is. He can do everything. You know, we talk
about him catching the football, making people miss speed, power,
run through guys. Watch him pick up blitzes in this game.
They came with pressures, but Jean Robinson steps up. He's
your number one back. He's the leader in yards from
(23:48):
scrimmage in the National Football League. He's shortening guys necks
that are coming on blitzes to protect his quarterback. That's
what Walter Payton was. Go back and throw Sweetness's film on.
That's who this guy is. And it's just I mean,
I get chills, save down your back. You and I
are we kind of get kind of giggly and goofy
think talking about this guy, and then you throw in
(24:10):
the fact that he's one of the one of the
best human beings ever met. I mean, I get a
chance to be around him, probably more than I should.
But he is such a gracious, team oriented dude. Enjoyed Atlanta.
You got one of the greats.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Listen. I said this to myself. I think I might
have said it to the guys that were in the
control room when I was doing the game on Monday night,
and I said, this guy better get a new contract
like pronto, because guess what, thirty one other other NFL
teams are going to be in line.
Speaker 2 (24:39):
No, he ain't getting out of here.
Speaker 1 (24:40):
I'm telling you right now, like every single team in
the national footing is ready to open up their check books.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
I saw mister Blank out here, big truck. He was
backing it up himself.
Speaker 1 (24:48):
You know they truck breaks trucks. He ain't getting out
of here. Listen, you you said it eloquently. Arch. You
just you can't find a better package. In my opinion,
you can't find what he does, or shall I say
what he can't do, combine with the person that he is.
You just can't find him. And I think everybody is
(25:09):
now understanding why the Falcons drafted him in the first
round the year after they had a thousand yard rusher,
because they saw all of that. They sat down with
him as a person, and they saw who he was
off the field, and they saw the magic that he
could make on the field. And Guys, he's doing more
in the NFL than he did in college, because I
(25:30):
called a couple of games in college, and he was
pretty darn good in college. Do any of that stuff
that he's doing with the Atlanta Falcons.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Sitting there going, damn, what did I miss?
Speaker 1 (25:41):
Why did I what did.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I give it to? The other game?
Speaker 1 (25:43):
And you mentioned Walter Payton. Listen, I mean the other
accomplishment that he ended up getting on Monday night is
he now has the most scrimmage yards by a player
under the age of twenty four in NFL history. The
two guys that he passed on Monday night, Barry sand
You get in the conversation with Barry Sanders, I don't
care what it is we just mentioned.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
And Barry Sanders and you're gonna mention another guy that's
probably he's still playing and he is the closest thing
to John Robinson right now as far as what he
can do or to your point, arch what he cannot do.
Speaker 1 (26:18):
And now Jon Robinson sits atop that list, how many
other lists is he going to sit a top before
it's all set?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
It's like going when you go to your refrigerator, you
know there's milk in the refrigerator.
Speaker 4 (26:31):
Should be okay, Well maybe maybe at the Racy Rackley's
responsible for that if he's not heavy, but no, it's
one of those deals where you expect, Okay, when I
go to the utensil drawer, there's gonna be a knife
in there.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
There's gonna be a fork in there. Right. That's who
this guy is when you come to the game. This
is his fiftieth career game. He now has twenty seven
games of one hundred plus yards from scrimmage. That's like
going to the utensil drawer and saying, yeah, I know
where the knives are. When I bring Brejon Robinson to
the game, I know I'm getting one hundred yards in
some capacity out of the guy.
Speaker 4 (27:04):
So I know.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
We sprinkled a lot of sugar on net and hopefully
you guys have enjoyed that because he's he's all of
that in a bag of donuts.
Speaker 1 (27:11):
I'm telling you, five games this year alone with one
hundred and seventy five scrimmage yards. That's three more than
any other player in the league this year, three more
games than any other player with one hundred and seventy
five yards or more scrimmage yards. So that kind of
sums up twenty seven to twenty four. Big time win
for the Falcons over one of the best teams in
the National Football League on Monday night in Week seventeen.
(27:34):
So let's let's turn a page and talk about Week
eighteen Arch, because unfortunately, there are fourteen teams that make
it to the postseason. There are eighteen teams that are frustrated.
Either they just missed out, either they had a disaster
of a season, or somewhere in between. But regardless, they
(27:54):
have fell short of their goal, which is to get
into the postseason tournament, to give yourself a chance. You
never know what's going to happen. Now, neither of these teams,
the Atlanta Falcons or the New Orleans Saints, are going
to be in. But oddly enough, this game has implications
to who does get into the NFC South which is
wild to think about when Atlanta was eliminated from postseason contention,
(28:17):
But now that they have gotten on this winning streak,
now it's not really gonna matter because the game is
going to be between Carolina and Tampa's going to be completed. However,
if Carolina loses that game and Atlanta wins, Carolina still
goes because of some weird tiebreakers that end up, so
the Atlanta's game still has some postseason ramifications, which is
(28:40):
a little wild, but even more wild arches you think
back and you're like, one victory over Carolina, Yeah, just
get one victory over at Carolina, and now look at
the different situation that we would be in right now.
Speaker 2 (28:53):
Yeah, if you beat Carolina, you lost him in overtime here,
remember it's a thirty twenty seven loss. You can throw
away Week three because that was that was kind of
a disaster football game. But yeah, in the second game
here in Atlanta, you win, you lose thirty twenty seven,
You could even and I know the fan out there
(29:14):
and there there's a lot of sports talk here in
town that are not necessarily looking at the things that
we just talked about with John Robinson and all that
kind of stuff. There may may be more angst about
the fact that you did have a couple of games
on the hook that you could have won. I mean,
pick one even let's say you lose to Carolina twice.
(29:35):
Pick another game out the Colts, pick out the Patriots game,
the Jets game. I mean, you could go through a
list of games that if you got one of them, now,
all of a sudden, you win this weekend, there's a
chance you go ahead and win the division anyway, even
with the law. And think about on the other side too,
we're going to talk about the Saints. Saints are on
a four game winning streak now. Tyler Shuck, their quarterback,
(29:56):
has slid in, the young quarterback out of Louisville Young.
I say, he's bit like Pennis. Played a lot of
college football, but now he's playing at a high level.
And they've won four straight. He's playing a pretty good level.
And they beat Carolina, they beat Tampa. If they win
this game against Atlanta, they finished second in the division,
(30:17):
they're gonna be they're going to slide into that spot too.
So they're playing for a great deal from a pride
standpoint to So here's here's a class I don't know
if you were in these as Saint games Saint games,
but I played in a lot of these games where
we were eliminated from playoff contention, but it was the
Saints late in the year. These end up being rock
(30:37):
fights between these two teams because they don't like each other.
This is truly Bears Packers, you know, you can pick
one out, maybe Raven Steelers. There's a couple of rivalries
in the league that kind of go outside the realm
of National Football League stuff. And we're both in the South.
Came into the league one year apart from when our
(30:59):
Atlanta came in first, and then New Orleans came in
the next year. You kind of got shoved in the
NFC West, you were, you know, and so there's been
kind of that little brother big brother, or we deserve
this and you guys don't. And so there's a lot
of pettiness going on between the two. So there's a
lot on the line for this, even though you don't
have any playoffs stuff.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Well, just think about it. Kind of does support the
point that I made earlier about players and coaches don't
really care about draft positioning. Go back four weeks ago,
the new Orleans Saints at the time were two and ten.
Don't you think if there was a care about whether
or not you wanted to get the highest draft pick possible,
that would have been the time for the Saints to
quote unquote tank their season and have an opportunity to
(31:40):
get the one or two or three overall pick. Well,
what have they done. They've won four straight games, and
they've done it with arguably their most dynamic player not
being in the lineup and Alvin Kamara and don't know
what his status is going to be against the Falcons
this weekend. But they're now six and ten, as you mentioned, Arch,
and four straight wins. Tyler Shuck has been over three
hundred yards passing each of the last two games, three
(32:03):
hundred and thirty three yards in a couple of touchdowns
last week, and not even having Kamara in the game,
and they're still finding ways to win football games. So, Arch,
I'm gonna ask you this, what can Atlanta kind of
go back to the first matchup and Harness and have
a better start to finish, because I think that's probably
(32:23):
been one of the biggest issues for Atlanta this year
is start to finish. Solid performance from the opening kick
to finishing the game hasn't quite always been there. What
can Atlanta take from that first game arch and improve
on to put a better performance out there this Sunday
at home.
Speaker 2 (32:39):
Well, I think that you continue to want to take
away the two way go. We talked about the rams,
and can you take away Stafford's two way go. I
think you did that early in the game where you
took Kyron Williams and break Korum to a certain extent
out of the game where they weren't able to run
the football and they had to lean kind of on
their passing game, and so you built that twenty one
point lead. I think that in this game, if you
(33:01):
can kind of take that away. Now, Shuck has been
really good, as Rak has said, He's completing over this
four game stretch of wins, four consecutive wins. That's over
Tampa Carolina. Two teams are gonna play for the division,
the Jets and Tennessee. He's completed seventy two percent of
his passes and averaging about two hundred and sixty yards
(33:21):
per game through the air. He's only thrown one interception.
I think in those those two games, those four games,
he's got four touchdowns. He's run for a touchdown and
that might be the piece to it as well. In
the three games, he's run the ball twenty one times.
This is something he did in college. He was at Oregon,
he went to Texas Tech. Got kind of injured in
both places, more at Texas Tech than maybe Oregon, as
(33:43):
he started as a young guy at Oregon and then
went to Louisville and had a really good final year
at Louisville. His ability to run with the football is
kind of massed a little bit because he's a big
dude sixty three six four two hundred and forty pounds,
but he's run for over one hundred yards in the
last four games, so that'll be something that will have
to kind of corral. He had seven carries for twenty
two yards against Atlanta in that first game. That was
(34:05):
just his third start of his career. This guy has
blossomed a great deal over the last eight games since
he started. So I would think, okay, let's make them
don't give up the big play, which again that's plagued
Atlanta's defense a little bit. Rack you're doing such a
good job, and then the explosives, the rams, that's who
(34:25):
they are, but they had ten plays of fifteen yards
or more in the game. That's something you can't give
up to New Orleans. Don't help them out chuck through
the ball forty three times in the game. It's against
Atlanta for two hundred and forty three yards. So when
you factor that out, it's if you do the math
real quick, that's like six yards in attempt. That's where
you'd like to kind of keep it. If you let
(34:46):
him get into that seven eight yards at attempt. Now
all of a sudden, you're having some problems and they're
making some plays against you. So that's kind of what
I would lean into there. What are your thoughts on
how you kind of keep New Orleans from staying on
this train?
Speaker 1 (34:59):
They're on back to back challenges for the defensive backfield.
After the game against the Rams, Raheem Morris ends up
giving aj Terrella a game ball because of his performance,
most notably against Pukuinakua throughout the course of the game,
and Pukuinakua had his second worst yardage performance of his
season this year mostly due to Terrell and what this
defense was able to do to him. I reason why
(35:21):
I say that is Chris Olave is coming off to
of his best performances of his season. He's got three
one hundred yard games this year, and two of them
have come the last two weeks. They have been force
feeding him the football. He's a guy that we've known
about for a number of years, right.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
Yeah, and I think he's heard us a couple of
times before, if a couple of times. Yeah, it's like
he's banged up every time we play him.
Speaker 1 (35:39):
Twenty seven targets the last two weeks, eighteen receptions, So
they are they are force feeding him the football. So
this is how life is in the NFL. Right, you
get one challenges behind you, guess what, you better turn
the page because you got Christal Lave coming into town.
And I would imagine it's going to be similar story
for them, especially if we don't see an Alvin Kamara
in this game because of his versatility. So rise to
(36:02):
the challenge there, find a way to get takeaways. Last game,
Shuck did not throw a touchdown pass or they had
one interception. Beauzavier Watts ended up picking him off that game, right,
So we saw three last game. Are they able to
do that again? So those are some of the things
that come to mind. We mentioned the one most consistent force.
We talked about him a lot, but Jean Robinson, Like,
what has he got up his sleeve, you know, the
(36:23):
last week of the season, Like, what is he going
to show us this week that's different than every other week?
I don't know, but it's a surprise and it's a
pleasant one every single week that we see him on
the field.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
Yeah, and they're going to throw the tape on it.
They're going to see be Jon Robinson making plays on
him in that game in mid season too, so Beijon
had a pretty good game against New Orleans. A couple
of numbers for you, real quickly. I don't want to
get lost in the menagerie of numbers, but this Saint
team has been really pretty good against the pass. They
only giving up one hundred and eighty yards through the air.
They've been one of the best teams in the league
(36:51):
on third down. Teams are converting at just thirty seven
percent or I'm sorry, thirty four percent on third down,
which is third best in the National Football League, and
they're getting the ball out. They've got nineteen takeaways on
the year, I think, nine interceptions, ten fumble force fumble
fumble recoveries, so they've been getting some takeaways in this
stretch where they've put the four games together. Schuck started
(37:12):
eight games. We mentioned he's won five of his eight games,
so there's a little bit of a changing of the
guard and changing of the feeling under Kellen Moore down there.
They've kind of been losing the last couple of seasons,
and all of a sudden they got this young quarterback
that they're feeling pretty good about, especially in the last
four weeks, like you talked about. So I think they're
coming in as a different football team, one because of
(37:33):
the quarterback and two because of the kind of the
feeling that's going on. And we're kind of feeling different
about ourselves as well. So just two sacks away we
got to get. We need three sacks. You set the
all time record, and I know it's you know, it's
like icing on maybe a pile over in the corner,
but it's still some stuff that you kind of begin
(37:55):
to build on and think about for next season.
Speaker 1 (37:57):
That's so that's great that you mentioned that, because that's
what I'm going to end up kind of combining here
in our last comment is going to be building First
of all, you have the rivalry matchup, right, Like, there's
enough to get excited for this game because of that. Right.
Then there's this thing about going into the off season
on a solid note, right, three game winning streak as
(38:17):
it stands right now, can you go into the offseason
with this positive note, right that you beat a rival,
that you had this winning streak going into the off season,
that you might have set the all time single season
sack record for the franchise that but Jehan Robinson's been
able to do. Give this team promise. Yes, there's going
to probably be some changes, There's gonna be some new personnel.
Whatever it ends up happening, we don't know that's in
(38:39):
the future. But I know this in my career is
that when you're out of the postseason, you want to
send yourself into the offseason on a positive note. So
let's get to some keys here and it's just the
two of us, But how does Atlanta do that? Get
the rivalry matchup, maybe get the sack record, go into
the off season, and on a positive note it ultimately
(38:59):
beat the Saints this weekend. What's one of the big
keys that goes through your mind?
Speaker 2 (39:03):
Yeah, I think that the energy rack that you're talking
about is real. I think people say, wow, it doesn't
carry over from your year. Teams are different. That potentially
is a little bit more associated I think with college football.
I think that in the NFL because of personnel, if
you've got a fifty three man roster, a big turnover
in the roster would be twenty players, fifteen players. A
(39:25):
lot of times you get the same core of guys
coming back. And certainly this team has got a young
core of players that are going to come back. So
because they're a young team, and I'm gonna throw this
back at you, Yeah, how much did this does this
team because of eight years of inactivity in the playoffs
counting this season, and the core of those players has
(39:47):
not been here the eight years. You've got guys that
have come from winning programs. Jalen Walker, James Pearce Junior,
Jean Robinson, Drake Lennon, different guys have come from winning
organizations in college and realize and have kind of been
mired in this, you know, losing scenario. How much did
(40:07):
they need to kind of learn how to win at
this level? Is there is there is there anything to
that or is it that?
Speaker 1 (40:14):
Yeah, absolutely, because you could make the same argument for
the Kansas City Chiefs, like what was the difference with them, Yes,
they had a really good quarterback. But what did Patrick
Mahomes do and Andy Reid when they turned things around
in Kansas City is they turned around the belief that
we are winners and we're gonna win every single year.
(40:36):
Now that's not the case this year with the Chiefs,
but that's everybody's mentality. Go back to the Patriots, Like
I always joke around about this, but like tell me
who Tom Brady's. Yes, he had some stints where he
had he had Rob Gromkowski, one of the greatest tight
ends ever played the game. He had Randy Moss for
a couple of a cup of coffee, Okay, but his
(40:58):
wide receiver corps thout the majority of his career was
Julian Edelman, Danny Amondola. Like he made these guys stars.
But more than that, the organization became to the point
to where the expectation was winning, Like that's all we know,
that's all that's accepted here, and we have a relentless
effort to do just that. Right. Yeah, everybody's gonna argue
(41:22):
with me and say they had Tom Brady. You're right,
they had Tom Brady. Who's to say that Atlanta Falcons
don't have John Robinson. He touches the football a lot.
Michael Pennix needs to turn into that player. But there
has to be that belief that not just we're getting
to the postseason, but like that's just the first step. Right.
Like the teams that are really good, like the Buffalo Bills, now,
(41:44):
their goal is not getting into the postseason. They've been there,
They do that every year. Their goal is to win
a Super Bowl. How do you change that tenor? That's
the tenor that has to be changed in this organization.
And to your point, it's a collective effort of the
players learning how to win, but then having such a
(42:04):
sour taste in their mouth with defeat that they don't
allow it to happen again, right, And they get themselves
to where they're an eleven and four team going into
Week seventeen and not where they were at right. So
you're right, it's a whole lot of shifting of the
brain in heart, if you will, And that's where this
organization has to get to.
Speaker 2 (42:23):
These the teams that play and we just talked about
one score games here early on in the in the podcast,
and so what allows you to win some of those games?
And some of it has to do with what you're
talking about most these teams, the difference between the team
that's going to pick first in the draft and the
team that wins it. You could put those teams on
(42:44):
the field and they could play pretty evenly with one another.
It's just it's weird how this league, the parody in
the league. So what is it that gets you over
the hump? It's expectation of you know, obviously doing the
work during the week, but the expectation level you go
in to the game with.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
I expect to.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Win and if things go wrong, I'm going to do
something well collectively with my teammates. So it's going to
change the tenor of the game. The Rams tried to
do that. They expected to win that football game the
other night. They're down twenty one, twenty one to nothing,
and they storm back in the game. They made some plays.
We fortunately made enough plays to win the football game.
(43:22):
But that's what it's about. But the mentality that you
get and I don't know, maybe we're brocking up the
wrong tree, but here, but to close out the season
with four straight wins, beating your division rival in Tampa,
beating your division rival with the Saints, beating a team
that could have a chance to win the football win.
The whole thing builds a momentum when you go into
(43:44):
the offseason because the bulk of these guys are going
to come back. Yes, there's a question market the key position,
the quarterback position. We don't know when Michael will be ready.
We don't know what Kirk's plans are, what the organization's
plans are for Kirk, and so we'll figure that out
the next month. But the core guys around him have
done a great job. And I'll point to the game
(44:06):
in Tampa. You're down fourteen points in the fourth quarter,
you come back to win the game. You're down ten
points early to a cardinal team. I know that's not
it's going to be picking in the top five, probably,
but they had you down in their building by ten points,
and we're pretty much dictating the way those game was
going to go. And you came back in that game
one finding way to win and win those games and
not saying, oh okay, well we've lost. We've lost five
(44:28):
in a row and we're down fourteen points to Tampa.
It's their building. They're going to go win the division. Yep,
that didn't happen. And so that's what Rack's talking about,
that turn of mentality a little bit that when you
show up on practice day on Wednesday, that now you're
preparing to expect to win, and I'm doing the work
to put that together. There's a lot of mental peace
to this fans, and I know the physicality that we
(44:51):
talked about with with what Jon Robinson brings to the
table or Brandon Dorles brings the table, is definitely pre
piece of the equation. But mentally going into the game
thinking I'm supposed to win this game and I'm gonna
do everything I can. If it goes sideways in the
game somewhere, which it inevitably will, I'm going to make
something happen to change that course and not say, oh man,
(45:12):
we're not going to get this one. And there is
something to that, because you just mentioned one of the
great organizations in this league, the Kansas City Chiefs, have
been doing that for the last decade. Didn't happen for
him this year, but hey, that's who they like.
Speaker 1 (45:23):
It arched like that relentless determination to win is what
you're looking for in this game. And mine's kind of
to a similar fashion. It was like, let's put it
all together, right, Like we saw a team on Monday
night that's got off to an extremely fast start, right,
got up twenty one points to a team that had
not happened to all season long. Right, but they finished.
(45:45):
But it looked a little clunky coming down the stretch.
But that's the other thing is finish and win a
turnover margin in sacks? Can we set that new record?
And can special teams be stronger? We've seen way too
many issues this year on special teams. There was a
field goal that was blocked and brought back for a
score this week. Can we put that all together? Can
you put everything together in the final performance of the
(46:08):
season to give everybody in this organization that glimmer of
hope is not necessarily the right phrase, arch because that's
like you're trying to grab onto something. That was just
like there was a lot of really good moments to
this season, but like put it all together where you
can say two weeks in a row, after a Rams
game and after a Saints game in Week eighteen, to
(46:29):
say that's two really good performances of a team that
I feel like has got the pieces to put things
together in twenty twenty six and to make some noise.
Speaker 4 (46:38):
Is that fair?
Speaker 1 (46:39):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (46:39):
I think it's it's certainly fair. And I know the
fans sit there saying, well, wait a minute. You know
you guys are trying to your guys are again putting
sugar on that pile in the corner, and there's there's
there's certainly validity to some of that what you're saying,
But what you're trying to do is you're trying to
build that mentality that goes to win, and so there's
a building process that goes on. We talked about the
(47:00):
young players and all that kind of stuff, and what
Rack's talking about is exactly right. I know you don't
want to hear that. You want to say, well, who
do I blame because we didn't make the playoffs because
there was a thought that this team was a playoff
football team and not taking that off the table, this
team underachieved, if you will, So what do you do
with the back end of the season to make sure
(47:21):
that doesn't happen next year? Is there something you can do?
And I think they're trying to do that now. We
don't have any idea Rack and I don't have any
idea of sitting here right now, who's going to be
calling the shots or who's going to be throwing the
football or all that kind of stuff next year potentially
for the team. But we have a pretty good idea
that number seven is going to be here, number five
is going to be here. You know, James Pierce Junior
(47:41):
is gonna be coming off the edge. So some of
the guys that you've hung your hat on this year
are coming back next year, and they're trying to leave
a nice taste in their mouth so they can they
can build in the offseason.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
Well, one thing that me and Arch do know is
that the Falcons have a Week eight team matchup at
one pm on Sunday, saying for New Orleans Saints.
Speaker 2 (47:57):
By the way, I didn't have my I should have
bore the Grinch again. Remember I had the gauns. We're
gonna steal, are going to steal last Christmas. We took it.
We took Stafford's Christmas from him.
Speaker 1 (48:06):
But uh, you could have worn it again. I wouldn't have.
I wouldn't have had it because it's still holiday season,
right you can still wear the Grinch in holiday season.
Speaker 2 (48:12):
Let just throw that gon there you go there by.
Speaker 1 (48:15):
The way, Falcons doing the thing in their sixteen and
three in their throwbacks since two thousand.
Speaker 2 (48:23):
Okay, I'm starting the campaign now. Red helmets, red helmets.
Who's with me? That's the helmet I wore with you.
I got a red helmet hanging on my wallet, my house.
Speaker 1 (48:32):
I look at it.
Speaker 2 (48:33):
Red helmet.
Speaker 1 (48:33):
I never go there. All I wore was black helmets.
So and I'm kind of jealous of that. So sixteen
and three in throwbacks since two thousand, Okay. We'll be
back next week to wrap up the Saints game, and
we will also do a season in review next week
as the season will come to a close. But we
still got one more game left for the Falcons to
go out there and put a really good performance on
(48:55):
the field. Hopefully next week Shock would be back in
town and he'll be joining us here to recap every thing.
But until then, Shock, go dogs, Good luck to Georgia
in the college football playoff, and hopefully there's a couple
more games after the one coming this week, so on
behalf of Shock. Who's not here, Dave Archer, I'm Derek
Rackley by the.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
Way, yeah, real quickly. Minnesota. Yes, Minnesota won their ninth
consecutive bowl game.
Speaker 1 (49:20):
Is that the the kind of side joke was that PJ.
Fleck All he does is win ball games?
Speaker 2 (49:25):
Well, that's for sure pretty good. Now, it was a
you know, it was a bowl game, but they weren't
on the same sideline. It might have been kind of
a you know, a lesser bowl game if you will.
But hey, nine consecutive balls won.
Speaker 1 (49:38):
I am proud.
Speaker 2 (49:39):
We don't get a chance to rain a lot of
accolades on the Golden Gophers.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
But here you go, right there we go, Minnesota gold
Gophers won their ball game. We'll see if shocks Georgia
Bulldogs can do that as well. Did didn't? I Alwa
State just play.
Speaker 2 (49:51):
Too, Iowa State didn't go to a ball game. Mass
exodus as coaches left, and I think we've we've got
two guys on scholarship left. I always state it's a
different story. Thank concentrate on Minnesota A story.
Speaker 1 (50:05):
For another day. Yeah, okay, so yes, back next week
to recap everything from this twenty twenty five season. A
couple things for you to think about for the off
season and then we will take fortunately a little bit
of a hiatus, but until then, thanks so much for
joining us. This week. I'm the Falconatibo presented by AT
and T, and every week that you have done, hopefully
you've learned something and appreciate our comments and opinions, and
(50:27):
we'll give you some more of that
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If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Bobby Bones Show
Listen to 'The Bobby Bones Show' by downloading the daily full replay.