Takeaways from the Falcons close loss to New England & preparing for Germany! | Falcons Audible

Takeaways from the Falcons close loss to New England & preparing for Germany! | Falcons Audible

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AT&T, I need you. I need you. Ste is a tech upgrade. Need that new 17 Pro Max. Hit me right. All right. Um unfortunately Falcons come up short to the Patriots on the road 2423. Um lot of things to talk about here, fellas. Uh frustrating at least. There’s there’s not too many times, guys, as players that we sat down in meetings and we try to find the good out of a loss, right? Like you go and you watch the tape, you’re upset. These weeks are difficult in the building. Um, doesn’t Nobody really wants to have long drawn out conversations. You walk past coaches and front office people in the hallway and the conversations are short. This is how things happen. Not only when you lose a game, but when you’ve lost uh when you’ve lost a few of them in a row. Um, so let’s kind of revisit the keys. You guys remember last week that we kind of finished the show with all of us giving a key and then I think we threw another one in there. Okay. Um, Shock, did you have secondary plays? Well, wasn’t that yours? Yes, sir. How would you uh assess that key from last Sunday? Uh, are we giving letter grades or we just, you know, just however you want to grade it. Well, it could just be a conversation. I think there were I think there were I think there were times where uh the secondary played well. Then there’s other times where you look up and you got guys running open. You got guys who are creating plays. Obviously Douglas made a bunch of big plays in this ball game. Never heard of it. Never heard of it. Made plays but uh unbelievable. Yeah, we over routes. Over routes. Unbelievable. This guy’s the king of over routes. Uh Stefon Diggs obviously catches a little little stop route and turns it into a touchdown. And obviously that’s got to do with tackling and all that kind of stuff. Uh tight ends played pretty good in that ball game, a guy we know and Austin Hooper had a couple catches in the game. Obviously, you know, overall I think you look towards the second half where you had a little bit more success. I think first half was obviously not indicative of what you wanted in that ball game and you know Drake May was you know having a good day throwing the football to start the game but to only give up three points in the second half. give yourselves an opportunity. Um, turn him over twice. Uh, Jesse Bass finally gets his ball, gets his hands on one. Uh, that’s a positive. Uh, but, you know, overall it it wasn’t enough to be honest. Uh, you played I thought decent enough, but not well enough to say to be a key to go win the ball game. So, if we were giving letter grades, if I’m reading through the tea leaves, that sounds like a B minus C plus. Would that be fair? I think that’s a good grade. That’s about right. That’s a good grade. Yeah. Um, sometimes you’re great on a curve a little bit. So, I’m I’m with that. Old school on a curve, you know, man. Arch, uh, you had value on offense, right? Value on offense. No wasted plays. Didn’t get that. Didn’t get the value. Didn’t get that. Uh, you were, uh, brutal in conversion situations. Um, Atlanta now in the last three games converting at about 27% of the time on third down. Um, but what it does, Rack, and we talked about this last week, is that when you’re inefficient on offense and and give credit when you got in the red zone, were presented red zone opportunities. You know, a lot of that was manifested by the defense, certainly the play by Walker and Pierce gets it to the five or whatever, and you punch it in, you did some good things in the red zone. You had three deep red zone penetration. He scored all three times. Now, God bless Drake London, correct? because you’re you’re throwing the ball to a guy that’s the 50/50 monster in this league. So, he goes and gets the ball. But 25 plays in the first half on offense. You only ran three plays on offense in the third quarter. I don’t know if anybody realizes that. Unbelievable. Then all of a sudden it flipped and the efficiency with which you need to operate offensively came to life. Not that you converted on third down. You were converting first downs on second down and sometimes on first down. You stayed away from third down. But you ran 27 plays in the fourth quarter to 11 plays for New England and all of a sudden you look up. What happened? We end the ball game. You climb right back in the game. You make an extra point. We’re playing we’re probably playing in overtime. Okay. So that’s what I was talking about. Efficiency on offense. No empty series. No empty plays. didn’t get that for the better part of three quarters. Yet in the fourth quarter, we saw how dominant this team can be both throwing and running the football. They made it happen in the fourth quarter to climb back. Um, so if we’re given a letter grade, letter grade is a C minus. C minus. And is that only C minus because the fourth quarter bumped it up? Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. If you had gotten the fourth quarter, you know, we’d be looking maybe to repeat the course again. Um, mine was first downs and it was just period first downs and you had mentioned sometimes getting a first down on second down. I was going through the game and I was taking some notes and I think I had the first, now granted I we’re talking about first downs, but the first third down conversion came with a minute 10 seconds left in the third quarter. Okay. They were one for six at that point. At the end of the third, Patriots had 20 first downs. Atlanta had 10. Okay. And that was a third and one conversion. Correct. On a sevenyard pass. So 10 first downs at the end of the third. Then you said they turned it on in the fourth quarter. They ended up finishing with 17 first downs. So if you just look at the number, you’re going to say wasn’t bad. They got beat. Patriots had 23 first downs in the game. However, 10 first downs in the first three quarters. Once again, Arch, to your point, wasn’t enough, right? You weren’t able to be efficient enough to keep yourself on the field. Obviously, that ended up manifesting itself on third down in such a poor performance on third down, but my key was first downs, and I’m going to go with a C minus because the fourth quarter kind of changed it as well. So, the uh the grades are not looking so great. And then we threw the last one in. Special teams more disciplined. And I don’t know, I guess if you just look at a missed extra point, that’s not not necessarily not discipline, but that’s not the job. Yeah. Right. Um, and that’s one of the biggest storylines coming out of the game. And Raheem Morris was asked about it, whether or not that’s going to be up for competition again. And his answer was simple, like we just got to make the kick, guys. And I thought about it a lot because I’m the resident special teams guy here and I was not a kicker, but I was in a same position to where your success is not necessarily about mechanics fundamentals. It’s mental. It’s your ability to perform in the moment. And I heard a quote from Raheem Morris in his press conferences. He said, “Excelling in that position and making those kicks is won during games, is developed during games, not in practice.” Yeah. Right. Because you can go out and you can drill 43 yards and coach can put the game on the line. You can bring all the players up around the kicker in practice and you can say, “This is a pressure moment. You got to make this kick to tie the game on an extra point or win the game or it’s in overtime.” Whatever the the scenario be, you could do all that stuff in practice, fellas, but the game is different. And I would flip this to you. I was thinking about this as I was driving here today. How is this I know it’s two completely different positions, but how is making an extra point when you have to tie the game as far as the mental side of it? How is it any different than a quarterback and your ability at the end of the game to put a drive together to go win it versus not winning it? Is there an element of confidence Moxy been there done that and not mechanics not well his throwing slot is not great or he doesn’t have the ne necessarily the right zip on the ball but it’s has he been there does he believe in himself and is he going to do it arch before you go I’ll say something real quick I think even more than just the last drive for a quarterback I think it comes down to if you have to take the instance of okay they have this one opportunity to make this play I correlated to a fourth down and you got to make a throw. Yeah. And we saw it in the ball game as opposed to okay, you got a whole drive where it’s first, okay, I missed the first down throw, I got a second down throw, I can throw it. That’s different when you’re a kicker. But I think it’s a fourth down play. That’s when in your mind, am I going to rip it? And he got man covered right there. I’m going to rip it when I don’t know if he gonna really come out to break yet. And I think that’s kind of the same mindset is I believe it, I trust it, and I’m gonna throw it as opposed to, oh, I’mma wait and see or I just don’t feel like maybe it’s a little bit of win here or maybe I need to hold it a little bit on that left upright to bring it back. That’s too much thinking. You got to kick the ball and go. It’s same thing with throwing it on fourth down. Similar to I mean the throw that Michael Pennix makes to to Drake London on fourth down. You can’t make that throw unless you trust it. Yes. And I mean that ball was ripped to a spot where only his guy can get it. And it was such a tight window that if he didn’t have confidence to throw it, he probably don’t put it in that spot. Maybe it’s a little bit behind. Maybe he, you know, kind of holds it a little bit then lets it go. I think it just comes down to if you have trust and confidence in that in that one opportunity to make it. Yep. And you don’t think about it, you just let it go. Arch, before you go, and I think it was a great point that you made about trusting it. Okay. And what I the parallel that I what I want I want to draw here with the kicker is I played with a couple guys that relished in that opportunity. I was with Jay Feelely uh in Atlanta and I was with Josh Brown in Seattle and both of those guys could not wait for that moment like get me in the situation and I’m going to go win the game and they couldn’t wait to run out on the field and they just had that dog in them that like I’m built for this fellas. Like just give me the opportunity to kick the field goal and I’m going to win the game for us. And then after they kick it, they’ve kind of just got that little that little, you know, cockiness, if you will, or or confidence. But to me, it’s Arch. It’s that dog that when you go out on the field, you’re not thinking about am I going to make it. The last kick, it kind of veered to the right a little bit. What do I need to do to correct it? It’s no, I’m going on the field and I’m going to drill this kick to win the game, which to his point is like the fourth and one that I’m going to rip it for this first down into this tight window because I got confidence in myself. Yeah, you all the things you guys are touching on from a confidence standpoint, the mindset that you go into, I think there’s a lot of differences. The quarterback when you get to a final drive of a game is thrown probably 35 passes in the game. So, you’ve you’ve you’ve built up some idea of what guys are doing coming out of breaks, how are they covering things, where do I need to put the football? Your offensive coordinator has boiled it down to where this is the best play based on what we’ve seen throughout the game. the kicker. And I’m not, believe me, I’m not trying to defend kickers. You don’t even have to wash their uniform. They don’t even get dirty, you know, in the game. But but but there it is. It is a different it is a different situation. And here’s something that I would throw on top of that. This is a guy that didn’t go through training camp with you. Has no really any, you know, anything embedded with the team, chemistry. Exactly. So you you’re talking about guys Jay Feelely was here forever. Yeah. you know, so those guys are kind of even though they’re not in the trenches, they’ve gone through all the stuff with you and the highs and lows and they’ve probably made kicks that have won games for you. And so you trod a guy out here that’s just trying to establish some kind of credibility with the team. Had the good game against Minnesota, the five for five game. Did that give him enough confidence? Um, it certainly looked like a lack of confidence kick, you know, because it kind of bled off to the right. He missed it. Um, and I saw the guys come over and try to, you know, try to, you know, dap him up or whatever to try to make him feel okay. I just think there’s a lot of differences with a kicker. Um, because it might be the only chance you get in a game. Might be. You now he he got trotted out there two or three times. So, it wasn’t his only kick in the game. And if you look at the kick prior to that, it just snuck in. The field goal just barely got in. So, as you said, he’s coming out there with a mindset that he kind of leaked a little bit. I Hey, hey, Bradley, can you tilt it a little bit more to the inside? I need to move my foot to the left a little. How much? And that’s a question for you. You’ve been around those guys. They’re different. There’s different breeds of guys. Some of them are are like regular players. Other guys are kind of off to themselves. You’ve probably seen all of the all kinds. Mhm. What is it then from a a kicker perspective in in let’s say Parker Romo’s situation the way he is now where he joined this team three or four games or two games in the season and he’s trying to build some credibility had an off day against Carolina had a really good day against against Minnesota kind of a mixed bag. I know, you know, he’s hanging on because you got a kicker on the practice squad that’s waiting for an opportunity potentially. And I know that’s part of the business, but as a mental as it is, what is he going through mentally on that? Yeah, I mean, this is that’s what I that’s kind of where I was going with this entire conversation is this is not a mechanic. This is not a leg strength. This is not an operation with the field goal unit where he’s not trusting people. It’s none of that. It is simply a mental thing and it’s confidence or lack thereof that he’s been in this moment before that he is going out there and he’s going to drill the kick. And that’s kind of where I was trying to kind of frame this conversation because even though you never really think about a kicker being a dog, that’s still kind of the same mentality. Yeah. Right. Is the guy that’s been there before that has so much confidence in himself that the nerves are not going to get to him. puts the ball right through the middle of the uprights or it’s not close. Maybe it’s a little bit to the right of the middle, but it’s not sneaking in, right? Because they’re so confident in everything, their approach, their footwork, their placement, their body angle, all of those things, right? And the really good ones, when they have a miss earlier in the game, it’s just like any other position. It’s just like the quarterback position is it’s short-term memory. Like that one’s gone. the really good ones, but the ones that still are trying to find their way because I I had a lot of these guys in preeason when I was playing. Like you’d always have the younger guy that was coming in to kind of challenge your incumbent veteran and you could just kind of see it in those pressure packed situations. They’re thinking more about the ball faded a little bit to the right last time. What do I need to do to fix that? Whereas the guy that’s been there before is like please, right? like I’m going to go do my thing and I’m drilling this one right down the middle. And when you think like that, the body just follows it, right? Like your body, your nerves, everything just follows right down the middle of the uprights. Yeah. It’s it’s probably one of those only moments where as a fan you can probably h have some perspective on this. And the the way I say say that is a lot of people play golf, right? And you’ve blown you blow one in the trees off the tea box. Yep. Okay. And now you’re trying to get back in the game. You make double bogey. Okay. You lost on that hole. Yep. So here I go. I got to stride to the next tea and hit one. Right. So it’s kind of one of those only moments where the common fan can kind of if if you play golf. Not everybody plays golf that you can kind of get a feeling for what that feels like, you know, and and you can’t really feel what a quarterback feels when he, you know, it’s fourth quarter and it’s fourth down or what. That’s that’s hard. Unless you’re on 18 and you got a lot on the line, which you mean a lot. You play for all that money. You’re playing for all that money. But no, it’s it’s one of those moments. So, yeah, it’s um we’ve probably beaten a dead horse there on that deal, but um it’s interesting. It is a very different mindset. It’s tough, man. And um to try to to and I know what you’re trying to do is you’re trying to is there some similarities? I I guess in the very moment there’s some similarities for a quarterback trying to make a throw on fourth down or something like that. But again, you’ve thrown probably 25 to 35 maybe 40 passes in the game that have kind of set the table for you not to really be thinking about, oh, this is fourth down. The game’s on the line because you’re not even think you’re going through reads. You’re doing all that. He’s standing there waiting. I got to kick this through the uprights. Yeah. Or we lose the game. You’re not even You’re not even going there as a quarterback, right? It’s tough. Yeah, you’re right. Um, so you’re right. We did kind of have a long drawn out conversation about it. And and just as a disclaimer, as we shoot this show on a Tuesday, we don’t know anything whether or not there’s going to be any changes at that position. We’re just talking about as it as it ends up unfolding. Um, fellas, let’s talk a little bit about this game. I know you you’re not really trying to the the best way to analyze it is not to look at things positively and paint a picture when it’s another loss. However, there was some positives. Takeaways in the game, DJ. Six sacks in the game. The defense showing up in the back field. Jaylen Walker, I thought, played a really good game with how he was able to make some plays. What are some, not to sit here and say, “Oh, let’s sugarcoat it here, but things that you can take away from the game that you’re hoping continue week after week.” The one thing that sticks out that that comes to mind instantly is how about the first and second year guys, especially in that that front seven for the Falcon. You you uh you probably called Rrook’s name a bunch of times. Probably called Darlan’s names a couple times. Uh obviously we talked about Pierce and we talked about uh Jaylen. I mean he filled up the stat sheet. I mean it was fun to watch those guys kind of okay as things are starting to click a little bit. So if you’re looking at something to be positive, you’re thinking about okay are these guys finally turning the corner a little bit. You’re like okay. Uh, I heard uh Arch talk to my man uh Doris after the game and he goes, “Oh man, soon as Lale got a sack, oh, I got to go get me one now.” And that’s I mean, you love that kind of mindset. It’s like, “Oh, it’s time to go eat. He eating. I need to go eat.” You love that attitude. And I think you’re starting to get that and you see these guys playing these different roles. And if you look back at this game with those sacks, I mean, it wasn’t a lot of blitzing. It was maybe four or five man pressures at times. It was here’s an ET stunt here. Here’s a another guy just winning off effort. I mean, it was some of that going on up front and you got to love that. So, I when I look at defensively, the thing that comes to mind is those first and second year guys making their presence known, having an impact. We talked about the beginning of the season of, okay, this is a big time for RP, it’s a big time for Doris, no more Grady Jerry. Are you going to be those guys that step into that void and feel that form? And I thought these guys are starting to make their presence known, especially on the inside. And then uh I think I was seeing somewhere, you know, Jaylen and Pierce are, you know, top five and pressure rates this season, but you could just feel those guys coming off the edge now. And it was good to see Jaylen to come through, get the ball out, and then how about the wear fall off for Pierce, not just fall on the rock, he trying to scoop and score. And you love that. You got two athletic dudes on the outside who are eager to get to the quarterback. And I thought those guys did a good job. Can I ask you guys a question though? When Pierce was running that ball toward the end zone, were you guys yelling at the TV2 like, “Bro, you better tuck that football away.” Like the only thing I could think about was he was going to make this gamechanging play and then somebody was going to knock. Like he looked up at the board. Did he looked up at the board? I’m sure he did. You know, you’re right. You look up at the board, you can see who’s behind you. And see, where’s the where’s the confidence? You you you thinking like a kicker. I’m old. I’m old school. Everybody that I was around said tough the football. I said he’s going in. I was thinking about the dance he was going to do when he got unless your name is Dion Sanders. Tuck the football away. Okay, that’s true. Um, Arch, let’s do let let’s pivot here though because I don’t want this discussion to just to be about, hey, this is all the really good stuff that happened on the defensive side of the ball. Let’s talk about third down because third down on both sides of the ball was a problem. All right. Offensively, you already talked about the struggles the last few weeks now, like this is building defensively, eight of 12, like you needed to get a stop to get them off the field to give the offense another opportunity to kind of get things going. What is the issues on third down? Because that’s what a lot of people that are listening and watching is they’re looking for us to say how can what what is their opinion on what needs to change for it to get better. Couple third longs you give up, too. Yeah. There there were a couple and those are the disappointing ones because that’s that’s where you’ve won to put yourself in position to get off the field, right? Or as as Raheem likes to say, off the grass. I love that. Um it was it was essentially lack of efficiency in on first and second down defensively, which creates these opportunities to be in a manageable third down situ. That’s what you’re trying to do. trying, you hear all the analogies trying to stay on schedule, efficiency on offense, manageable third downs, all these different uh little cliches that are thrown out about it, but what what New England was able to do for the most part was stay in those situations. And when you did win on first and second down and to the to your point, Shock, you you lost coverage. You you had a you had a check down to a tight end in the left flat and he runs for a first down, you know, where’s where’s the underneath coverage? There was some you got a little discombobulated in the back end. there wasn’t a guy at a flat defender there to come up and make that tackle. You want them to throw the ball underneath, come up, make the tackle for six, seven yards. They have to punt the football. Um, I think that’s the key. They were able to run the ball with some success in this game. That continues to be a little bit of an Achilles heel for this defense, especially that interior run. I thought it was better in this game and I thought it got better in the game because when they tried to throw the ball on first and second down, you created some negative plays. And that’s what has to happen to create uh opportunities to get off off the grass as Raheem likes to say is you have to create some negative plays on first and second down. When you look at Atlanta early on on offense, third and 12, third and nine, third and 10, third and 10, you’re getting negative plays or stalemate plays on first and second down that are creating those opportunities for defenses to get off the field. We’re not doing enough of that on first and second down to create those moments. And I think that that that’ll be something that Olberch and his group look at. I think overall they’re number four in the National Football League in total defense. Do you like where that is? six sacks. You talked about that. You love where that is. Two turnovers, you win the turnover battle. How do you lose the football game? Well, you allow them to eat clock where your offense can’t be on the field and your offense can’t get any kind of rhythm because they’re not on the field. So, I would say you go back to the the efficiency on first and second down. Much like you do on offense, you got to be efficient on defense, too. You got to create some negative plays like we’re h that’s happening to us to create those opportunities to get off the field and give your offense the ball. Arch, let me ask you this. Um, I’m watching the game and obviously a big part of this game is obviously third down and some execution there and one thing that that just kept just just ringing for me and I went back and I looked it up and uh I counted 12 plays of 10 yards or more in this ball game. And we talk about execution, but then you also talk about limiting the explosive plays. When a fan looks at that part of the game, what do you point to is how you can remedy that? Because obviously, as we know, we talk about every week, teams are going to draw up stuff. Yeah, they’re going to win. They’re going they got good players, too. But 12 plays of 10 yards or more is something you can’t have in a game. Well, you again, you begin to look at some of the matchups and I thought there was specifically a place they attacked. Yeah. In our defense area, they attacked the inside part of our defense. The nickel situation is where they attacked. Douglas got free on a couple of those big plays. This was a team that came in and had 63 plays of 15 yards or more. They were averaging eight plays or more per per game of those explosives. So, they matched that. They they got to that number. That was a number you wanted. And that’s not a number Atlanta had Atlanta done a pretty good job. 33 plays coming in in seven games of 15 yards or more. They had not allowed that to happen. It’s, you know, it’s not just one guy. Now, I I said the Nickels situation, and that’s a man-to-man sometimes situation. Sometimes you’re you’re comboing there, but it also has to be you have to get home with pressure. If I’m coming to pressure and playing man coverage, my guy can’t cover an over route, which is what Alford was asked to do and some other guys were asked to do, clear across the field. So, it becomes a team concept. But that that was that’s an aberration, I hope, because Atlanta had not done that defensively, given up the explosives. New England had been doing that. So, when in a in a battle of wills a little bit, New England won that. Um, Shock, let’s talk a little bit about Arch was alluding to the fact that Atlanta was not able to have success on early downs, which contributed to them being poor on third downs. A lot of that had to do with the fact that, and we talked about this last week, going into the matchup, New England had not allowed a running back, a singular running back to rush for over 50 yards in a game. Crazy. And what happens with Bjon Robinson held to less than 50 yards in this game? Again, this is now another week. We’re not only talking about the run game getting stuffed, but now we’re talking about some guards, offensive guards getting banged up. So, what did you see in the running game? Because to me, I don’t think, yes, you want to tip your cap to New England and say they’ve been a really tough run defense. I don’t feel like it’s a valid excuse to just say, “Hey, they’re pretty good. They’re going to shut us down.” Right? Not when you’ve got somebody like Bjan Robinson. Not when you’ve got an offensive line that’s played together as long as they have. I feel like to me that’s that’s not a great response. So, what needs to happen with this offense to get him, not only just him, but Tyler Algier going so they can be more of that dominant run offense. I think you mentioned part of it is obviously, you know, having the mixed combinations up front of a couple guys coming in and out of the lineup. Obviously, that doesn’t help when you don’t have your key guys in. Burge goes out early. Uh we know what a a dog Burge is, especially in the run game and his physicality. Uh and that’s part of it too that we’ve talked about the last couple weeks is the other side of the ball has just been more physical than we have. And ultimately, uh you’re not going to draw up new plays. The run game is what it is. I mean, you got outside, inside, you got ways to run it, you got ways to, you know, get to it, formation, uh motion, whatever it may be. But the end of the ball game, it comes down to being able to move that guy in front of you. And I think ultimately last two weeks we just haven’t been able to do that three weeks to be honest. We haven’t been able to to just move that guy in front of you to be able to create the run lanes we like. And the other part of for me is I know it was a little bit tougher in the Miami game because you were down you know 273 or whatever it was and you had to get away from it. But uh I think we have to have we have to be more adamant about staying with the run game a little bit longer. Um, obviously there are times where uh it’s advantageous for you to throw the football. Teams may be loading up. They’re bringing that extra guy in the box and uh obviously they’re having success doing that. But I think there’s still opportunities where you have two guys back there. I think regardless of how many guys they have down there can make a guy miss, can get you three, four, five yards. And I think we have to stick to it a little bit longer. Now, when it comes to the execution part of it, uh, you know, without going back and knowing exactly what each guy’s supposed to do in the run game, uh, that’s tough to say. And, you know, we’ve been a part of it long enough to know, okay, we’re in the outside zone, you know, where guys supposed to go get up to that second level. That’s a part of it. But, I think you have to have to have to give it a little bit more just to to show it because we want to be play action. We want to be able to move uh, Mike around a little bit more. And that’s part of it too, I think, also is I think N can use his legs a little bit more. Yeah. And I think that’s something we saw in his last ball game. He took off for a 15 yard run. Everybody’s like, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, what? He can do that?” And the dude is athletic. Art talked to him after the game about, “Hey, Popsy, use your legs a little bit more.” And he’s like, “Yeah, that ain’t my first thing, but if I have to, I will.” I think that’s part of also forcing defenses to respect that, hey, that 11th guy can hurt you, too. And I think if you can do that when you get him on the perimeter, on the edge, or him just having the ability to take off on you, maybe add something else to the run game as well. And I know we’ve done a a a good job of trying to create the quote unquote run game, putting Bean out, throwing it to him in space, kind of a, you know, a look of what the run game would be, just giving him the football. But, uh, I think N can actually have a big part of it, too. The problem, and I I agree with you completely, Shock, the ability to commit to the run game. You ran 28 plays in the first three quarters. How much can you commit to the run game when you’re not getting any movement in the run game? Let’s say you run half the time. You run 14 plays and you look up and you got 32 yards rushing. Yeah. Well, you’re not on the field and now your defense, much like the Miami game, is on the field for 38 minutes. That’s why I thought the they came out and I I completely you don’t want to there’s the your hurts your pride as a football player to say, “Oh, well, they’re good against the run. We can’t run it.” No, no, no, no. We We can run it. And and but you have to be able to be efficient on first and second down throwing the football in the perimeter or in your quick game to give you a chance to get first downs, to give you a chance to stay to the run game. Because if I run it, it’s minus one. Now I run it again. It’s two. Now, now my young quarterback’s third and eight. And I don’t convert. I’m off the field. Here comes my defense. And they get a couple first downs. Maybe they move it down to score. And you look up and it’s 21 to7. Well, I want to keep Bean involved. Maybe I need to throw it to him. Throw it to him. And then you’re not efficient in your screen game. First drive of the game. Yeah. Your your screen game is not efficient. You you miss some blocks on the perimeter. So it’s a it’s a holistic approach to what what we’re doing. As much as you want to stay with the run game, I feel Zack Robinson. You look up and I’ve only had the ball for 25 plays in the first half. I ran it nine times or 10 times and I didn’t get anything out of it. How do you stay with that? You know, if you keep your sanity, how do I continue to beat my head against a wall and keep sending my defense out there after three and outs? You can’t do it. I can’t do that on Madden. I mean, I’m trying to run the I get quick on Madden, man. Come on. Imagine Zay Robinson trying to keep him. Um, so let’s not But the key though, real Rack, you said it is is is the what you can do is you begin to use nine more get Pennix more involved out of bootleg stuff. If people are crashing down and you’ve got second level guys that are running to the the the to the playside A and B gap and running through, how do I stop that? Because that’s what’s happening. You look at Bon catches the ball, both linebackers are coming. You stick the ball in Bjon’s belly and get all that flow and then I naked bootleg out. Now all of a sudden I got a problem in the sec. If if my tight end looks like he’s blocking, then check releases and goes across the formation. Those linebackers are flowing downfield. I’ve got Kyle Pitts on the move. You know, you start incorporating some of that stuff. But the confidence level, we were talking about the kicker confidence level. I think Michael has to have the confidence that he can take off. You know, this is a he’s got a history of getting banged and I’m not sure that that’s there’s a ghost or a skeleton in his head that says, “Oh, if I take off, I’m going to get hit. I’m going to get hurt or something like that.” It happened to him early in his career in Indiana. But I thought you made a great point in that I said it during the game, he got out and he looked like the best athlete on the field. In fact, I kind of blurred a little bit. I said, “Wait a is that Vic running with the football?” Because that’s what he did, right? Yeah, he looked like the fastest guy on the field. I’m hoping that that manifests itself into a confidence for him that he can skate out of there and take advantage of his athleticism because guys, there’s times when it might be second and 10 and they dial up a pass and if everything vacates and and he doesn’t or he doesn’t have anything downfield cuz it’s covered up like third and six is cool. Like third and six is much better than third and 10 if he just tucks it down and picks up four. But I mean, we saw a few weeks ago Josh Allen, like that’s what he does. Like Josh Allen, he like you’re going to give me the run. Like I’m going to take it. Patrick Mahomes is he’s one of the best passing quarterbacks in the National Football League. He’s going to take the yards if you give it to him and he’s going to slide. Andre State came in this game 250 yards rushing. He skated out a couple times. I’m looking at I’m looking at Penn now. Pennock’s missed a game. But Michael coming into the game 24 carries for or I’m sorry, 17 carries, 43 yards. 43 yards really used it much. Drake May Drake May came into the game with 51 carries. Obviously a couple few more 250 yards, two touchdowns. And I think the 250 was second most on the team. Is that right? Yeah. Rusher. That’s a guy that’s not more athletic than Michael Penn is. And I think everybody’s got this misnomer about, oh, he’s a pocket passer. And I hear all these these talking heads around the country say, well, he just stands in the pocket and throw. Go look at this guy’s history. This guy ran four, five at the combine. All that kind of he can go now. He just got to go take it. All right. So, so let’s kind of use this as we transition into the next week as the Falcons not only have a big challenge of travel this week as they go to Berlin, Germany, and we’ll talk to Dave about that. But they’re also going to face arguably one of the hottest teams in the National Football League. So, let’s start with a little bit of the travel because Arch, you’ve done this Europe trip a couple of times with the Falcons. So give the people that are listening and watching a little bit of flavor of just what that part of this trip is about. Yeah, it’s well it’s not it’s not routine, right guys? The players are so used to being routine. So the team’s going to leave Thursday afternoon. So it’s essentially if you were in LA and you’re going to fly back to Atlanta, you jump on that 11:30 flight and you got the red eye back to Atlanta. You get in about 6 o’clock in the morning. That’s what’s going to happen here. Only the red eye is going to take nine hours to get there. So you’re going to leave here at about 4 4:30 in the afternoon and you’re going to arrive in in Germany around what 7 8:00 in the morning. Okay, with the time change. So I think it’s a six-hour time change there. The team is immediately going to go to practice. So what you’re immediately trying to do, you guys know this, is you try to get on that clock. That’s the idea of going over a couple days early is you got to you get on that clock. And so we’re not you hopefully you can get some sleep on the plane. Um, they’re going to get a lot more sleep than I am because they have those little sleeper things and I’ve got a regular chair. They get you one in. They get to sleep for you. Come on. Are you kidding me? Yeah. I got to get under. Remember the old bus rides? You had to get underneath the bus the underneath the the seats to get. But anyway, you get over there, they’re going to practice and try to get on that on that time clock. So, what the coaches are going to try to do is, and you guys have played international stuff, too, is they’re going to try to get things back to normal as quickly as possible. So, practice here on Thursday. Load up, get on the plane, get over there, practice when you get over there, go back to the hotel, try not to go to lay down at 4:00 in the afternoon, you know, and then uh and then Saturday, you hope you settle into more of a a normal Saturday, come in, walk through, do whatever you want to do, meetings, and then you you dis you disperse and go what do whatever you do from a from a home game standpoint. It kind of becomes a home game scenario, you hope, and then you get up and play. Now, it’s going to come on what here at 9:30 in the morning. I think that’s uh 3:30 over there, I think, is is kick time over there. I mean, watch that on Fox 5. Is it is it realistic? And I’ll ask you, you this, Rack, you you you did a number of these as well. Um, as a player, is it realistic to do the whole get on the time clock thing or is it still kind of feel weird to you? Yeah, it’s still a little bit off. Let me just say it that way, right? Like you you’re going to try, but like getting on that time to me doesn’t take like 36 hours. It takes a little bit longer than that. If you can get yourself accusto and and the biggest thing for me cuz I I played in two international games in Japan as a player, which was preseason, and that’s even longer trip. Okay. Preseason was different because it’s not it’s not a game that like every that matters for your win loss record, right? But it’s so much of a longer trip. Okay. But then I’ve also probably called eight of these London games on the radio for Westwood one. So I’ve done this trip a number of times. Now I don’t have the benefit of their um physiologists, their sports science people and all of the different things that they do to try to get these guys prepared from a nutrition, from a sleep, all that stuff. I just fly over there like a regular person and I generally lift would leave at like 11, land over there at 9 or 10 in the morning and then I am exhausted. Yeah. And everybody told me fellas, don’t go to sleep the first day. I tried it one time and I made it to about 7:30 or 8:00. I was hurting and I was fighting it all day long. Every other time I went over there, I had to fall asleep because I I don’t sleep well on those planes going over there because it’s I’m in a regular seat. I’m tall. I’m never able to get comfortable. It’s different for these guys, right? So hopefully they are able to get some sleep. They are able to get on the clock because they’re going to get over there and move right away, right? But then once you get over there, guys, it’s like guess what? The Colts got to play under the same conditions as well, right? They’re traveling. They got to do it, too. So guess what? Excuses are gone. Yeah. Because everybody’s got to do the same thing. Now it just gets back to doing what we talked about all season long, and it’s executing. So Shock, I’m going to turn it over to you and I’m going to have you give the listeners and the viewers a little bit of flavor of what the Falcons are going to see in the Colts this year. Again, a team that coming into the season, I don’t think anybody expected to be one of the top be a soft point in the right that to be one of the top teams in the National Football League. Yeah. And to start the season, you thought coming in the coach would be having a quarterback and Anthony Richardson who would be their guy. And you said, “Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. He’s coming into, you know, second, third year trying to figure it out and uh that they’re still a work in progress and then they bring old Danny Dimes and you’re like, “Oh, Daniel Jones, he was all right.” And uh New York, but sometimes you just need a new surrounding. Sometimes you just need a new voice and he’s playing some of his best football uh to date. And a lot of people said, “Hey, he he could be in the conversation for one of the top guys in the league.” And obviously last week they didn’t have their best game. He he threw three interceptions in that ball game and uh they held Jonathan Taylor to what 46 yards rushing or some in that ball game. But this is a offense that is is you’re talking about putting up points. Uh eighth in rushing offense, 125 a game. Third in pass offense and uh 257 a game and first in the National Football League in points scoring 32 a game. Both him, Daniel Jones, and Jonathan Taylor both lead their respective categories in passing yards at Daniel Jones and then rushing yards and Jonathan Taylor. You’re talking about a guy who you look up the stat sheet and you say, “Oh my god, this dude is going for 100.” Like it’s nothing every single week. He’s a tough player. You can he can catch it out the back field. Uh and then you look up and say, “Oh man, they got some receivers on the outside.” I mean, you look up you got Pitman Jr. who has got six touchdowns on the year. They got three guys with over 500 yards already in this season. Uh obviously the tight end Tyler Warren who I think we all saw the last couple years at Notre Dame. Uh a do it all guy from we saw this guy played quarterback at Notre Dame. Penn State, sorry about that. Penn State. Yeah. Yeah. Penn State did did a lot of great things for them. Um Alec Pierce uh another guy who’s averaging 20 yards of reception. I mean, you you talking about a receiver group that and then you got another little guy on the inside from North Carolina and Josh DS who is also a threat on the outside who is fourth. So, you’re talking about have playmakers at every freaking level. They got it. And then you got a quarterback who can distribute the football. They’re playing at a high level offensively. Last week obviously won their best showing against Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh put it on them pretty good. Uh but this is an offense that you got expect to bring it because they’re looking to put some points on the board. Yeah. Shout out Gary DS too. Gary DS former former former Falcon. I mean he is producing like absolute stunts son in Iowa State like is going to be like the best defensive player coming out in the draft. Well, I think he’s got a daughter or somebody playing volleyball at Vanderbilt or not V but like at Duke that’s an all-American. So Gary, way to get it done, brother. You and your wife getting it done. Um Arch, um here’s the interesting thing. the the Falcons in what do we call it four weeks now have faced Christian McAffrey, Devon Achan, and now Jonathan Taylor. So they’re they’re getting a steady dose of some really electric running backs. And Taylor’s built a little bit differently than the first two guys, but Shock talked about his numbers and what he was able to do. However, is it it’s not as easy to just put on the Pittsburgh tape and say this is what we need to do. However, you slow down Jonathan Taylor to the tune of 45 yards and then you force Daniel Jones to throw the football 50 times. Like, that’s when you’re going to have some opportunities. So, it’s so at least Atlanta’s seeing some a recent recipe in how you slow down this what we didn’t know was going to be a potent Colts offense. Yeah. Get them off the field. Get them off the field on third down. Try to win that down. This is a team that’s converting 45% on third down. Son of a gun. And the part that’s the part that’s even tougher is they’ve converted 15 of 17 fourth downs. So which tells you they’re staying on schedule comfortable enough to where they get to fourth and two they’re going to go for it. They’re staying on the field. Yeah. So they’re so they’re converting at a high high level when it comes to staying on the field. Pittsburgh Pittsburgh took that away from them. Pittsburgh turned them over and those are the obviously that’s the recipe. You want to sack the quarterback and and turn them over. What did we do this last weekend? sack the quarterback and turn them over. So, you got to be more efficient on first and second down, but that’s that’s what you’re looking for there. I I I don’t think there’s any special pill that you take. Uh you’ve got to stop the run. And what are they going to look at say, okay, what do teams that run the football that have an off day, which they did against against the Steelers, lost 2720 to the Steelers, turned it over, did some things uncharacteristic that had been kind of existing in their first seven games. Um they’re going to get back to what they did. They’re going to try to pound the run. They’re going to say, “Oh, just what the doctor ordered. Team that can’t stop the interior run game. We’re going to come after the run game.” So Brook’s group’s going to have to swell up there. This is a pretty good defensive unit as well. They’ve got a linebacker that hits like most really good linebacker. Zary Franklin flies all over the field. He’s got three consecutive seasons of 165 plus tackles. Um they’ve got an outstanding safety and Nick Cross who who is another tackling machine that flies around and Leatu Latu who they drafted a couple years ago leads them in sacks. They are, I think, eighth or ninth in the league in sacks as a team. Um, so they’re doing some stuff defensively. The one thing they’re not doing, stopping the pass. They’re they’re not stopping the pass and they’re not getting people off the field on third down. Teams are converting 45.6% on third down. That’s near the bottom of the league. If there was anything the doctor ordered was a team struggling on third down defensively, which is what we’re struggling around on offense, right? And it it needs to be a week where they get things um back on track. Um, I was looking at Daniel Jones’s numbers and and guys, this is not really a surprise, but like pretty much the whole season he’s thrown anywhere from 25 to 34 passes in the game. And I think that’s where they want him to live. But the fact was they got they got off schedule in the change. They got shut down in the run game and they forced him to throw. Like there’s certain guys like I don’t know if you want Patrick Mahomes throwing it 50 times or Jared Goff throwing it 50 times because those guys are probably going to end up making you pay at some point throughout the course of the game. But generally when a quarterback’s throwing it 50 times it’s not a good thing, right? Um but I think if Atlanta can get to the point to where Daniel Jones has to throw it a lot where you got a defense that’s got some confidence in getting after the quarterback, you’ve got a secondary that can take the football away. Maybe maybe this unccorks Jesse Bates a little bit more after you mentioned he got his first interception of the season. Um that this is a a game where the defense can can try to get back on track slowing down the run game again but also trying to get some takeaways. Um I’m reading our rundown and this is throwing me off because I didn’t see it but it it’s time for our Get that right. Say that. Say that you handle it pretty good. You want to try that? All right, your turn. Here. Here. Go. Right here. Right here. Try try this. Right here. Well, I think I don’t know that I can say it any better than you do. Zenzil. Go ahead. A shock. Your turn. Your turn. Let me see what your best German is. It’s your zamin. Why did he sound like Why did he say like an English guy? I sound like a little bit of Irish in that. What was that? What was that? I can’t. You’re not a native. So for people that are listening like a native, didn’t he? That is um supposedly probably a completely off pronunciation, but Keith, there’s a game in German. You got to get Sophia to come say that. Zoom spiel. All right. So we’re going to give our um zoom spiel. I need one spiel from you. Keys to the game. Key to the game for Atlanta to come away with a victory. Zooms spill. I would say dominate the line of scrimmage. This will be a ball game. I think that if you win the line of scrimmage, I’m not going to let you have that. What do you mean? I’m not going to let you. What game don’t you want to dominate the line of scrimmage? It’s my key. It’s my key. How you going to take my key? Shock. Don’t hijack. Well, you know why? It’s because he’s a Georgia Bulldog. And what do they do every game? They dominate the line of scrimmage. Have we not dominated the line of scrimmage? No, we have not. We have not. We have not. That’s a good call. That’s a good call. No, no, no. I I get what you’re saying and it seems like duh, but I feel like with the way they run the football, with our need to be able to run the football, we got to own a line of scrimmage in this ball game. I mean, every game you have to have that for sure. I would I’m I’m okay with your room spiel. Okay, that one is Is that really kind of a piece of it? Is that a piece of somebody listening or watching that speaks German? Strudel with something sprinkled on top of strudel. There you go. There you go. Hacks over here are just butchering this. All right. Uh Arch, give us a key to the game. Wow. So, we’re going to do like So, I can’t go anywhere near dominate the line of scrimmage or anything like that cuz that takes run game, all that kind of stuff. Converting on third down is really boring. So, how do you get there? Duh. I’m going to say the the quarterback that has the most rushing yards in this game wins the game. Dang. That’s okay. Feeding off of what we talked about earlier. I can’t I can’t even get him with that one. That’s a good one. I don’t know how good it is, but it’s different than what you It’s different. Yeah. Yeah. I I think that if Michael can have an impact on this game just other than throwing the ball, cuz you know, Daniel Jones has the ability to do that same stuff. he can get out and run as well. So, the quarterback that has the most impact in the run game or his ability to move, let’s just say his ability to move the move out of the pocket and extend things. Okay. I think wins the football game. Okay. I like it. All right. So, you guys stayed offense kind of. Yours was both like yours was every part of the game. He took he took the whole It is not every part of the game though. What are we talking about? We still got a throw. We got third down. We got red zone. I mean, come on. We got a lot of different things. My key is going to be defense causing chaos. Okay. Okay. And so what does that mean? That means sacks. That could mean tips at the line of scrimmage. That could mean hurries, which forces Daniel Jones out on the perimeter. That means pass deflections when they throw the ball down the field. That obviously means takeaways. I’m talking about Did you just come up with that? You because I was trying to give variety, you know. That’s Well, see, that’s what I do. I tried to come. He got control of line of scrimmage. Yeah. So completely do completely screws us, you know. We don’t get no chance to come with anything, right? Because it’s like we can’t do all three of the same thing. And so so you his was yours was offense. I went with defense. I like yours. Yours yours was much better on defense. I’ll drink a Heineken for you. A different option right there for you. Just by the way, that was a backhanded slap to you that he didn’t like your Is that an is that is Heineken an America is that an American German beer or is that actually a German beer or is it even a German beer? Heineken. Yeah, I I know what you’re talking about. Either way, consume it. Well, no. I I plan on it, but I mean I Here’s what I want to know. After you go over there, is this one of those things where like Americans say that we’re drinking it because it’s German, but over there they don’t drink it at all? Right. Right. So, let us know when you come back. Did you see local people drinking Heineken? Cuz I I know when you go to Ireland like they drink Guinness like that’s their job. That’s water. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. But I sense I feel like that that is a a beer made from there that we brought over here. Arch. We expect a we have I feel like maybe Heineken was made here and we try to push it on them. I don’t We expect a selfie. Okay. With the Heineken. Well, I don’t know if I don’t have a good answer for you, but I take pride in that because if I had all of the answers about beer and alcohol, you might start questioning what my priorities are in life. No, no, no. I take a knee to I don’t know the answer to that. Let us know. Okay. If you got the history on Heineken, let us know. All right, that’s going to wrap it up for Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. Falcons, you better set your alarm clock this weekend because they are on at 9:30 a.m. Eastern time. So, get up and watch. And here’s the benefit. You get to watch the Falcons early and then you get football all day long. For sure, right? So, just stay in your pajamas. You You can take a week off of church or you can actually put on two screens, put church on the laptop right next to you and then keep your comfy clothes on, your socks, and pull up the TV or or the radio and listen to Dave Archer for sure. Uh, and your Atlanta Falcons this weekend. All right. So, thanks so much for joining us. That’s DJ Shockley, Dave Archer. I’m Derek Rack. will be back next week to wrap up things from an international fashion and see how big the bags are underneath Dave Archer’s eyes next week as he travels back from Berlin, Germany. Thanks so much for joining us everybody. Zum spiel. Zum spiel. Zum spiel. Wow. Zum spiel.

Derek, Dave, and DJ revisit their 4 keys to success from last week before going over their main takeaways from the close 24-23 loss against the Patriots. They also discuss what preparation and travel will look like for the Falcons as they head to Berlin before breaking down what to expect from the Indianapolis Colts. Finally, the guys give their Keys to the Game, or Schlüssel zum Spiel, to return from Germany with a W.

0:00 – Intro
1:50 – Revisiting last week’s keys
8:28 – Mentality under pressure
18:03 – Takeaways from a close loss
26:26 – Getting the run game going
34:48 – Falcons head to GERMANY!
39:14 – Expectations for the cults
46:07 – Schlüssel zum Spiel!
50:26 – German beer & outro

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