BIG W for the Falcons over the Bills! Star players shine + looking ahead to 49ers | Falcons Audible

BIG W for the Falcons over the Bills! Star players shine + looking ahead to 49ers | Falcons Audible

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Not necessarily postseason implications, but when you are trying to measure where you’re at as an organization against a team that has basically lived in the postseason, you know, seven out of the last eight years they’ve been in the postseason, been to two AFC title games, Buffalo Bills, reigning MVP at quarterback, arguably one of the best players in the league. and Josh Allen is you know you’re going to be tested and if you want to kind of figure out where you fit in the grand scheme of things I listened to the press conference last night Raheem Morris was even saying like that’s the type of organization team that we are trying to be right is you had a prime opportunity to show everybody in America um what you are and the growth that you have made and they did just that. So Shock, let’s get your kind of overwhelming feelings about the game. Like after you ended up stepping away from the game, you just saw everything that happened. some of your first impressions were. Man, uh that’s a good question because the the mind is going everywhere because there are a lot of good things that happened in that ball game last night as we’re recording this obviously on Tuesday and uh you know, obviously the the player part of it in me, you know, looks at a certain couple players here and there, you know, defensively, offensively, stuff that happened. Uh, but when I stepped away from it and I thought even deeper about it, the one thing that stuck out to me was I thought the coordinator shined. I thought both coordinators on both sides of the ball show the entire country, like you just talked about what these uh what these two sides of the ball could look like when they’re firing on all cylinders. And I thought this is the vision that Raheem Morris, Terry Fontno, all thought about way back when when none of us knew exactly what they were trying to do, all the different pieces they were trying to pull together. And you see it all kind of come together in this ball game. Now, there’s certainly things that they want to work on and get better at, but there were a lot of opportunities in this ball game. You say, “Man, this is a fun team to watch. They can do a lot of different things.” And I thought give a lot of credit to Z-Rob and his crew on that offensive side for the plan they put together. Obviously, you got two weeks to get that going. Then defensively, you just talked about all the things that they have going on that side of the ball for the Bills and the way you I want to say you almost bullied Josh Allen and the Bulls on that side of the that that side of the ball with some of the things you did, some of the looks you created, some of the the blitzes, some of the you know pre and postnap things that were really really fun to to watch as a guy who, you know, don’t just see the game for just what it is and just fun to see the coordinators shine. in that moment on the biggest stage and see some of our guys who a lot of people on the national stage hasn’t given them their due and to be able to see them do it on that stage where the likes of LeBron James and everybody is tweeting about man these dudes are different and that’s what you want and I think you continue this and it’s the reason why you were put on prime time five times this year because I think a lot of people knew there’s a lot of talent on this team DJ you mentioned the coordinators and I’m sure we’re probably all going to talk about some different moments or plays in the game, but one stuck out to me. Actually, two, but it’s one concept stuck out to me. First half, motion Felipe Franks, the former quarterback under center takes the snap, picks up the first down. But then they run the exact same play in the second half on this gamedefining drive. But it wasn’t the fact that they ran the play, it was the timing of when he ended up running the play again. But this time, exact same look. Franks gets under center and hard counts it. And you know they repped it. You know they drilled it. But it was like it sometimes it’s like a we we like the concept. We like the play. They hadn’t seen this before but it’s the time that you do it. Yeah. Right. And they had to pick up one yard to really force Buffalo’s hand. Right. Felipe Franks gets under center goes hard count. They jump off sides. Free first down. Right. And I said on the air last night, I said that was the perfect time to run that variation of the play because they’d already seen it in the first half. They’re thinking this is quarterback sneak. We already saw it. We got to jump the snap. Yeah. Right. And they get the false start which turns into three Buffalo timeouts afterwards which really hamstrung them. So that was kind of when you mentioned play calling. There was a couple of times Arch that I said the same thing like that was a great call. That was a great call. That was a great call. had two weeks to prepare, but the right time for some of these plays I thought was perfect last night. Yeah, I thought that you guys are are are bang on and obviously guys have to implement implement the plan, right? You got to go make plays, but you got to have a plan to start off with and you guys are dead on. I thought that both guys um Z Robb does a great job on the offensive side and Brick did a great job of the defense and that was where the the real challenge was what was Brick going to do Jeff our defensive coordinator what was he going to do with Josh Allen and the ability to as Shock talked about last week the second piece of the play or the second play within the play is what he’s king at his ability at 65 240 pounds to pull the ball run through arm tackles uh break down your pass rush, let you get in pass rush lanes, then pick a lane and go take off. All those kind of things. He had a 24 yard run at the end of the game that upped his number a little bit. I think he was held to five carries for like 18 yards. 18 yards in the game. I mean, that’s unbelievable. He we played him four years ago, three years ago in Buffalo. He had 82 yards and in and two touchdowns in that game. Threw three picks in the game, but he killed us running the football, right? And Buffalo won the game. But the coordinator piece of it is is so deadon by both you guys. And I thought it was because we played with our personality. Um Jeff Olrich wants to attack. We talked about it all through preseason. We’re going to attack up the field. We’re a gapattapping team. That’s who we’re going to be. We’re going to play some man coverage in the secondary. We’re going to attack the quarterback. I talked to him on Thursday of this last week. He goes, “Hey, this guy’s going to make some plays, but we’re going to attack him. We’re going to make him make some plays. We’re going to get after him.” That’s exactly what they did. And on the offensive side of the football, Zack did the same thing on offense. The final drive where you’re trying to kill clock, run the ball, Bon’s run for 170 yards in a game. What do you do? your four your first five plays are throw you throw the football and because of your efficiency and not putting it on the ground and throwing incomp completions you’re running the clock and getting first downs and you know Sean McDermott’s over there looking what the hell’s going on you know I thought that it was the personality you guys talked about the plays and the execution and the intricacies of the X’s and O’s I’m just talking about playing with personality your personality is to be aggressive on both sides of the ball and that they went and won they took the football game. Buffalo didn’t make a bunch of They took the game away from Buffalo. I was on the national call last night with Kevin Cougler and I was talking to Kevin during the break right before that last Falcons offensive drive and I’m looking up at the clock and I’m looking at the score and I believe it was about 6:37 647 left on the clock and I said to Kevin in the break I said if Atlanta wants to become a next level team I said they can go win the game right here. I said they could put together a long drive and really handcuff Buffalo. And that’s exactly what they did is I look 14 plays, 68 yards, five minutes off of the clock. Okay, which kind of culminated in the play that I was talking about was involved in that. And what happens is like there are, think about the flip side of that. If that would have been a three and out that took about a minute and seven seconds off the clock, you give Josh Allen the football back with call it five five and a half minutes left. That’s an eternity for them with three timeouts, by the way. Okay, there are so many things that he can do in that amount of time with them down by because they wouldn’t have got the field goal, right? They would only have been down seven points at the time. But that’s the drive that you need. Like I said, I I mentioned it afterwards like we always talk about being situationally smart. Well, I’m not quite sure there was a definition of that one being a situation in the book, but it’s kind of one of those situations like go out and win a game, right? And that was to me was a defining drive for them in this season because the offense did what they had to do to make it extremely difficult on the Buffalo Bills. And you mentioned Josh Allen had a nice run there, kind of tried to make it exciting, but then we ended up seeing an interception and they end up getting the victory. Well, and that’s two games in a row, Rack, that they’ve done. Now, you go back to the Washington game, they had a 14play drive to eat up what, seven and a half minutes off the clock against Washington and pretty much killed the clock. Um, and you ran the ball 12 of 14 times. You flip the script here. If you’re Buffalo, you’re thinking, “Okay, this is they’re going to try to run the football. Bjon’s killed us. We’ll crowd the line of scrimmage.” And all of a sudden, Bjon’s catching in the flat. Here’s Drake catching the football. Now, it wasn’t all clean. Let’s Let’s be real here. Michael throws a ball that he’s got to learn from that should have been picked off. Shaq Thompson jumps a slant route down near the red zone and he should steal it and he’s probably going to be in a foot race to keep him out of the end zone. So, and I talked to Michael post game. I said, “Hey, you know, how’d you feel like you, you know, how you feel like you play?” And he said, “There was some things I left on the table or some things I got to clean up.” And so, he’s already thinking about that. And, you know, as quarterbacks, we’re think about the negative plays. We don’t think about the positive plays. So, I thought there’s so many little things about it that make you feel good that you got guys that understand, hey, this isn’t the the top of the mountain. I didn’t play anywhere near as good as I can and yet you win games. And how much fun we’ve all got a chance to do this, me probably less than you guys, but to be able to enjoy a win and still fix stuff. Yeah. Right. And that’s kind of fun. That’s that’s the good part about it. One other thing that sticks out to me and Arch when you said personality, um, one thing stuck out to me was the personality of the head coach and I think we got to go back to the beginning of the ball game. You take the football to start the ball game. Your personality is your head coach saying, “Guess what? We ain’t afraid of these dudes. We going to go and we going to dictate how this game starts and we not going to worry about the the the the the middle aid and all that kind of stuff. We’re going to go take the football.” And they do that. Go right down and score. three consecutive uh opening drives for touchdowns at home is really big. So, I I love the aggressive nature that uh Rod had to start his ball game and his team fed off it and say, “Hey, we we had some things within our offense. We knew we felt good about and we were going to start it with the football in our hand.” Guys, we talked about this last week about coming into the game, the challenge that was facing the Atlanta Falcons with Josh Allen, but guess what? Flip it around. The challenge facing the Buffalo Bills with Bejian Robinson. Okay, can we go ahead and just start saying right now that this dude is a legitimate, if not front runner for the MVP right now? I mean, this dude is special. I think we got to get How many times do we say that? Like last week called him the best player in the league. Best player in the league. We can’t get any better than that. Last week we did all the talking about Josh Allen. We talked about James Cook. We talked about all the weapons on there. or Hold on. Hold on. Buffalo got some stuff they got to worry about, too. And I’ll be damn sure. You know what I’m saying? Well, I mean, not only was it was it Bejian in the first half, but I mean, Drake London, I mean, and Raheem said it after the game. He said, “This dude is a dog.” And you watch him when he gets like I I was talking to a colleague this morning, right? And I said, when Drake London and Bejian Robinson get going, I said this team is dangerous because everybody else just feeds off their energy. But specifically with Drake, like when he gets the football, it’s like he’s got a little anger to him now, right? Like that physicality, like he’s he uses his size. First dudes in a fight. That’s what it is. Yeah. And and yeah, if you mess with one of his guys, he’s the first guy in. You’d think, okay, here comes an offensive lineman be a defensive line. No, it’s five. right on top of you. I mean, the maturation of him over the years, guys, I mean, with the catch that he makes on the oneyd line, gets wrapped up and takes the football and just reaches it across the plane like like I got your little brother on your back and he trying to get the ball from you and that’s your little brother. No, you can’t. You can’t have it. Come on. It’s over here. You can’t You’re draped on me. But look, you see this here? That’s a touchdown right there. Um, it just watching his continued development. I’m sure he was frustrated early on the season, wasn’t able to get in the end zone, but Michael Pennix has found a way to say, “This guy gets open, I’m getting him the football.” And I feel like that energy that he brings, Arch makes everybody else on this offense even more excited. Couldn’t agree with you more. I think that uh there’s no question that Drake has an energy around him that people feed off of. He’s got um there’s a there’s an angry is the right way to say it. He plays angry, you know, and and and he’s angry at himself if he doesn’t make a play, but he’s going to get angry if you you try to make a play, you know, and I thought and and and we’re going to get some film breakdown from Shock here on Atlanta Falcons.com where he’s going to go in depth on Drake and show you some of the intricacies that Drake is going to that Drake brings to the table and that’s going to be a lot of fun. Shock’s going to really break some stuff down. So, if you want to tune into that, tune in stay tuned to atlantalcons.com and watch his breakdown of some of the film. That’s going to be a lot of fun to see. But you you’ve got some guys, you know, we’ve got guys like that that are star players. You know, when your star players are your glue guys, I mean, man, you got something going on now. Yeah. Bjan Robinson and Drake London are your star players. If you picked stars on this team, and obviously fantasy has something to do with that because I can get points. But for a fans perspective in California or Toronto, Canada, wherever you are, you’re going to look at Drake London and Bjan Robinson, they’re your glue guys, too. They keep the team together. You It’s the usually it’s those worker B guys that kind of glue the team together. Your best players that says a lot. You go back to talk about you talking about Raheem and and talking about the personality of the coaches and all that kind of stuff. That’s what culture is. I think the fan has been beaten over the head with the idea of culture. That’s what it is. is is when your best players are your glue guys. I mean, that’s pretty cool. What’s what’s what’s crazy is the fact we sit in here weekly and we are surprised by the things that number seven does every week. Like every week you watch him, you’re like, man, that was crazy. I don’t know how he did that. And then the next week there’s something different. the amount of things that he adds to an offense, adds to a team is is quite unbelievable. And to have I know Zro’s one of the probably most excited guys every night to go to bed to wake up the next morning to be able to draw stuff up for this guy because it doesn’t matter where you put him on. I mean, they threw the guy speed out in the game the other day. Like come on, man. This man is does everything. He’s not just a running back that go out and run option routes like everybody else, right? This guy runs the route tree, but also you throw him the ball in the flat for two yards and I literally saw him make six, seven guys miss within a small window and pick up 12 yards. Like, come on, man. This dude is is is is different. And I’m with Raw. I mean, you put him next to anybody, I’m be like, I’m taking seven all day. Some of the numbers on Bjon are unbelievable. And I’m going to leave a couple to you. Yeah, I’m gonna say I’m gonna mention a couple and I’ll mention Drake and Bjan because that’s where we are and then I’ll let you you talk about Bjon and where he is from a from a historical standpoint. Bjon and Drake 150 yards receiving, 150 yards rushing between with both those two guys. That’s only happened one other time in team history. Yeah, as it turns out they were the guys that did it last year. Last year in team history. Last night we celebrated the 60th anniversary of this football team that’s been done by two other guys. It’s the same two guys. They did it last right in January, right? So they’ve done it twice in the same calendar year. Uh but there’s some unbelievable numbers, Rack, I’ll let you dive into them, guys. Um it’s kind of funny because in when you play in the NFL, like at the end of the day, Raheem Morris is right. Like the only thing you’re worried about is getting a win, right? And so he he’s kind of joked a couple of times and he said stats are for losers, right? So I guess you could just throw me in the category that I’m a loser. Uh but but uh we’re in the media, so we talk about uh stats a little bit. One thing I thought was interesting in the first half. Okay, by the way, Atlanta Falcons 335 yards in the first half. Most by any team in a half this season and most by the Falcons in the first half since 2009. Okay, let me just let me just talk about those numbers though. It was 168 rushing and 167 passing. Okay, perfect balance. But do you guys remember the very last play of the first half? What happened? A little slant. He didn’t get in. That was short by how long? Half a yard. Technically one yard. So, if Drake gets into the end zone, their first half numbers would have been 168 168, right? Which is which is bizarre, right? Uh Falcons not able to get the final touchdown as the clock was expiring, but I think at that moment, you just you got to let Drake be Drake and just see if he ends up beating him, gets into the end zone. Um there’s a whole sheet here of stats when it comes to Bejian Robinson. I’m just going to throw out two of them. 238 yards from scrimmage, career best 170 rushing and 68 receiving. The most scrimmage yards by a running back on Monday Night Football since 1986. Joe Morris, baby. Joe Morris. 1986. I played against Joe. I was just like, I don’t hear that. I played against that dude. Um, and then through five weeks, through five games, first player, second player, excuse me, to reach 450 rushing yards and 300 receiving yards in NFL history joining Thurman Thomas. Wow. Like when sometimes when you get into a category with certain players and that’s it, like that’s a pretty good company to be sitting in. So it shows what he’s been able to do just early on this season. And there’s nothing to say that this is not going to continue. You watch him each and every week and it’s like you could throw the most athletic defensive lineman, most most athletic linebackers, secondary players, he’s a mismatch for everybody that he goes against. And even the the 81 yard touchdown, I can’t remember who it was, maybe it was Bishop or some somebody had him like and they were wrapped up around his waist and then he just ran through it. And I’m sure that he was laying on the turf saying like, “Yo, I had him.” Like how did he not go down? Because that’s how he’s different. Not only is he quick, not only is he fast, but he is deceptively strong, especially with the lower half. Tried to say it, he is the Matrix. Mr. Robinson, Mr. Robinson. One one other stat, and I know stats, as as Raheem says for losers, but but racket, I’ve got a million stats here. 822 scrimmage yards in the first five games. And you talk about going back in history now, uh, since McAffrey, it’s the most since, uh, McAffrey, Christian McAffrey in 2019, but the only other guy on the list prior to that, OJ Simpson in 1973 and 75. He did it twice. Those are the only four guys or the only three guys that have had more yards from scrimmage in the first five games than the Bjan Robinson. It’s just amazing. You want to add one? I want a stat. Yeah. I mean, can I add one? Can I get one? Go ahead. Get your My man has surpassed 4K scrimmage yards. How about that? Ties the great William Andrews. And 39 games. Only time to do it. Youngest to do it at 23. Come on, man. Well, we played with the Auburn Hammer, too, by the way. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s it’s one of those situations where um well, again, I was talking to Ke Kevin Cougar before the game. He was like, “Yeah, kind of give me a breakdown of Atlanta.” And I was like, “How much have you seen of Bjon Robinson?” He’s like, “I’ve seen a little bit of him.” I’m like, what did he say after the game? What did he say after the game? Just wait. Get ready. Buckle your seat belt. Right. Um, so we talked a lot about the offense, but you’re the defense as well. Four sacks. Um, and held Bills to two of 10 on conversion down. So, third and fourth down, they hold the Bills to two of 10. So, the defense does their job against one of the most dangerous quarterbacks in the National Football League. And we talked this week, fellas. One of my keys to the game was the Falcons are going to have to score because Buffalo came in averaging over 30 points a game. 30.6 and was third best in the National Football League and they scored a season low 20 against the Patriots. They hold them to 14. A team that had been lighting up the scoreboard. So, it kind of goes back to what you guys were originally talking about with these coordinators putting together great game plans coming off a by-week, but not only that, the players executing it. Every coach will tell you, you can put together the greatest game plan, but if a player does not go out and execute it, if your team, your unit does not go out and execute it, doesn’t matter how good the game plan was, right? Yeah. Um, so fellas, here’s the thing. It was a great win, but you, we’ve all been there. You celebrated for what, maybe 24 hours, maybe got to move, maybe short weeks, because as we’re standing right now, the players are already looking at San Francisco. And guess what? you get another prime time matchup to go out and stack victories. So that’s what it’s all about, right? Consistency, stacking positive performances, and then you just never know how the score is going to shake out in the end. So Arch, let’s switch gears. Let’s talk about San Francisco 49ers as the Falcons are going to go on the road, travel across the country. We already talked about the schedule, right? They’re going to have to tune all the noise out as far as 13 straight weeks. Got to go out west, got to go overseas. Hey, that’s the hand you’re dealt. Now you just go go out and execute. Early reports are that George KD is going to come back and practice this week. Maybe Brock Perie is going to come back. However, they also lose one of their all-time greatest players. My allp pro player and a linebacker Fred Warner goes out for the season. Give the folks that are listening and watching a little bit of flavor of what the 49ers are this year at 4 and two. Well, and the first thing you got to know is there’s a lot of pride in the in that team. That team’s been in the mix late in seasons. I’m talking about deep in playoff runs. Uh much like Buffalo, this is going to be a team that’s expecting to be in the playoff run. U and they still do. They have been banged up significantly last year. They had a lot of injuries. Wide receiver core was depleted. They are banged up again this year in some places, but make no mistake, Robert Salah, their new defensive coordinator, comes over after being the head coach of the Jets. He’s a guy that kind of fashioned that defense into what it was. He and Demo Ryan and what they put together out there. Um, you can bet that they’re gonna come back. They gave up 30 points to Tampa this weekend. Um, and they gave up arguably the run of the year. Baker Mayfield pulls it down and makes some kind of weird run cuz it’s like your grandfather running with the ball and stuff and he’s bouncing off people and he lays out and dives for a first down. Um, but that if there’s another guy that’s in the MVP voting, that’s that’s the guy, the Baker Mayfield. Correct. Um, he’s been phenomenal. But they ended up losing the football game. It’s the first game they’ve played where it hasn’t been a one-sore game. They played in five one what? Five one-score games up to this point. Um and so they lose this one 30 to 19. M. Jones has played really well at quarterback that he’d been undefeated in playing for Boach Pertie. Um we know that Kyle Shanahan’s an outstanding game planner. You know, they’re going to want to run the football and get back to kind of some of what they are is running the ball. I think they’ve gotten away from a little bit of that. I think they’ve maybe gotten a little bit too passy. I expect them to run a little bit, especially if you look at what Buffalo was able to do on the opening drive of the second half in this game. I thought that and I I said it at halftime. Wes asked me on the radio. He says, “What do you think? What do you think we’re going to see?” And I said, “Buffalo’s going to get back to run game.” They’re going to start trying to pound Cook. You can bet that McAffrey is going to see a number of touches in this game. They’re going to try to hit. He’s their best football player. Get him the football. Um it’ll be interesting to see how they adjust offensively. Obviously, Bosa’s out. He’s out for the year. And now Warner’s out for the year. Those are two of their main stays on the defensive side of the football. So you got to figure in in maybe not in Salah’s head, but in Kyle Shanahan’s head, we got to go score points. We need to go put points on the board. I think they’ll be aggressive, but I think they will want to run the football. Lot of familiarity from a staff perspective in this game. Um, obviously Shanahan, the head coach, has spent time with the Atlanta Falcons organization. You mentioned Salah Albert was working for him at the Jets. There’s a lot of familiarity there. So these staffs are uh DJ quite familiar with how each one wants to attack. Now everything changes week to week in the National Football League. But not only that, you’ve got the other player the the one other player that I would put in the right now in the same stratosphere and this is no offense to Saquon Barkley because he’s fantastic, but Christian McAffrey I think is probably the one player in the NFL and what he’s done throughout the course of his career that most closely emulates Bejian Robinson. Right. And so you’re going to have those two guys on the same field. They’re electric in the run game. They’re electric in the pass game. And they’re going to get to go not necessarily head-to-head, but they’re going to go against each other. This is still shaping out to be an excellent matchup. It is. And you know, the one guy who Bejian went and trained with this off season was Christian McCaffrey. So, you know, he recognized the ability and the value that Christian McAffrey has. And I’m sure the Falcons will come in with that same kind of mindset coming in. Obviously, similar to what you did this week and every week there’s a plan. Okay, here’s their guy. Here’s what we have to focus on. Last week it was Josh Allen. They did a really good job of focusing on that. This week will be Christian McCaffrey for sure. You have to come in with a plan for him. Um, but give this defense a lot of credit. I mean, we’ve talked about it a lot. This defense five straight weeks holding opponents under 300 yards hasn’t allowed a 200 yard passer this season. This is a defense that wants to get out to you. Something that I enjoy watching this past ball game and the last few ball games uh obviously is the depth we have on the defensive side of the ball which is going to help you and I love you look at a guy like D Alford last night who had to come in Billy Bowman was out so he had to play in the slot last couple weeks he was out there on the perimeter holding it down didn’t have to call his name much having that kind of depth you look up front I mean the guys you just see waves of guys coming in playing obviously Rrook and Doris are playing really good we saw on your M get a sack Uh you’re talking about we got 14 sacks on the season. 12 guys have at least a half a sack, a sack, sack and a half. A lot of guys in a ball. A lot of guys flowing to the football. And that’s what we talked about beginning the year. We said, do we want one guy? We want little floor to go out here and have 10 12 sacks, but we rather have multiple guys. And I think it’s a credit to what what you guys just talked about with what Brick is doing. And guys are flying to the football. Everybody’s happy for each other. And I think this bodess well for going on the West Coast. And I remember when I played, you guys did the same thing. You know exactly what I’m gonna say. When you have a short week like this, the game plan is a little bit simpler because you want to go out and you want to play fast. You want to put in a whole bunch of different stuff. Then you’re out there thinking about it. I think they have a plan of, hey, here’s a lot of things that we do really well. Let’s make sure we’re really good on these things. Yeah, we have a couple wrinkles here and there and make sure we know who they are. But for the most part, when you have this short week, get your body back right. You’re going to go to the West Coast, long flight, you got to make sure the small things, the details are there for you. And this is going to be one of those kind of games where uh going on the road, there are a lot of different distractions that you can have and you can say, “All right, here’s why, you know, this happened this ball game.” Good teams don’t allow that. So, I think this is a prime example of another time where you get a chance to show the country what you’re all about on prime time again and putting together consecutive good performances that people can say, you know what, they are for real. Yeah. One of the thing that happens, and Shock makes a really good point, short week. What happens in those by-weeks is yes, you’re doing self-evaluation, self- scout. You hear that all the time, but what also happens is there’s a there’s a portion of the building that is a advanced scouting and they’re preparing stuff for the 49ers. So there were they’ve already been working on San Francisco. So if you’re at home saying, “Oh my god, it’s a short week and they’re not going to be ready.” No, they’ve already had a group of people working on getting the analytics and everything put together for what the 49ers are going to look like. So when they can present that to the players when they come in tomorrow, you got we’ve all sat in those meetings, they’re ready to go. So it don’t don’t feel like that that’s not going to be the case. I want to ask you guys a a question. Okay, you’re three and two. There’s been two really good performances here back to back. Uh we know we had a really poor performance in week three. Um what do you want to see as we emerge from this game? What would you like to see the Falcons be better at or with in this weekend against San Francisco? Where can they improve in your mind? That’s a great question because it’s like we’re we’re I was going to ask you guys keys, but this is a little bit of a twist on that. Um where do they improve? I think I I actually I think about last week and I think about some areas where if they especially with McAffrey like this defense and their ability to stuff the run because to your point like I think what San Francisco is going to look at is that opening drive in the third quarter and how they handed the ball off to James Cook and for whatever reason Buffalo went away from it and I think James Cook was upset about that by the I saw him on the sidelines a couple of times. But they’re going to look at that and they’re going to say, “Gosh, there was quite a few seams there.” And we’ve got Christian McCaffrey. Like, let’s make sure we stay committed to the run game and see if they’ve got it fixed. A lot of times in the NFL when there are issues, people put things into the game plan to see if they got it fixed. That’s right. Right. Like, is this still going to be a problem or can we take advantage of it? Can we exploit it? Right. and and you look up and the Falcons defense for the most part statistically toward the top of the National Football League, but there’s always little areas that you can fine-tune. And the times that you see somebody in the run game kind of gash cuz that drive guys, it was like eight yards, 12 yards, nine yards, seven yards, 11 yards. Like that gets a little worrisome because now they control the pace of the game like they did in the third quarter. Buffalo controlled the third quarter because of their ability to run the football. So, tighten up there knowing that the challenge is going to be just as difficult, if not more, with the guy that they’re going to face in Christian McCaffrey. What do you think? Good call. Uh, for me, you know, my mind goes to as much as I love Drake getting his catches, love seeing Bean get it, Drake was targeted 16 times in a ball game. He was the only wide receiver that caught a pass in the ball game. Cal Pitts had three. Obviously, uh, Bejian had six, I believe it was. Uh, you know, Casey had a couple targets, but I want to see other guys have production. See other guys spread the wealth for sure. Like, they’re going to be times where, yeah, Zro does a great job of scheming, you know, uh, Drake open a bunch of times, but 16 targets to Drake. I mean, we we we got to spread it. I want to see more guys have an impact in this ball game. And yeah, Bean and and Drake, no doubt about it, get them their targets. They got to touch the football. That’s that’s a no-brainer. But you can’t go into every ball game saying, “Okay, these are the only two guys that are really gonna make an impact.” Yeah, Kyle had a couple catches here and there, but he could even have more production in uh going forward. So, for me, it points to let’s have a spreading of the wealth like you just mentioned on the offensive side of the ball. And if that helped, guess what? That opens up even more things for this offense that helps us even be more explosive than it is now. And you know, obviously, you know, you don’t have Mooney back yet. He’s still, you know, going through the paces. You want to make sure that you have an equal amount of guys who can make some plays in this offense. And we’ve seen it happen, but down the road, you’re going to need more guys to come along with you to make this offense even better. Arch, you posed the question. Now you get to answer. Well, Cubes think the same because that that was exiled at me. That was ex Yeah, that’s exactly what I would have said is we got to have more than two guys make plays and we did that. You know, if you go back and look at at at the game against Washington, you had four different guys score touchdowns. So, it’s there. It’s capability. Uh, and you got to learn as a quarterback if you’re Michael Pennix and you’re the guy distributing the football and and even the play caller to a certain extent. Even though the play doesn’t design, okay, you’re going to throw it to him specifically. There’s a read to it. But you do, Rash will tell you, you get a guy that’s that’s catching it the way Drake is, your eyes naturally migrate to that guy to give him an opportunity. I’ll pose mine more as a concern. Jake Matthews left the game with an ankle injury. Don’t know the significance right now, the injury. We’ll find out tomorrow from Raheem. We’re recording Tuesday. As Shock said, Wednesday is the first injury report. Not sure whether Drake will or Jake will be able to go. Jake is at like 183. What was he at right now? He is at 184. 184 consecutive starts, which is incredible to think it was an ankle injury that forced him out early on in his career. He missed a game or two with an ankle injury. So, Michael Jerrell, who came in at left tackle, uh, was an option. He’s a guy that Atlanta traded for right at the beginning of right at the beginning of the season. Um Wilkinson’s done a good job of filling in for McGary. I had the Storm Norton is close, guys. He’s the swing tackle. He’s he’s close to coming out coming back. Here’s one I’ll pose to you. Jerrell played right tackle um in in uh Seattle last year. I think at three starts, 10 games he played three starts. Wilkinson started at left tackle during the preseason. Mhm. Um, you also have a guy playing left guard that played 45 games at left tackle at Syracuse. Mhm. So, there’s some interesting kind of things that could develop there and as well as Storm Norton potentially being available for you this week. It’s a problem. Obviously, you don’t like to lose those two edge guys that protect, you know, protect the quarterback coming off the edge and get that run game going, but that’ll be something else to look for. So, that’s a concern for me as to what you look for. I don’t know, man. B birds and news working together, man, was was pretty good in this ball game. Oh, no question. No question. I don’t know if I want to break that. Well, yeah. You don’t really want to mess with the chemistry, but the chemistry is already being messed with, right? That’s true. And so, so that left side was pretty pretty uh fruitful early on in the game with Jake and and Burge coming off with with New. Yeah. I mean, credit this this offensive line, I think, has been doing a great job, not only with the holes that they’ve been opening for Robinson, but also in the pass protection. There was many a times that Michael Pennix had plenty of time for these routes to develop downfield without really feeling a ton of pressure and and a lot of this offense that we talked about happens because the offensive line is doing their job up front. Um, all right guys, before we go, let’s do we did we did kind of a concern that we were looking to maybe get fixed. Let’s talk about a key here. I want you guys to all to give me one key in this game that you’re going to think is vitally important that Atlanta has to execute or something has to happen. shock in order for them to win this game in a second prime time matchup in back-to-back weeks. What do you think that is? I think for me is continue to stay ahead of the chains. Um, that’s something that obviously you were pretty good on this ball game. You’re about 42% on third down this ball game, but I think if you stay ahead of the chains, it makes life for Zro a lot easier when you’re in third and medium, third and short, whatever it may be, to have opportunities to do whatever you want within his offense. And yeah, they converted a couple 30 longs in this ball game, but I don’t think that’s where you want to live, especially on the road uh against a Robert Salah style defense who, you know, wants to be attacking as well. Uh but I think if you stay ahead of the chains, run the football the way you’re supposed to, I think your offense continues to flourish. I’m not sure how you stop it or slow it down. Yeah. If they’re clicking on all cylinders and you look up and hey, Michael Pennis can hand it off on third and four or five or he can throw it. There’s a lot of opportunities out there to win. So stay ahead of the chains in this ball game and I think you’ll be just fine, especially come offensively. Love it. A huge proponent of that. Arch, what are you thinking? It’s funny. I I uh my first four years of school were in the Bay Area, California. So I went to the for 400 games, Giant games, A’s games, Raider games. Um and I remember one of the things we used to do in the offse when we weren’t going to games is my family used to like it was back in the day they called them flea markets where you went and got stuff kind of giving stuff away. Hey, it was kind of stuff for free or very minimal price stuff, right? Um, let’s not make this a flea market for the 49ers in that let’s not give them stuff for free. Let’s make them earn stuff. We had some penalties in the back end. Setup was nice right there. You like set it was it was pretty I didn’t know where it was going, but it it makes sense now. We had a I think we had three uh secondary penalties and and it’s going to happen when you play man coverage and you got a guy like Josh Allen that can float around. Now, Brock Birdie plays. Brock doesn’t have the prowess from a physical standpoint to do, but he does have the ability to buy time. M. Jones does not. He’s going to try to, but he’s a little banged up. I don’t know that he’s going to be able to do that. Let’s not give them any free plays down the field. I think they extended what, two, three drives because of penalties on the back end. I think AJ had a couple and that’s going to happen in man coverage. And the other side is probably a followup to what Shock says to stay ahead of the chains. Got to eliminate the pre-nap penalties. You can’t have the unnecessary. We shouldn’t have off uh false start penalties in our own building anyway. But you’re pro you’re going to have a pretty good crowd out in in San Francisco, Santa Clara, where the stadium is. Um let’s not give them anything free. So no flea market this this week in California. No flea market. See how he brought that back full circle. Brought it right back. I mean that story. Guys, my key is actually a combination of what you guys said. The two things that came to my mind that I felt like Atlanta did pretty well. And even though you did talk about penalties, Atlanta, the two areas were turnovers and penalties, right? No turnovers. And yes, they had six penalties, but they went for 35 yards, right? And when you look up, that’s not that bad in the grand scheme of things. And one of the things that I was talking about as a key for Buffalo last week is they’ve been having penalty issues. They their last two games they had 11 penalties a piece. And you talk about fighting against the chains. Think about how many times Buffalo was fighting against the Chainsaw. They had so many third and long situations in that game on Monday night. So, I reverse it and I say for Atlanta, they don’t turn the ball over and they don’t have a a lot of penalties. And that’s both sides of the ball. That’s not putting yourself in bad situations on offense and giving away a lot of free first downs on defense. This team is talented enough to be able to beat anybody in the league when they don’t do those things. But when you have a lot of penalties and you make things hard on yourself to get off the field on defense and you third down and 12 all the time because because it’s it’s first and 15 or it’s second and 10 because of holding penalties like I don’t care who your play caller is, it’s gets difficult, right? So turnover department and penalties. I think those discipline in those two areas is going to give them the best chance to have success on both sides of the ball going out to the Bay Area next week. Way to go, Rack. All right, so that’s it. That’s your initial um areas of concern that we need to grow on and that’s please the game nextle flea market and if you got some time and you you know go to the flea market why not don’t let people nickel and dime you okay I’m going to get get me a go to the flea market and get me a DJ Shakley bobblehead they got a bobblehead there man if they do it’s real cheap one of the first times everybody just so you know one of the first times that I saw DJ get a little uncomfortable was last night I asked him what his government name was I said like so I just started guessing stuff. I was like Donald James, like Desmond, Juniper, and he was very uncomfortable. Didn’t like this. Um, so maybe next week maybe I’ll get on the internet webs and I’ll figure out what this is. But he was like, “No, he’s very adamant. No, my name is DJ. Don’t go Google. Nobody go Google. Nobody.” Well, we got a team of juniors and he’s a junior, so we’re he All right. Remember to follow us on all your podcast apps, YouTube, atlant falcons.com. Dave Archer already gave you a teaser that DJ SH’s got some film breakdown coming on you, right? For sure. We got some film breakdown coming. Um, you know, and at a minimum, just continue to come check us out. But we got podcast for you all week long with the Atlanta Falcons. Check it out. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all of your Atlanta Falcons fix on the podcast here. So, make sure you follow us on all your different um podcast apps, YouTube, and of course, at Atlanta Falcons.com is your answer for all the Falcons material you could be looking for. That’s going to do it here for the Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. That’s DJ Shockley aka uh Shock. That’s Dave Archer aka Arch. I’m Derek Rackley aka Rat. You know, I just wanted to run through in case you’re a first time viewer or listener. Um we sometimes throw these nicknames out and you never knew exactly who we’re talking about. That’s us. Uh, thanks so much for joining us. Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. That’ll wrap it up. We’ll be back next week to wrap up prime time matchup Sunday Night Football, Falcons at 49ers. Thanks so much for joining us.

Rack, Arch, and Shock break down the Atlanta Falcons’ 24-14 Monday Night Football victory over the Buffalo Bills. They share their first impressions of the big win and marvel at the insane performances by Bijan Robinson and Drake London before looking to how the Falcons can secure two primetime wins in a row.

0:00 – Intro
1:53 – First impressions
12:13 – Bijan & Drake: Certified stars
22:23 – Another primetime game vs 49ers
29:58 – Where can the Falcons improve?
36:07 – Keys to win vs San Francisco

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