An overtime loss to the Colts in Berlin & looking ahead to the Panthers rematch | Falcons Audible

An overtime loss to the Colts in Berlin & looking ahead to the Panthers rematch | Falcons Audible

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Shout out shout out to you for the Outcast Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Well, listen. Um, bring that. So, part of the reason why I’m wearing this is like we’re we’re dealing with somewhat of a polar vortex here in the Southeast. It is unseasonably cold here. And, uh, great word, though. Vortex. I thought about that. Certainly felt like I was in a vortex trying to get in the building this morning. You get a text from your daughter. She’s 17 and she drives, right? And her car stays in the driveway at night. Well, she texted me this morning and she sends me a picture of the thermostat like on the bottom. She goes, “How do I make this thing warmer, doesn’t know how to work the heat, but it’s just entirely too cold altogether.” Uh, yeah, we don’t deal with the cold too well in the Southeast says the guy that was born and raised in Minnesota, right? Uh, however, I’ve been down here 25 and a half years now, so I am a southerner now. My blood has thinned out. Um, Atlanta Falcons go same way. Yeah, our same way. Yeah. Southeastern Idaho at 5,500 ft. I don’t know any about thing about that now. 6 months a year out of snow on the ground. We have no idea what we are so far removed from that now. Um yes, we are uh soft southerners if you will. Uh so Falcons travel across the pond to Germany. They play four plus quarters of competitive football, but unfortunately they come away with a 3125 overtime loss to the Colts. And fellas, let’s go ahead and unpack this one a little bit. Uh Arch, before we came on air, you said that there is a number of different angles that we could go on this one. Before we dive into the X’s and O’s of the game, Arch, since you were there, okay, why don’t you give us and our viewers and listeners a little bit of flavor of how the trip was, what you saw, how you felt, did you have any like history, history and nostalgia and all that stuff? A little season on that flavor, too. Yeah. Well, first of all, the fan scenario over there is off the charts, guys. I mean, and it’s funny because it becomes an event. Okay. So, yes, we play Sunday and it’s Colts, Falcons, but you would think there is a jamboree. Remember how when your your kids or you you’ve had kids that you probably had your son, they play in a jamboree and so there’s like eight teams there and all the fans of those. That’s essentially what this was. 32 teams fans. I saw a dude walking down the street. He had New York Giant. He had a starter jacket underneath that. He had a shirt on. It had NYG on it. He had a pair of sweats on that said Giants down the leg. He had a fanny pack that said, “Yeah, Giants. They’re not even in the table.” No, I’m telling you, all 32 teams were represented and the place was packed. The fans were phenomenal. Um, you got country roads, you got Sweet Caroline, which they love to sing to and all that. You even got a little Bon Joy, you know, I saw a pretty impressive wave go on the wave with the flags and stuff. strong way strong from a from a fan perspective. Phenomenal and they really embraced it, wrapped their arms around and give all the people of Berlin and I hopefully we got a number of our fans that we got a chance to meet at our our team party on Saturday night. Had a number of fans come over some four 400 fans came to the uh Falcon House. Yeah. Uh h a US um there in Berlin. got a chance to spend a lot of time with people that see our podcast, that see some of the things we do on Atlanta Falcons.com. We appreciate you guys and and uh you guys be safe over there and everything, but it was really cool to be with you. So, the fan perspective was really cool. Um, obviously there’s a historical perspective. Uh, we know about the wall and Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall. Ronald Reagan said 36 years ago and and they got that done. Um, and you can still see remnants of the wall and some of some of what was going on there when you had a communist occupied side and and and the free side on on the other side. I say free, uh, the the non-communist side, I guess I should put it, but so you got all that. Then there was some really old buildings and obviously we know what happened. I think he should know what happened in 1936 uh when the Nazi party had begun to take over Germany and and that was who was in in power at the time and we had an Olympic games over there and we had one of the great Olympic performances in history, maybe the greatest performance in history. Jesse Owens wins four gold medals over there, wins the hundred, the 200, the long jump, and the 4 by one. Um, and I stood right on the field and I pulled up a picture of the podium where Owens is standing somewhere in that area on the podium saluting and getting his gold medal for wining 100 meters. Just phenomenal to be. It was so eerie to be in that place especially with the evil that we knew was brewing and the performance that Jesse put on that day along with some of his teammates from the American team and some of the other people around the country. Did you run the hunter at all? Did you take yourself? felt like hamstring was probably going to go if I tried to do that. So, probably I stayed away from it. But overall, long trip on the flight, you know, and I guess that’s part of what you endure to be able to see some stuff like that. Eight hours going, eight and a half hours going over, nine and a half hours coming back. We got about got home Monday morning about 3:30 in the morning. Um, and so that’s not like, you know, going out and playing in San Francisco on a on a on a Sunday night like we did here a few weeks ago and getting back. But it was long and so it took kind of a day to kind of readjust and get your clock back going. But it was worth the trip other than the fact that we didn’t go over there and get done what we were supposed to go do and that was get back on the winning track. And so let’s dive into it. I got to say that uh you know I said that last week that you’d be in here with bags under your eyes and stuff. You seem pretty good, Arch. You seem rested and ready to roll. I feel fresh. You think so? Yeah, you look fresh. I appreciate you. No doubt. I like it. Got an extra cup of coffee here. He’s he’s looking good. Feeling good. Jill, glad you was back home. I know she was happy to see you again, you know. Yeah. Yeah. She accepted me back in the house. Yeah. I was able to come back in. So, I was okay there. Thanks. Um, all right. So, last week, if you watched the show, we uh went over what we called last week as Schlush Zumrio. Yeah. Yeah. You’re a native now. I can tell. I’m sure all the Germans think that. Um, which was our our keys to the game. So, let’s revisit that and see how Atlanta ended up fairing. Shock dominate the line of scrimmage. What was your assessment on whether or not they dominated the line of scrimmage? So, this is a uh uh are you a cup half full or uh you know I think I got on you about this one too. You did. You did. You did. And you know uh I think it’s a mixed bag for what you say. Uh obviously one of the keys and it could have been either way. And I talked about it being a line of scrimmage game and of course you look up and you know they rush for over 300 yards and Jonathan Taylor has a monster day of 200 plus on the ground and uh we have a third and 21 and we let Daniel Jones get out the gate for you know 19 20 yard gain. So you look at and say you know well we it don’t look like we dominate line of scrimmage at all on that point. But then you know you also turn around the other side and you you get seven sacks you turn them over. you you do a lot of good things uh getting after Daniel Jones, but those things obviously stick out. So, uh you know, I think it’s kind of a 50/50 thing on that uh part of my keys and obviously it was not the the best of it because ultimately it ended up probably winning the game for him. Yeah, it’s one of those shock where when the opposing team runs the football like you did, you kind of have to stop there and everything else gets thrown out the door, right? And it’s not the National Football League. It’s every single level. You get ran on like that. And and Arch, the fact I don’t want to go away from revising our keys here, but like the fact that Atlanta still made it competitive with the way that they ran the football is almost impressive. Like you don’t look come away with stuff like that as in a loss, but like they were in the game and they dominated in the run game. Usually that ends up being a lopsided affair. Yeah, I think that the domination certainly is indicated by the number. And I think that if you take the 83 yard touchdown away, which you can’t, but if you took the 83 yard touchdown away, they still ran for 240 yards in the game, that’s taking the 80 yard away, right? So that would indicate, yeah, they got after us in the run game, but I didn’t feel like that was what was going on in the game. This was a game of explosive plays. And when you go back and look at it, okay, yes, 300 yards rushing, 83 of it on one play. He had another 40 yard run in the game. Daniel Jones ran twice for 20 plus yards. And so when you begin to look at it, how do you and that was my key to the game. I got my keys written down here. I said it limit I said limit explosive plays. They had come into the game with 29 over the last three games, they had 29 plays of 15 yards or more. They had 12 in this game. Mhm. So when you begin to look at all the yardage you gave up on the ground in particular, the explosives are what beat you. It wasn’t that they beat your head into the ground with the run game. It was that they had explosive plays. And so, you know, that’s that’s my evaluation on that. I don’t think that it necessarily would indicate, okay, you’re horrible against the run. No, you got to you you can’t allow them to have the explosives if you cuz you know, they ran the ball 41 times. You probably could take 30 of the runs. You handled it. Mhm. But you let them get out and the 10 are the ones that really got and those are the ones that got you. Yeah. Um, you mentioned some of the explosives. Tyler Warren had a 24 yard catch. Alec Pierce had a 37 yer early. Jonathan Taylor had a 24 yder out of the back field as well as what he had in the run game. So those were some of the explosive plays given up uh by the Falcons defense. Arch, yours was your schloo zoom spiel was the QB that has the most rushing yards wins the game. And if these numbers are correct, I give you a lot of crap about this one. Wait a minute. This is the only one that actually works cuz we’re going to get the racks and Rex head was wanted this all this stuff happened on defense which he got and it’s still this is the only one that actually applies to winning. Yeah. He had seven carries, 53 yards, and he had a couple backbreaking runs. And there was a huge one on third and 21 late in the football game, which led to the game tying field goal. He runs for 19 yards and it makes it fourth. Now, you still have to convert on fourth down, which they really tightly contested contested throw. He makes to Warren. Billy Bowman’s right in his hip pocket, but he completes it. But they got back to where they could throw some little control route instead of trying to throw verticals because you let him get out and run 19 yards. And instead of being fourth and 15 where they couldn’t throw that little out route, now it’s fourth and two. So yeah, seven carries, 53 yards, and he had some of those that kind of put things back in perspective for the play caller. So big day for Daniel Jones in that regard. And in comparison, Michael Pennix had one rush for minus one yard. So, there’s been a lot of talk about that, guys, from either local media, I think national media on whether or not Michael needs to get out more because he’s got that ability. I think Michael wants to be a throwing pocket passing quarterback. And we have seen a couple of times when he has slipped out and he’s made some things happen and you don’t necessarily want him say, “Let’s turn him into a running quarterback.” It’s just use it when the situation calls for it. Yeah. His choices. It’s choices. shock when to do it. It It’s not about having the opportunity. He has the opportunity to do it. And I’ll I’ll give you guys a for instance. We have a play where he gets out of the pocket. It’s designed boot. He gets out of the pocket. He’s got Drake on the sideline that’s somewhat open for about a three or four yard gain. He’s got Mooney running an over route, a shallow drag over route probably at about 8 to 10 yards. And then he’s got Pitts on a on a corner towards the sideline. The the Colts cover it pretty good. He gets out of the pocket. There’s nobody for him. He gets out of the pocket. He can go get five or six yards and hook slide down and now it’s second and three. But he decides to kind of throw against his arm, tries to hit Mooney who’s re got a guy draped all over him. Could have maybe called interference on the play, but he throws a knee high throat and Mooney like a bullet and Mooney doesn’t catch it. Now it’s second and 10. Yeah, those are decisions that he has got to get over. He’s got to go make the decision. I don’t have anything here except this and this is acceptable. I’m gonna go get seven or eight and get on the ground. He could have easily done that. And there’s probably four or five of those every game that that’s part of his his growth. And again, young quarterback, what 12 starts in his career, 11 starts in his career. He’s got to get to some of that stuff. It’ll be interesting to know. I would love to be able to pick his brain to see what his mindset is on those particular type of places. I remember when I played in college, when I was here with the Falcons, the number one rule was when you come out on boot, you have to make sure that they feel like you obviously can take off. You got to attack the line of scrimmage so that they will come up. But the number one rule is attack the line of scrimmage first and then here comes something else open. But I would love to know cuz like you mentioned it’s it’s something that we’ve seen in three or four games where you got opportunities to pick up four or five yards and may not seem like much but like you mentioned go from second and 10 to I mean first and 10 to now you got second and six, second and five. Now things are a little bit easier and it gets to okay now we’re a little bit better on third down because our third down’s not seven plus like we’ve been in for a long time and that’s a whole another issue as well. But I think that kind of stuff can also help your offense as well when you start getting into those later down situations. I mean, caller wants to barbecue. They want to barbecue the offensive coordinator. Y Well, you know what? My job’s a hell of a lot easier if you go get me six or seven on that play. No doubt. As opposed to let’s line up on second and 10. Yep. And Rahee Morris has mentioned it on multiple occasions that we’re playing in third and long too many times. Like hard to win. It doesn’t matter what level you’re playing at. Again, if you constantly have to convert third and 10, third and 12, third and 13, it’s it’s going to be a challenge, especially in the National Football League, how defenses and players are just so good. Um, my key was the defense causing chaos. And Arch, you kind of talked about this already, and they caused chaos. Seven sacks, 41% pressure, two turnovers, nine tackles for loss, couple press breakups in this game. They did a lot of really good things and you want to say you want to put a check mark by it, but when you lose the game and they run the way that they did on the defense, it’s hard to find any it’s hard to say, “Yeah, that’s great.” Well, I mean, it is it’s positive. You can build off of it. You want to continue to get pressure on the quarterback. You want to create turnovers, but when it’s in a losing effort, it’s just kind of hard to be excited about it, right? So, and I think you’re you’re I thought you were that’s a great it was a great idea as far as what you want to do. And you did it. You said that. Y I’m going to ask you this, Rack. You You’ve got you’re the young the two young players on the edge are starting to come of age really quickly. I mean, Pierce and Walker are coming, right? Dorless inside essentially a rookie in Mike is coming. A roller making some stuff. He played I mean they’re coming, right? And so, do you believe I do, but I I want to hear Do you believe that what you’re doing wrong defensively, and again, there’s a lot going on, right? I think you’re still eighth or ninth or tenth overall defense, um, are fixable to where the next week you can be marketably better in some of the areas you made mistakes. Yeah. I mean, I think a lot of, especially when you when you talk about the explosive plays, usually what happens is it’s one thing. It’s like somebody forgot they’re contained. They got washed inside or it was one missed tackle or it was a missed assignment. Somebody one person missed assignment. That’s why we always talk about like the difficulty in the game of football is 11 players have to operate efficiently at the same time in order to have success. And sometimes one mistake on a play whether it’s offensively or defensively can turn into those game-breaking plays. And so, yeah, it’s and I the other thing I hear from Raheem Morris, and he’s talking a lot about offense, but you could say this about defense, too, is it’s it’s execution. It’s just getting the job done. Like a lot of times people are there to make the play and you just don’t make the play. Like the touchdown that Jonathan Taylor had, like Jesse Bates was there. Yeah, you got to give Jonathan Taylor credit. He made a great move. He was there. Jesse Bates was there. Just didn’t make the play, right? And so, I mean, that was that final drive. they were driving down the I mean oh yeah they I think we were out of gas we might have been out of gas at that point but I’m just you know trying to give an example but to your point yes it’s it’s things that can be fixable but a lot of times it’s just one little breakdown and all of a sudden somebody’s out the gate and you’re looking at an explosive well to your point let’s go back the Pierce touchdown they go two plays 95 yards they had a dump out they’re playing quarters okay and so quarters means you got for the layman fan out there quarters is you got four guys playing what essentially is an umbrella look, but they’re playing quarters of the field each. So, how do you attack that is a lot of times in post or double post to try to pull one guy out and get it isolated. Well, there’s a learning process that goes into the young safety. Watts is on the same side of the field with the corner and and so they run a post and a dig. Okay, so which is an in round. So, Warren, they stacked and they run a post on the corner. the corners playing outside technique and Warren the tight end runs an in route at about 12 yards and so the safety hesitates even though there’s nothing threatening Jesse and in fact if you look at the tape Jesse goes like this I got him to free up Watts but he hasn’t seen it enough and this is we’re talking about young guys developing Watts bites on it just for a count and that’s all you need as a quarterback I’ve got a post on an outside technique corner I’m taking the shot cuz I can throw it over the top of the safety. And sure enough, Watts tries to get out of there, but he can’t get there in time. Perfect throw. I point the football with a big receiver. It’s a touchdown. That can be fixed because now all of a sudden, I’ve seen it, right, Shock? If a young guy and so he and Jesse are talking saying, “Listen, you see this, you got to look at the other side of the field. You can’t just be so locked down on your side. If there’s nobody threatening me on my side of the field, I’m going to take that guy because he’s coming in my zone now. He’s leaving your quarter to come in my quarter and I got him. So you keep your you keep getting the hell out of there so you can protect the corner on that on that post. Then what I’m talking about what you’re talking about about run fitting and being in the right place the run fits. That’s what you can I think you can exponentially be better especially when young players see that kind of stuff. Oh, okay. That’s what they can do to me. You know I think that that’s something they’ll they’ll improve on immediately. Yeah. And I think that’s the, you know, you could say what you want about Daniel Jones that he’s not, you know, an upper echelon NFL QB, but that’s the difference is in the college game to the NFL game is sometimes shock the reads get simplified to the point to where it’s like, all right, here’s the concept. You’re reading this safety. Like you see a hesitation, boom, cut it loose, right? And then all of a sudden, if you see him drop back, then you go to number two, then you go to the tight end, then you come to the check down, whatever. But that’s what I think the the average fan doesn’t understand is that these guys are making these decisions literally in a snap of a finger. But it’s just that hesitation that Arch talked about. Soon as you see it, boom, you know you got it. And you’re talking about a hesitation. Here is an example as well on the other side of where that hesitation throws you off or where the Falcons did a really good job of disguising it. The sack fumble by James Pierce. They got seven guys on the line of scrimmage. Jesse Bates is the outside guy on the line of scrimmage. It looks like he’s going to rush. So Daniel Jones is like, “Okay, I see him rushing. They obviously they have more guys than we can block. They got five guys in the protection. You got Jonathan Taylor who’s going to go right out here on the right side, run a little screen.” Jesse Bates peels on the screen. Daniel Jones wants to throw the screen, but now it’s covered. He has to hesitate. That little hesitation, James Pierce is the free guy off the backside. Guess what? There goes the sack fumble. So that’s how you talk about how quickly the hesitation, how quickly you see things. Dis mindset. Okay, I know I’m hot. I gotta get rid of this football. But as he gets ready to go the football, Bates is right. The guy who looks like he’s about to blitz because you look at Jesse Bates on the play. Oh, he’s revved up like he’s coming. Snap of the ball, he peels. Dave Jones looks to his right. Oh, I can’t throw that. By the time he hesitates to come back, boom, sack, fumble, the other way around. So, that’s how quickly you talk about a small hesitation or think you knowing what a defense going to do can turn into a play that works well for the Falcons. So, let’s kind of talk a little bit more. Uh, I’ve got, again, I’ve got the two quarterbacks here and and talk a little bit about these offensive inconsistencies and sometimes Raheem Morris always says stats are for losers, but there’s I look at them a lot because I think it tells stories, trends, where you’re going. And the thing that I looked at last night that was troubling to me was that Michael Pennix has got a 58.8% completion rate this year. And I looked and I believe that there’s only two quarterbacks that have played regular time, okay? Not just the random fill-in guy, but Dylan Gabriel and Cam Ward are the only two that are below him as far as completion rate. And even if you go back to last year, guys, he’s been around a 58% passer. That’s not going to help you win football games. So, to my two quarterbacks here, Raheem Morris is always talking about we got to execute. We got to stay out of third and long. Um, all those would help all this out. How do they get Michael? And I’m not saying that he’s got to be a 75% completion rate passer. That’s unrealistic in the National Football League, but 63 to 65 to 67 is helps you win football games. How do they get them there, Arch? Well, a lot of things have to happen. And I asked you about that question defensively because I feel like there are some pretty quick learned things that you can fix things and you can be dramatically better the next week. This one is a little bit more complicated and this one depends on guys around him making plays. Kyle Pittz runs an over route on the first play of the game and Pennix puts the ball right on him. It’s a 70 yard touchdown. Catch the ball. He drops the football. Okay. Um you get a twoman twist up front. Something that you have in practice every day. Just a two. It’s a TT stunt. The two tackles twist. We don’t pick it up. It’s a four-man pass rush. And Pennix has got a guy right here in his face. What do you want him to do? You want him to throw it away. There’s another incompletion. Pennix gets out of the pocket on the bootleg like I talked about and tries to shove it in to Mooney, take off. Yep. Okay, there’s another incompletion. So, I just talked about three incompletions. You add that into maybe four or five other plays where he could have made a better throw. Yeah. I mean, Kyle wins on a fade. It’s a touchdown. Throw it out there to him. Yeah. If he gets it to him, it’s a walk-in touchdown. He makes some mistakes that add to it. My point is that there’s not one thing you point and say, “Hey, Michael, you need to take the high higher percentage throw, which he can make better decisions. Let’s not throw the fade on on third and six. Let’s let’s work something a little bit more.” Or on first down, if we don’t see anything down the field, let’s drop it off. You know, you can work on that kind of stuff. But shock, it’s it’s a myriad of things that are going on. The people around him have got to play better to allow him to do this. And the one that you talked about, the pits, I mean, yeah, he could have made a better throw, but dude, I would also say you got to go get the ball, right? Like I think Kyle Pittz is one of the most athletic and physically imposing players. Like, I just don’t feel like he made a great effort to go get that ball. Like, go reach over the top of him and take it off the top of his helmet, right? You’re long enough, you’re athletic enough. Like that’s the type of plays we saw it last week with Drake London. Like made three really difficult contested catches. Seemingly does that all the time. We’ve mentioned this before. Like your quarterback’s not always going to throw a perfect throw. Sometimes you got to go bail him out. Like you got to go make an even better catch to keep the drive going to score a touchdown, whatever the case may be. Is there anything else that you’re seeing with Michael Pennix that can help them just get a little bit more efficient? I think Arc did a good job explaining a couple plays where you’re like, “Okay, there’s easy plays where you can get find some easy completions.” And then there are some ones where you got to flat out say you got to hit the route. There’s some where you got free access. You’re throwing a out route to Mooney or you’re throwing a a dig route to Seals. May maybe you guys haven’t worked together all the time, but there are plays that are there you just got to hit. And I think ultimately he’ll turn the tape on and he’ll that’s on me. I got to hit that one. And I think that comes back to the maturity of Michael Pennix and he he’ll say that in the the film room, probably won’t come out, you know, in the public, but there are just plays that are out there that you can have. And then Arch, I’d love for you to to dive in it with me, but there’s also the conversation of what’s happening below the waist. There are a lot of things that people talk about, hey, the feet work is not there. Some people talk about, hey, sometimes when he’s throwing to his left, he don’t get it all the way open. And that causes issues as far as your accuracy. Um, but then there’s the naysayers or there’s people who say, you know what, there are guys around the league like a Matthew Stafford who his feet are everywhere, but the ball is on point. And sometimes when you have a strong arm like these, both those guys have, you’ve made those throws a thousand times without stepping into it. You made that throw a thousand times without freaking uh stepping to your target and getting your your your belly to where it’s supposed to be and all this kind of stuff. But then when it becomes an issue like it is now, that’s when it starts to get really blown out of proportion that, hey, maybe there’s some things going on downstairs that’s causing the inaccuracy. So, uh, Arch, I don’t know if it’s, you know, a big deal to you, but it’s something as a quarterback that I pay attention to as well because I was the guy who at times footwork wasn’t as good as it should be and ultimately it was why you were inaccurate or why throws weren’t on time or on point because your feet usually tell you where to go. hitch here, hitch there, or coming out on time or, you know, just stepping to your target is a big part of it, too. So, I don’t know if that is something that you see as well that says, “Okay, maybe that’s a part of it, or maybe it’s just, you know, ultimately he just got to hit that throw.” It is. I think it’s paramount shock. what you’re talking about is a critical piece to taking um some of the inaccuracies, some of the things that he’s doing that he can improve on dramatically and bring his feet with him. The problem is is you guys are blessed. Shock had a monster arm. Okay. And that Pennix has a big arm. Matt Stafford monster arm. I didn’t have that. My arm was more like Montana’s arm. I wish I could have thrown it like Joe Montana, but I had to I had to move my feet a little bit more to make some of the throws or not even make them at all and I end up taking a sack or trying to get out because I knew I couldn’t make that throw. You guys know you can make the throw probably six out of 10 times. Well, what happens those other four times? It’s either incomplete or I put the ball in harm’s way because I didn’t square my feet up to make the throw. And so I I think you’re dead on. He’s now the Matt Stafford argument has no water with me. Okay. What year is this for Matt Stafford? 17. Okay. I guarantee you, you go back 16 years ago, Matt Stafford’s making the same throws that Michael Fendix is throwing and it ain’t working out. True. But now he understands, and this is what I keep talking about. I know you have, you guys have both talked about as a young player, whether you’re Jaylen Walker or you’re Michael Penn, I got to figure out what I can get away with at this level and what I can’t. and he’s still figuring that stuff out. So, he’s going to get better, but we need other guys around him to make up for some of those inefficiencies by making plays around him. Think you can take on your favorite Atlanta Falcons player on the grid iron? Well, how about on the gaming grid iron? AT&T is hosting a special Game with the Pros event at Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Monday, November 17th at 6 PM. Visit an Atlanta corporateowned AT&T store for a chance to play Atlanta Falcon Stars on PlayStation 5 in person. That’s not all. AT&T is connecting fans to exclusive prizes and autograph sessions with Atlanta Falcons players. So, stop by your local AT&T store today to sign up for this first come, first serve special event. Entries granted while supplies last, terms and conditions apply. Shock. Uh, wasn’t seems like it wasn’t too long ago. Falcons had a bye-week come back. They get a big win over Buffalo sitting at three and two. Uh, and since then they’ve lost four straight games. So, now is where I want you to take off your player helmet and I want you to put on your coaching cap. And how does Atlanta turn this thing around, Shock? Like how do they cuz it’s easy to sit here and talk about playoffs, right? But like we’re three and six. Like you got to work on getting one win. You got to work on trying to put together a winning streak. How does that happen for Atlanta? You know, I I think ultimately it’s hard because you’re you’re sitting here at three and six and you say, “All right, you got to find a way.” And I think for me, you look at some of the small things that we’ve already talked about and it’s details. It’s the small nuances within your game. You mentioned it when we came on. The 111 part of it I think is huge. I think we focus a lot on not just I’m talking about us. I’m talking about just fans in general talking about everything that’s going on the whole entire team. But I think when you get inside the team, it’s about the one guy. It’s about, you know, whoever’s playing, you know, that that that that left tackle and you got to make sure that, you know, hey, you’re blocking this guy coming off the edge. You got to do your 111th job. I think that’s what it comes down to ultimately. details of doing the small things that’s going to help you win ball games. Uh when you get outside of yourself and you try to do more than what’s asked of you, I think that’s where you’ve gotten in a little bit of trouble. And this is a point in the season where each guy, and we mentioned it last week, you got to go look at a mirror and say, man, am I doing everything possible to help this team win? If I’m a veteran, am I doing everything possible to help one of my young guys come along a little bit faster? Is there anything I could do when I come in and watch more film? Can I pull a guy to the side and say, “You know what? I saw this. I saw that.” Or is it just me? Do I have to find ways to get better? And ultimately, you can’t get the entire team better unless each guy fundamentally finds out how they can improve this team. And I think the other thing that we is reality, it’s not an excuse, but it’s reality is for the majority of the season, you have two rookie pass rushers. You have a rookie safety. You have a rookie nickel who just came back on the field who missed a few few games, but he’s still learning. Um, you got JD Bertran that’s thrown into the middle of the defense now and and yeah, he’s not a rookie, but he’s kind of a rookie when it comes to playing inside linebacker down after down after down in the National American Fourth down, too. Yes. Um, and you got a quarterback in Michael Penn that’s in his second year, but his first year as a full-time starter. He’s learning every single week. It’s not an excuse for losses, but it is a reality of the situation when you have so many young players that you’re counting on to bring production at critical positions like your pass rushers in the National Football League, your safeties, your defensive backs, if they’re not on the same page, if they’re not communicating, bad things can happen, right? And if you haven’t seen all the things, like you talked about with Xavier Watts, like unfortunately, you’re going to have to learn from some bad mistakes in order to be better the next time around. So Arch, I wanted to get your opinion like where the Falcons are at three and six before we get to Carolina. Like what has to be the mind shift knowing not only have they lost four straight, but they’re coming off a trip that they just came overseas and they don’t have a bye-week. Like got to saddle right back up. You got another game coming up on Sunday. Well, you’re capable of doing everything you need to do. You just played two teams of what are a combined 16 and four and you you’re right. You could have should have and maybe should have won both football games. So, if you want to think about do I belong, if there is some wavering as far as that goes, you can throw that out the window. You know, you took Buffalo to task in this building. I mean, you’ve got the ability to play with anybody in the National Football League. Um, you have the ability to play in games. I mean, you had a you you took the ball on your own 19 yardd line, went five plays, 81 yards, shoved it in the end zone. That was in the first first quarter. So, you’re capable of doing it. So, I’ve got to understand moments of the game that are going to be critical without getting tight. Oh god, here we go. We got Okay, I’m going to give you guys four four. For instance, we took over the ball at the minus 47, which is our 47 yard line. Any minus is on our side of the 50 yard line for the fans. – 47 – 40 44 – 43 – 45. Okay. So, you’re essentially 55 yards from paid dirt or you’re what, shock? 20 or uh racked 25 yards from field range this day and age. So yeah, okay, we got one touchdown in four half field opportunities. We got one touchdown. On the other hand, Indianapolis had a very similar scenario. They took over at their minus 43, – 41, minus uh plus 47 our side and plus 44. So they got four opportunities. They ended up with 13 points out of that. Yeah, we got seven. We lost the game by six. Mhm. So, opportunities, whether it’s to make a play on a deep over route, the ball hits you right in the chest and runs for a touchdown, or you get a guy that wins on a fade, put it on him, or you get a a situation where I got a half field opportunity. I don’t have to go 80 with it, 75. I get I can go 25 and we’re in field goal range. I’ve got to cash those opportunities in because, as it turns out, both teams had four of them in the game. And more often than not, there’s going to be somewhere between nine and 11 possessions in the game. If I get four opportunities to get a half field, I have to score. Gotta capitalize. And and they’re not doing that. And to me, that’s the number one thing that’s keeping you from winning against. You’ve got three one-score games. You lost on opening weekend to to Tampa. That’s a game you could have won. You the last two weekends, one-sore games. If you win those moments, we’re six and three. We’re not three and six. Yep. And to me, that’s what it is. How many how many points did we get on when they had two turnovers? No. Well, the the the fumble that we got, the Walker fumble, um you talking about how many hand points did we get? Yeah, we ended up we we had three and out on that series. Exactly. Came in and went three. And in fact, three four You had four of those short field opportunities. Three two of the short field opportunities we went three and out. The other one we punted. Yeah. And then we got one where we went down and scored a touchdown. And that’s my point is the hidden yards in the ball game. You talk about special teams, big returns by them. Big returns by them set them up. You know what I’m saying? So the hidden yards in there, the hidden yards on turnovers that you don’t capitalize on, those are points left out there. Those are yards left out there. Those are opportunities in a ball game that could change a win or a loss. And we always talk you never know which play it’s going to be. But you got turnovers in this game. You got some short fields. You got some opportunities that you don’t capitalize on. But they did and capitalizes on their short yardage, hitting yards, hitting what? Yeah. Yeah. So the question you go into the meetings with and I know we’ve all been the meetings. Okay. So let’s pair it down to those four possessions where we got short field. What did we do? I guarantee you the staff is sitting down. If you want to talk about coaching and all that kind of they’re sitting down and evaluating, okay, what did I call? What did we do with those opportunities? Because we didn’t really do anything. We had one score for a touchdown. The other three came up empty. Two of them were three and outs. You get a major change of of momentum with the play you talked about where Pierce comes off the edge, blows him up, Walker recovers the football, and now you got this opportunity with momentum and they’re feeling bad about themselves. You just sack the quarterback in. We don’t do anything with it. We don’t cash it in. The staff, I guarantee you, is grinding right now on why are we not taking advantage of those half field opportunities? Yeah. Um, and you guys mentioned it and I thought about it during the game like it w it was it was not a good enough special teams performance to win the football game. Gave up too many returns, did not have a good punt one time, guys. It’s field position, right? It’s all about field position. I There was one play that I actually rewound on kickoff coverage and I think it’s I don’t know not 100% sure how you say his last name, Couttoriiano, the young tight end. He’s playing contain on the left side and somehow he gets swallowed up inside and he gives the edge. Like it’s it’s kind of contain 101 when you’re in that position. Like you have to leave your outside arm free and they cannot bounce outside of you. If they do, there’s likely nobody there to make the play. Like that’s why that position is squeeze it down, keep your outside arm free and if he starts bubbling this way, you’ve got to fight your way outside to turn him into the rest of the coverage team. Right? If you get him outside, boom, that’s exactly what happens. All of a sudden, the guy’s at midfield, right? And like that’s that’s call it two and a half to three first downs right there, right? You get him tackled around the 25 versus the 50 or longer. Like you just gave them three first downs. Like this National Football League, they’re going to make you pay for that, right? Rack, how much is it like how much have you been able to figure out over the first these two seasons with the new dynamic kickoff? Um, is it like a running play? You you just talked about keeping my outside that almost you’re almost describing like a defensive end. Defensive leverage defensive end where I got to keep I got to leverage I got to turn the play back the inside. Is that what we’re talking about? Yeah. I mean, but I would say even back when when I was playing in special teams was the same way when we had the old school rules, right? When you were running down, it was like you always you’re two players on each side, right? The the widest two. One was your contain that was going all the way down, one was your safety, right? So they would run down and then they would throttle down a little bit and their responsibility was if something gets if they skate out, you’re there. You should be unblocked. If not, there’s going to be somebody coming late for you. Your job is to go make that play. Like that’s a corner, a nickel, or a safety because that’s what they’re used to, right? Coming up in the box and kind of seeing what happens and going to making a tackle. But with this new kickoff rule now, it’s like they’re right next to the guy right when the when the catch is being made and then you’re going going downfield. But the same principle applies, right? He’s got to go back into the rest of your coverage team, right? That’s when you’re going to get the tackle right away. Get him down on the ground. So, special teams has got to be better. Um, so let’s turn the page real quick. Let’s talk about Carolina. If there’s one game where we got to have a short-term memory, it’s the Panthers. It was not one of those one-score games that you talked about. It It was an embarrassing performance that I’m sure a lot of people in this locker room shock are looking to avenge that loss. Okay. I’m going to throw this question up to you. You can take it based off of the last performance or you can take it based off of what needs to happen in this game. But how does Atlanta flush the last four weeks, flush Berlin, Germany, potentially flush the last time they played the Panthers and have a different result on Sunday? It’s it’s it sounds cliche, but this is one of those you go back, it was way back in week three, and you figure out how different are you from week three. You think about the things that that led to the loss in that ball game. And I went back and looked at it and you look at the stat sheet and you say, “Man, you dominated in a lot of categories in that ball game. You look at the numbers and uh Carolina was three of 11 on third down. Uh Falcons outgainained them by close to almost 100 yards in that ball game. Yards per play. They were 4.1. You were 5.0, but you had three turnovers in the game. You had two interceptions. You had a fumble in that ball game. And when you have those kind of issues on the road, guess what? More nine times out of 10, you’re probably not going to come out of it the right way.” Um, obviously Bryce Young, they did a really good job of just getting the football out of his hands. Um, this is going to be, I think, a game where you come back, you’re in your own building. It’s been a while since you’ve been back. And ultimately, I think it just comes down to just the pride that you have coming into this ball game. You, hey, you’re 0 and2 in the division. You got to go win this ball game. If you fall 0 and three and you fall behind, you can’t get swept by the Carolina Panthers and then they come here and do that. Uh, I think this is I go back to the details of your assignment each week and you know, you look back on that ball game, there are a lot of things that you can clean up. There are a lot of things that were very fixable. There are a lot of things that if you play just a little bit better, you you have a different outcome. And of course, they’re going they’re going to look back and say, “Hey, they just they went on the road to Green Bay, got a win, but then they lose to the Saints this past week.” Well, you look up what the Saints did, 122 rush yards on 37 attempts. This is a ball game where you can get back to the run game. I think it it starts there. I think it takes a lot of pressure off your quarterback. It gives you more opportunities to push the football down the field and it gives you those opportunities. So, it they had 175 total yards in the ball game. They were three and nine on third down. Again, uh now we’re not the best team on third down ourselves, but uh there’s some things that they’re not doing well either. So, how about we go out and, you know, continue the trend in this game at home. This team is five and five. the Carolina Panthers. But as you look at their season, like I can’t figure them out. Yeah, they lost to the Patriots 42-13. Okay, they beat the Cowboys 30 to27. They beat the Jets barely 13 to6. We know the Jets struggles. They get hammered by the Bills, okay, 40 to9. They respond by beating the Packers on the road at Lambo and then they lose to the Saints who’s got their own issues, right? So, it’s like when you think you’re talking about like you try to figure out what’s what’s a team’s trajectory. I don’t know what the Panthers trajectory is, Arch. There’s a bunch of teams that are like that. Absolutely. Exactly. But I’m going ask you the same question. Like what’s it going to what’s what has to be different this weekend for Atlanta, Arch? I I think that I I was really pleased with how we got back to what Raheem had talked about. Part of the backbone of this offensive unit is to be able to come off the ball and run the football. And I thought you you were able to two-way go the run a good bit. I was really impressed with the left side. Shout out to to Kyle Hinton who stepped in just his second start of his career. He’s played some 43 44 games in his career, but as a starter, just his second start, I thought he did a really good job off that left side. In fact, I thought we were mashing them in the run game on the left side a good bit in the game. So, getting back to that, the numbers defy logic. Would you say they had total offense uh the first time we played them in week three? Uh 224 224 yards. They were three of 13 on third down and they won 30 to nothing. How does that happen when you give them the ball a few times? Yeah. Well, the pick six right at the start of the second half made it 17 to nothing and at that point we kind of shifted gears and got out of game plan or whatever and turned down field goals because we missed a couple of those and so it got sideways but the numbers would defy that. Get back to running the football who you were. I think you got you got did a really good job of reidentifying that in your run game. What was it? 29 run plays, 28 pass plays. Balance is whatever it takes to win. I know the fan I know it’s thrown out there by the media that balance. Oh, you ran it 30 times and you threw it 20. That’s great balance. Well, the numbers would indicate really good balance. 28 throws, 29. It’s what it takes to win the football. I’ll throw it 55 times if that’s the balance I need to win the game. So, but I think you can come back to run the football. The the thing that you have to guard against is the explosives have crept up on Atlanta’s defense the last couple weeks. gave up seven to New England. I think he gave up 12 this week. So 19 plays of 15 yards or more. Other than that, the chaos you’re talking about, seven. You’ve had 13 sacks in the last two weeks, four takeaways. You’re doing what you want to do. Let’s take away the explosive play, which means Bryce Young, I don’t think he’s a great player, but he’s he’s a facilitator, kind of a point guard, small point guard. And if you allow him to move around in the pocket, slide and find guys got we and we had a problem with Daniel Jones. To me, that would be one of the keys for me is we got to keep Daniel keep Bryce from buying time and then let’s tackle the football when they try to run it. Okay, I like it. Last question. All right, this is Shock’s favorite game. Yay, Shock. Three word key. Only three. All right, I’m going first again because I’m giving you guys time. Three words and only three words. Oh, y’all say this me. This be y’all, too. Don’t be acting like that, man. Special teams win. Okay. Special teams win. That means you’re buttoned up. You do what you’re supposed to do on special teams and you win that phase of the game. Simple. Okay. It can’t be Let’s Go Dogs. That’s a good one. I don’t know what’s wrong with that one either. What you want me? I’ll go. Uh, how about play with urgency? Ooh, I like that because that talks about those short field opportunities, right? Come on, baby. Yeah, that’s money. Come on right there. What you got, baby? What you got? I like it. Shock actually had some uh efficiency with his words. You know what I’m saying? I felt like going over. I said, I’m not going to do it. Well, one of the hot players on their team has been Rico Doubt, right? I’m going to say, uh, oh, here it is, baby. Let go. Say no to Rico. Say no. Say no to Rico. failed the test. It was a good one though. I got to retake the course now. I got six weeks of course I got but all we need No Rico. Just say no to Rico. Okay. No. No to Rico. Like that. Okay. Like that. Like that. Yeah. Cuz that can kind of be like a little slang, too. Not. You know what I’m saying? No. It’s like no apostrophe ta. Not. There’s still like four words. I blew it. I blew it. I failed the course today. We gave you the bars. Noto Rico. Just to recap, we recaped the Falcons game over in Berlin, Germany. We went a number of different angles there. Uh we talked a little bit about what it’s going to take to get back on track and then we talked about the Panthers, who they are, maybe what they we don’t really know who they are, uh but what it’s going to take for a victory this Sunday. Last thing, how was the food out there? Did you eat good or no? Wow. He’s like, we stayed at the Grand Hyatt Hotel there and they did a really good job. It felt like there was a smorgas board all day long there because as soon as they took the breakfast down, you guys know you’ve been on these road trips. Here comes the breakfast and you’re going, “Wow, I could just sit here and be 800 lb. I can sit here and eat.” So, the stuff they made uh for us over there was pretty good. I didn’t really delve into the local cuisine other than had a couple pints. I will tell you that. Supposed to German beer, man. Went in Berlin, right? Not in Berlin. It was not Oktoberfest, so I missed that. Hey, remember to follow us on your podcast apps. Like, comment, subscribe, give us a shout, holl at us, let us know if you want to hear something different, want our opinions on something other than what we’re talking about. Give us a shout. Uh, we’ll be back next week and hopefully we are recapping the Falcons getting off the losing schnide and coming away with a divisional win over the Carolina Panthers. On behalf of Shock Arch, I’m Rack. This is Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. We’ll see you next time, everybody. Heat. Heat. [Music]

Derek, Dave, and DJ revisit their Schlüssel zum Spiel (Keys to the Game) from last week and break down some of the struggles for Atlanta coming off their overtime loss to the Indianapolis Colts. Then, the guys look at the big picture and how the Falcons can turn things around going into the second half of the season. Finally, they look ahead to the Carolina Panthers rematch at Mercedes-Benz Stadium before giving their 3 words to a victory.

0:00 – Intro
2:41 – Arch’s Germany recap
6:51 – Revisiting Schlüssel zum Spiel
15:48 – Areas for quick fixes
21:36 – Offensive inconsistencies
29:43 – Turning things around
39:51 – Panthers rematch
45:33 – 3 words to victory

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