It feels GREAT to win! How the Falcons did it & why we think they can do it again | Falcons Audible

It feels GREAT to win! How the Falcons did it & why we think they can do it again | Falcons Audible

Fast, free delivery from the Home Depot makes your projects hassle-free. Forget something you need? Visit homed depot.com or the Home Depot app for free delivery on millions of products, including same day and next day options. Get delivery at the speed you need. Only at the Home Depot. How do get more done. Order select instock items by 400 p.m. Subject to availability. We have been told that we are the big boys in town. He got He’s into I’m talking about He is like lit. Start preaching. Let everybody say amen. Guy keep getting chills a little bit thinking about what these two guys can do. Falcons Audible is back ladies and gentlemen with the same trio as always. That’s DJ Shockley. Dave Archer. I’m Bear Crackley presented by AT&T. And yes, we’ve been here the last 5 weeks after losses, but today we are here after a victory. 24-10 win on the road against the Saints rivalry week goes in favor of the Atlanta F. Glad made it back cuz I know they were hot after taking that L. Oh, they don’t say nothing. You just walk chest stuck out. See, it used to be when you in New Orleans they changed where the box is and now you’re like sitting on the roof of the stadium. But there was no elevator that took you to that level. off the elevator at the beginning of the 300 Mercedes and actually go up the stairs through the crowd. Now, they’ve since put in a elevator. They found it was very counterproductive for the other team’s coaches to have to walk through the crowd. So, they put an elevator, they extended the elevator up, but yeah, there were a time there was a time like when we nailed them with a uh with a field goal in overtime to win and we were able to walk down through the crowd. You talk about rooster. That was that was good. Chest out really. You see what’s on the shirt, right? A little different body language after that, right? That’s exactly. Um, so you know, let’s stay there, Arch. Let’s talk about a little bit of the atmosphere of the stadium. Not let’s not get to the locker room quite yet, but like atmosphere of the stadium. How did you feel? Even you had a you had a two and eight and a three and what seven team at the time? Is that right? Yeah. Um going at it, but sometimes the rivalries are just a little bit different. Well, unfortunately for these two fan bases, as you guys know, these two teams have kind of been in this position for almost their existence. There’s been blips on the radar. Obviously, Atlanta been to a couple Super Bowls. New Orleans has had a chance to break through and win a Super Bowl, but that took a long time to happen. And so, there were a lot of years, in fact, the years I was playing that the two teams were kind of teetering on who was going to be in the bottom and who wasn’t. And so that in itself generated a a an atmosphere between the two fan bases. Plus, it’s so close. The place was inundated with Falcon fans. I mean, I was out on Canal Street and you guys know it. You know, you go Canal about two blocks down and there’s Bourb. So, it’s all tied in there together. There were Falcon fans everywhere. And I’m talking about walk. It was almost like they were taunting the the Saint fans walking up and down saying rise up and singing all this stuff and walking around with all their stuff on. Uh so that was cool and then that spilled over into the stadium. Uh, and you always get that. I think these two fan bases do a really good job of it being one of the great rivalry and and I say great rivalries. It is Atlanta won this weekend as you guys know. That actually evened the series in the regular season at 56 and 56. Wow. It was already tied if you included the one postseason game because Atlanta beat him in a postseason game. But that’s what a rivalry is. I don’t want to hear about contested. Yeah. I don’t want to hear about a rival. Oh, you talk about these college football rivalries. Oklahoma State Oklahoma State’s Oklahoma State’s won like four. Yeah. Here, let’s Georgia Tech’s record. Yeah, it ain’t. Yeah. I mean, so you got one that’s got 14 wins, the other one’s got a hundred. I mean, that’s not lopsided. Yeah. Yeah. But this one is truly that. And you know, you you when you begin to look at it, I know the South knows more about this one than than other places of the the country do. I mean, Bears Packers is is a classic. you know, Eagles, Giants, classic. Um, but this one is a classic as well because there’s been some unbelievable plays. Some of it hasn’t been for other than, hey, we’re on top of you in the in the division, but um I thought that that atmosphere carried over again. Now, there’s some pettiness in the in the crowd. They’ll always throw out the 283 thing. They still did that. Oh, yeah. I saw signs. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. They had a picture of Matt Ryan leaving the field. They said the largest blown Super Bowl. You know, as long as they have a Super Bowl championship and we don’t, that’s going to be a little stick in the side. They’re going to continues to jab it. But I think in all actuality, there is a there’s a dislike. This city was a bastion, a haven for a number of people from New Orleans after Katrina that came here and were welcomed into Atlanta. In fact, my next door ne my neighbor across the street uh unbelievably good dude, cinjun guy, loves great cook, all this, but we get back and forth each other each each time we play one another. But I I don’t know that I could defend depend on another guy that’s in my area like I could him. So, I think there’s a there’s a a nastiness to it that’s I think on the level, but I think there’s a there’s a respect level as well. So, it’s it was kind of cool. But that that was kind of what permeated the building. And you could see the air go out of their balloon pretty quickly. Yeah. Um when Atlanta began to dominate. All right, we’re gonna um I’m gonna pivot here because I want you to talk Arch about the feeling in the locker room after the game, but I don’t want this to go 30 minutes before Shock gets to say something here because he’s real quick. His feelings are hurt. Okay, you did get I love hearing about it. I mean, I I asked Arch about I I literally just asked him how New Orleans was. So, I I love hear Let’s do this. Let’s talk about the game and then once we finish up the game then Arch can tell us the mood in the locker room. Can we No, no, no. Let’s do locker room. Let’s go. I mean, we can’t go backwards. I mean, we want to hear what happened in the locker room here. It’s a great locker room. Want to host the show? You you you do a great job of that. You want to switch chairs? No, I don’t. I This is the the only reason we’re like this is because Shock and I were on time and Rack’s late. So, that’s Rack is late. So, even though this recording, you guys are picking this up on a Wednesday or whatever it is, we’re recording this on a Tuesday. We had to wait for for our for our host in the gate. Playing six years here. Only been broadcasting for like five and I still can’t even get in the gate outside. I’m sorry. Who are you? I have this parking pet. Yeah, that doesn’t matter. Pull over to the side. The player fine schedule is still as it was and that’s $100 a minute. That’s $700. explain that. So anyway, um so real quickly locker room in the locker room, not jubilant, you know, one of those the guys were happy to win. I mean, fivegame losing streak, you you kind of scratch and you finally get a win. I thought it was cool. The thing that I thought was probably the most overriding thing in the locker room was the understanding that you didn’t have Drake London, you didn’t have Michael Penn Jr., guys that are main stays that have been part of this team this season. Um, you had other guys step in and play extremely well, whether it was David Sills, Mooney makes a play, you know, you got Kirk Cousins, what he did, and how they how they played defensively in in as a as a unit. So, I think that there was just a pride factor that they had put it together, something that had been right on the right on the verge of doing for four weeks in a row. Yeah. And and Arch, you kind of mentioned something that that triggered what I had talked about during the pregame show. actually did two pregame shows this week, but one of the things that I threw out is, okay, you mentioned Falcons, fivegame losing streak, now no Michael Penn, no Drake London, no Zack Harrison, no Billy Bowman. And all I could think about was last year when Atlanta went down to New Orleans, no Chris Olive, no Rasheed Shahed, Dennis Allen had just been fired. Like all the reasons why Atlanta should have stomped them. Yeah. Right. And the New Orleans Saints won, right? So you could flip it almost shocked that this was a somewhat similar situation. Obviously no head coach being fired, but a lot of key contributors that were not able to play, but they almost played one of their better games that they played this entire season. Did you kind of had that same sense as you were watching this? Yeah, you were. And I think at the end of the day, uh, when you’re professional and you got dudes are out and not playing, the other team don’t care. It don’t matter. The game will still go on. And guess what? They going to still try to whoop you. They’re not gonna feel sorry that you don’t have your best guy and your quarterback just towards ACL. They don’t care about that. They still want to whoop you. And I think you go into this game saying we can’t use that as an excuse. We’ve already had a number of things not go our way this season. We’re all out of excuses and now we got to go win. We got to go play the ball game. I thought, yeah, uh, everything says on paper maybe, uh, this team should have been a little down, should have been a little bit sorry for yourself. But when you got a bunch of guys who, uh, are true professionals, they’re going to keep grinding and finding a way. And as we all know, each week you work your tail off to go win a ball game. And it happens that Monday you come back in after a ball game and you’re trying to figure out what went wrong. And this team has done that for the last five weeks. and not to say, you know, hey, those last five weeks, they didn’t work hard. They did work hard. Things just didn’t go your way. You come back this time, you get an opportunity to go on the road to be the division rival, and you do that in in really great fashion. Uh, and I was excited to see that. Um, fellas, generally how we end up recapping these games, and I don’t know if it’s just the nature of the beast, I don’t know if it’s just human nature, but we always end up starting with the offense. We talk about how the quarterback played and then how Bjan Robinson played. But again, I’m throwing a wrench in the game here, guys, because I want to talk about how the defense played because there was three stops in this game that I thought were truly impressive. Crazy. Okay, we end up giving up another big return on on kickoff return. They start with great field position, boom, lock down, force him to a field goal attempt that’s missed. Then there’s two other drives that get deep down in the red zone and his defense bows up. Arch, how about the response from the last couple of weeks where this defense has been humbled a little bit. Statistically, they were towards the top of the league early on in the season. Then there was a few bad games. You talk about what happened in in Berlin and obviously last week against Carolina. This defense seemed like it played with a different attitude, especially on those three drives, getting those stops. Yeah, red zone stops were phenomenal. 0 for three for the Saints in the red zone. And there were some things that happened and we can chop that up if you guys want to. I thought that my key to the game and it might have been yours too, Rack, going into the game was Atlanta given up 29 plays in their last three games of 15 yards or more. They had played relatively good defensive football. I mean, look at the sacks and the takeaways that they had done over the last three weeks. And that continued in this game that you’re like you’re talking about. Two more takeaways, five more sacks. But what they did do is they eliminated the explosives. um only four explosive plays in this game. Carolina was coming off a byee or I’m sorry, uh New Orleans was coming off a byee and their best game explosive wise was in Carolina two weeks ago where they had seven plays of 15 yards or more. So, they were coming in feeling pretty good about potentially with the young quarterback and Chuck and maybe they’d found a little bit of rhythm. Atlanta took all of that away. The defense took all of that away and in fact took the run game away and then put Chuck in a pressure cooker, if you will, and began to kind of melt the everything around him and get after him. But in the red zone in particular, I thought there was there was one play that I want to point to in the red zone and it might have been the it was in the second half, I believe, but they get down there and Shuck runs a quarterback sweep to the left side and gets to the one yard line. It was on first down, gets to the one yard line. To me, the everybody will talk about the misnap and the grounding, which was a huge play. The play prior to that, it’s second and goal from the one foot line. And they stone him on that play, which forces Kell Moore to go, “Okay, well, we’ll get the gadget guy in and we’ll run the shotgun quarterback, you know, lead play.” And then the guy snaps it over his head. But that’s the key. Make him play. How many plays can you make him play? and you make him force him into a mistake. And they had almost snapped it over his head earlier in the game, but the play to me was the second and one play. The score is I believe it’s 16 to seven at the time. So we’re late in the football game. 16 to seven at the time. If they score now, it’s a it’s a two-point game, right? And and you keep them out of the end zone. But I thought that second and a foot to score was a really telling play that kind of overrode and kind of gave you a story of what this defense was the whole night. You talked about the uh pass rush in this game. Five sacks, six tackles for loss, just 10 points allowed. And and Shock, I wanted to turn to you because we talked once Devon Diablo got hurt. We talked about how I guess different the defense was going to look because of what he brings to the table, right? And then I don’t know about you guys, but like all of a sudden you see, well, he’s going to be back at practice. And then he practices all week and then he gets activated and he has no injury designation. And then I had seen earlier that he had, you know, a big wrap on his arm and stuff. So he ends up missing a few games. And we showed a um a full screen stat comparison from the first seven weeks to when he was out. And the defensive numbers were dramatically worse when he came out of the game. Now, you could contribute a lot of factors to that. You could contribute a little bit of the fact that he wasn’t there, but watching the game shock, what did you feel like Diablo’s presence back to the defense meant to them? It’s one word, physicality. And you look at the way he plays, the way he fills gaps, the way he can, you know, there are times where we always talk about, oh, lineman got to get up to the second level. They gota be to get to that linebacker. There are a lot of times those linemen cannot get to him because he can diagnose things so fast and then he has the speed to go through it. You talk about a guy who plays safety now he plays linebacker so he has the speed, has the eyes, has the vision to go see things and then when he’s there, the dude ain’t going nowhere. The dude is shot out of a cannon. And I mean the dude almost had an interception with the big with the big club on his hand, the old Pat Willis club in his hand. But he is definitely a different style of player for this defense and you know and Raheem knew from day one this was the style of linebacker they wanted and he fits that mold and you add him with Ken Ellis be to move him around. Uh but there are just times where he’s just unblockable. Uh there are times where he can see things and he will go and he will go make the play and you know he’ll cover some things up for you that maybe oh if he’s not there that’s probably maybe a eight n 10 yard run and he turns it into maybe a one or two yard gain but I just believe his physicality his presence on the field brings a lot to this defense and of course you got to have the big boys up front. You got to give those guys a lot of credit especially those first and second year guys who are aggressive. They were disruptive. they, you know, uh, they make things, uh, a lot harder. I mean, there was one particular play, uh, give Obibrick a lot of credit for the way he schemes things up, too. There are a lot of times where he will put a guy like Kane Nellis on on the line of scrim like James Pierce just sacked. You put Kate Ellis on the line, you think he’s gonna blitz. You got Jaylen Walker sitting right in the middle as that middle linebacker and you got a guy sitting right over the nose and Jaylen Walker’s right behind him on the snap of the football. The the guy who is the nose, he gets taken away, but then Jay Walker comes, but then here’s him coming from the middle with the pressure. And then the guy, the tackle thinks Kate Nellis is coming off the edge. He fakes and by the time he looks up, oh, now James Pierce has a one-on-one. He split the defenders and you got him coming in the middle. You got Pierce the side. The disguise I thought was pretty cool. You had Diablo on the other side thinking he was going to blitz. Both those guys bail and they and you only end up with a fourman pressure, but it looks like it’s six guys coming. So give a lot of credit for it. Give those guys a lot of credit too for making it look like something pre- snap and giving the young rookie something else to see postnap and be able to get home. But back to your point, Diablo definitely is a guy that his presence alone on the field, his athleticism, his physicality brings a different breed. Got to be honest to that defense and is a big reason why they have a lot of success when he’s on the field. Yeah. I mean, to me, he he just he sets a different tone and and what he brings to the table with his athleticism and the physicality is truly impressive. Rack, it’s it’s funny. It’s a great mention by both you guys and we talk so often about um a a backup quarterback comes in and they said, “Oh, well, maybe he can give him a spark. Maybe he can spark something on offense.” You saw I don’t think there’s any question that Diablo sparked the defense. Yeah. Um the guys up front have been rushing and I think they’re doing a better job of of creating problems with just four. As you were talking about, Shock, all the bluffs, the speed, the athleticism around the line of scrimmage, and then all of a sudden only four come and now you’re still getting to the quarterback and now you can get seven back in coverage. Diablo gives you that ability to to do some things that maybe Kaden Ellis was having to do to cover up and then you had Ronnie Harrison having to do some, JD Bertrram was having to do some. It’s all encompassed in one guy. And so I I thought that there was a spark there. I talked to him after the game. He had a grin biggest Diablo. We talked to him after the game and I said, “I knew you weren’t going to catch the ball with that man from your club on but he but he he really enjoyed being back on the field with his teammates.” Yeah. Um obviously they I think everybody was was happy to have him back out there and probably a sense of relief seeing uh number zero out there. I do want to talk Go ahead real quickly defensively. I don’t know if you want to shift gears to from a defense here. Don’t want to, you know, and you’re the host of the show. I don’t want to scream. Switch. Go give him the No, but I wanted I wanted to accentuate a player that I think took a little bit of heat a year ago and has played everywhere for Atlanta on defense. Um De Alford has had to play both corners. Both corners have been out at some point. AJ’s been out. Hughes has been out. He’s had to play both corners. That discipline in itself to be able to play the wide side corner and the boundary corner is difficult. But he also plays what you could argue is the most difficult position to play in football now, and that’s the nickel spot. The two-way go, the ability to fit against the run, uh to understand blitz concepts, to read offensive linemen and what they’re doing, reading tight ends releases. There’s so much that he he had 10 tackles in the game. He had a fumble recovery. And remember, Billy Bowman up to Friday was going to start at the nickel spot. So you talk about a guy that was ready to play when they called him. De offer deserves a ton of credit for how he played on 100%. Uh early in the game, he just can seem like he was making every play. Uh you mentioned the 10 tackles that led the team. Um so between that between Diablo and then let’s give like one thing that we were talking about in the offensive side of the ball throughout the course of the season really has been inconsistencies. And then we talk about the defense and what was the biggest thing that needed to get better this year was pass rush, right? That’s the part that last year, the last few years has been inconsistent. Well, now you could almost say that the pass rushing has been consistent. Yeah. Right. So, Arch, we saw Jaylen Walker again. We saw James Pierce again. We saw Brandon Doris again. These guys just continue to get there. You mentioned some of the younger pass rushers. To me, Arch, what’s impressive is it’s not just they get one or one and a half in a game and then they kind of go disappear for about four or five weeks. This has been each and every week now they’re showing up in the back field. Yeah. I was looking back on my card. I look back to the Patriot game or I think it was where we and I said, “Okay, we got 16 sacks and all of a sudden I look up now we got 39 sacks or something going, oh my, they’ve turned they’ve stepped on the accelerator. 39 sacks, 13 players have at least one sack, and nine players have at least two sacks. That means you have absolutely no idea who’s coming and where they’re going to get you from. You’re closing on some rarified error, guys. You got to go back to the Patrick Kernney, Rod Coleman era, big back in the mid in the mid Yeah. back in back when back when Rack was playing. They had 49 sacks that season. And they I believe it was the 04 season when you guys went to the NFC Championship game. 49 sacks. This team’s got 39 sacks with six games to go. Correct. And it’s in last year. What do you got to go back to? 23 was the last time they had this many. They had 42 in 2023 had 42 sacks. Could potentially go by that this week. The only other team, the O2 team, had 47 sacks. So, you’re talking about these guys are pushing the envelope to go someplace this team has never been. And Shock, I made the comment in the pregame show when we were talking a little bit about Zack Harrison and him not being available. Um, him obviously getting hurt and I said that it I didn’t think it was going to be as big of an issue. Not to take anything away from Zack, but to your point that so many different people have been chipping in and bringing production when it comes to pass rush. It’s not like this team had one guy that had 11 and a half sacks and everybody else had ones and twos. Right. To your point, everybody has been getting into action. So, when you lose somebody like Zack Harrison, yes, you hate to lose it. For a point, he was a leading sacker on this team, but you’ve got so many different players now that continue to get better. And I think these rookies, the young players, continue to get better every single week. Yeah, it’s a special thing. I mean, you look over like Cleveland, you got Miles Garrett who got 18 sacks. You come to the game, you know, we got to make sure we know where that one guy is. M Jaylen Walker said it out the game. He said, “I love playing in this defense because I know I’m going to get oneonone because we got so many guys who can win.” So you come to the line of scrimmage and you got all these different guys at the line of scrim. We talked about all these bluff and they got to respect it because this guy had two sacks last week. This guy had a sack and a half. There’s always going to be somebody who feels like, “Oh, they gave me the 101 this time. I got to go.” Yeah. Rrook was talking to Arch or two ago and he was talking about how somebody else got a sack. It’s like, “Oh, I got to step on it now. I got to go get me one.” Like, that’s the mindset, you know, that these guys got now. Like, oh, our brothers just got one. Let me join the party. And you can, it’s showing up in the stat sheet. It’s showing up on tape. It’s showing up when these guys line up and, you know, you got a a lot of different things going on. And these guys are getting home. And we talked about the beginning of the year. We said we didn’t want one guy to have 12, 13 sacks. We wanted a collective group. And that’s what we got right now. And you never know who it’s going to be from week to week. And I think the most impressive thing is what we just talked about is they’re doing it with four guys a lot of the time. It may look like it’s a lot of guys at the line of scrimmage, but when the balls snap, those guys are winning those 101s. They’re finding a way to get home and they’re getting the quarterback on the ground, and that’s forcing teams to to kind of play to kind of play one-sided. I mean, you give up three points in this ball game on the defensive side of the ball. Yeah. You stop the run. I mean, it’s it’s fun to watch this group get after them. And obviously, uh, they’re just starting to hit their stride, seems like. Mhm. Arch, uh, let’s go ahead and switch gears, talk a little bit about the offense. And Kurt Cousins, obviously now elevated back to the starting role after the injury to Michael Penn Jr. heads to IR. And this was a game where you could say that I think he did a really good job being a game manager. And I don’t, you know, a lot of people think that that game manager tag is like an insult, but I think quarterback needs to be a game manager and a game changer at the same time. Good. Well said. But I felt like Kirk did a lot of things that were really good. Numbers aren’t gonna blow you away. 16 of 23,99 yards, two touchdowns, did have an interception. Also showed a little bit of physicality shoulder ham on him. Anybody anticipated that. But arch breakdown, which you saw from Kurt Cousins back into that starting role. Yeah, I thought that uh Rack, it’s a good point. You know, the game manager thing for quarterbacks is always, oh, that’s he’s a game manager, and it’s some some kind of slight. Every quarterback that’s successful has to manage the game. And you said that, and that’s a great way of putting it. I thought Cousins decision making in distributing the ball, and I’m talking about checking the ball down some. There were some shots down the field he turned down, didn’t want to put the ball in harm’s way. He knew the worst thing he could do was turn the football over. Um, so let the defense play the way they were playing. Let’s make sure we take care of the football. But he got the ball out quickly. You know, you get Charlie Warner. I mean, I don’t know. Has Charlie Warner had ever had three or four grabs in a game? So, I knew I didn’t bring tackles there. But yeah, we were back in Raburn County, man. He was he was catching the football, running with it, playing running back. No, he but he understood to get the ball out. Let me take care of my offensive line. Nothing makes an O line shock, you know, makes an O line feel better than to look back and see the quarterback still standing the ball, somebody’s running with the ball down the field. Absolutely. The worst thing they can do is see you running and trying to throw the ball away or laying on your back back there. So, I thought Kirk did a really good job of that. Now, did he had a couple sacks, he ate the football, and there’s going to be times you and I learned that, hey, the best thing to do is to take care of the football and eat it at that point. If you can throw it away, throw it away. Um, but I thought that he just did that. I thought his decision making was really good. I thought he looked uh really good. And Shock does a great job of breaking down the Sills touchdown. So, you got to go check that out on Atlanta Falcons.com. He walks you through every little piece of what happens, including what Kirk does with his eyes to help influence the play, which is more what what you’re talking about or what Kirk brought to the table. The veteran leadership. Um I thought that the enthusiasm that he showed, the touchdown with Sills, he’s pumping his fist. the touchdown to Mooney, you know, he jumps up in the air and they’re lifting him up. I thought that that was something that maybe we’ve been lacking a little bit of that enthusiasm on the offensive side. I thought he brought all of that. um and shock in the running game. One of the other things that I was thinking about, right, have no obviously influence on play calling, but this was to me this felt like a good game when you don’t have Drake London, when you don’t have Michael Pennix to get Algier and Robinson a lot of action and maybe on the field together at the same time just because Robinson may have had to be a little bit more of a wide receiver this week. But I thought it was a workman’slike performance. 29 carries, 121 yards total. Robinson over 100 yards total again in this game and they had that element that was back. They were able to run the football. Felipe Franks comes in in a short yardage situation and gets back to his quarterback days, pounds his way for a first down. The run game I felt like had to be there in order to let Kirk get back under center, have a little play action, and now they got to respect it because both of those guys were on the field quite a bit. And that’s a big that’s a great point is how many times the Fs were able to use the play action to their benefit because you have guys back there who can run the rock like those two guys. And I thought they affected the game in the run game in a way that helped them have some big plays down the field. I mean the the play to Cal Pitts where you’re faking the outside zone and they have to respect it. You can literally see on tape the safety is 15 yards deep and he is flying up trying to get there for that outside zone and the guys played it really well and then Kyle leaks out goes down the sideline and Kirk comes off it finds that safety safety’s flying up he dumps it to him. Perfectly thrown football from from Kirk. Uh I love the way you use Bejon. Uh, and then you you bring in the the bowling ball of of razor blades for a whole drive and he just pounds him and pounds him and and gives you a different feel and you see him get up smiling. That’s got to be demoralizing for a defense cuz he just hit you for eight or nine and pounded you and then boom, here comes uh Bejian again. How about the the great call on on the screen play? You’re second and freaking 25 and you dump a a one yard route to to to Bean and he takes it, you know, 30 40 yards down the field. I mean, just the way they used those guys, I thought was good. I mean, the touchdown and seals, you got both guys in the ball game. Be goes out in motion. You got Tyler in the back field. The confusion. I mean, just I thought Zack did a really good job of utilizing his personnel. I thought he did a good job of using formation at times. Uh you if you watch the ball game, you know, there was a lot of 13 personnel using this ball game, but you was able to do it in the pass game and the run game. Yeah. So there’s a a lot to you walking this, you turn on the tape, you say, “Man, they can do a lot of different things with a lot of different personnels with a lot of different formations and hurt you in multiple ways.” So give those guys a lot of credit. And then also, I talked about this probably a couple weeks ago was we needed other guys just London to be a factor. And I thought they shared the wealth in this ball game. Obviously talked about Drummond having three catch, getting his first catch of the game, first uh of his career. Seals getting his first touchdown. uh you had multiple guys with three catches, multiple guys with two catches. So, you love that a lot of guys were a part of the action and you couldn’t just say, “All right, this is the one guy we got to stop.” They distributed and like you said earlier, he did a good job of just distributing the ball to a lot of different guys to make plays. All of a sudden, the reemergence of of Darnell Mooney, too, right? And Mooney’s first catch in the game was off a play fake. They throw they throw that that comeback down the sideline. You talk about a catch now. He goes down around his ankles to make the grab. I thought that was his that was his best catch easily of this year and then it seemed to spark him. But to Shock’s point, seven of nine in play action for 117 yards. Loved it. You know, Kirk threw for right at 200 yards. Um, boy, you took advantage of those opportunities. And I thought that, you know, give the guys up front trying to simulate run because we talked about how play action sometimes the offensive line’s not showing play action, so guys are bailing out of there. I thought they did a much better job of kind of showand run action. All right, fellas. I uh turned my page over here to the next on our list for the show, which happened to be turning the page to the New York Jets. That’s the next on the docket here. So, before we go there, can we point out one last thing? Yeah, I’m I’m I’m leaving. I’m not needed here. But here’s here’s where I’m surprised because Come on, judge. You We know we need you. Because we talk offense and defense, but there was another factor in this ball game that was We scored points. I thought was I thought was pretty good. Happened in this building last year. Come on now. I mean the third phase of the game and we talked about earlier how they missed a couple kicks in this ball game. My man Zayn knocking through a couple 50 yarders. Yes. Mike Ford is a animal on special teams. You got to be kidding me. Agnu with some nice returns in the ball game. I mean that that’s a part of the game too that’s really special. When you get that you change field position, you’re knocking down 50 yarders that demoralizes the team as well. But I thought that third phase rack was uh big too. Yeah. Don’t you have to go back to like Morton Anderson last time you’ve had multiple 50 plus yard field goals hit the same game. I believe you got to go back a ways for that. So Zayn really to erase the memory of what had happened a year ago cuz you didn’t do that. Yes. You know had the one breakout on the kickoff return but the defense said you know what we got your back. You be cool. Complimentary football. But credit to Gazen Gonzalez. Uh Raheem Morris actually gave him a game ball in the locker room afterwards. Uh because this team has been desperate for a kicker to just go out there and have a lights out game and now we need to see that week after week after week. Um and maybe Zay Gonzalez will get some opportunities this week against the Jets. So fellas, let’s talk a little bit about the New York Jets. Obviously a team that has been struggling in their own right this year. Two and N coming off of a loss to the Baltimore Ravens. Arch, give us a little background as far as kind of what’s going on with Aaron Glenn and the New York Jets. I mean, they’ve they’ve had issues with Justin Fields. They’ve turned the page of Tyrod Taylor. Still have a really good running back in the back field, elite wide receiver on the outside. But what is Atlanta going to see or what are the fans going to see when the Falcons face off? Well, you’re going to see a team that wants to run the football. I mean, if you go back and look at their last couple tapes, they’ve used 12 and 13 personnel. They want to try to get after you up front. Bree Hall, of course, former Iowa State Cyclone. Bree is the is the bellcow there, but they’ve got three guys that can run it. Um, so Isaiah Davis is a guy that can run it and and Brilen Allen who’s who’s been hurt. I think he’s only played seven games this year. He’s been a little bit banged up, but they’ve got three guys that can run the rock. Plus, you’ve got a quarterback in Justin Field. Should he play, he can run the rock. And and Tyrod Taylor who’s been around a long time, he can still take off if he needs to. They run the conventional uh college zone read. They ran it uh this weekend against Baltimore in their loss to Baltimore. So, you’re going to see uh some of that college influence in the run game. Um on the other side of the ball, I mean, really, that’s where, you know, that’s where Coach Glenn gets his breads his, you know, his butters breaded or bread his butter bread butters. Thank you. Easy for me to say. That’s why you host the show. Um but they’re still playing pretty good defensive football, guys. And and I and I talked to Olrich about, you know, getting back to Diablo and what Diablo brought to the table. He was trying to find Jamon Sherwood. That’s who’s one of the linebackers who now has 102 tackles or Quincy Williams who has, you know, 90 tackles or what. Those were the two guys he was trying to find to plug into this defense because I I asked him, I said, “Wow, Diablo’s a perfect fit.” He goes, “I had two of those guys in New York.” and so he has great respect for who they are defensively and they’re still playing at a good level defending the pass pretty well. They’ve been pushed around a little bit in the run game. Obviously Quinn Williams no longer there uh traded away so that’s a little bit of a gap in there but they they’re going to pride themselves on playing good defense. Uh and they’ve been really close. Shock, how many close games has this team lost? I mean it four or five one-score games that they they’ve come out the short end of the stick. Yeah, and it was kind of the same theme for the Falcons going up into this last game is is not finding a way to come away with a win. Uh, so they’ve been in in that struggling situation where teams are just trying to fight their way out of a hole. Um, Shock, I’m going to ask you this question. It’s kind of a simple layup question. Is this one about what the Jets are going to do or is this one about what Atlanta needs to do themselves? I think it’s a little bit of both, obviously. Um, but I think you look back at the way this team played last week, it felt like more about the Falcons, more about their execution, more about them playing as one. And you just mentioned it, playing complimentary football, that travels, that goes anywhere. Being able to run the football, that travels, taking care of the football, getting sacks, those are all things that regardless of your opponent, that equals probably a win for you. So, I think more than anything, if this team goes out and plays the way they they are expected, which is within this building, they feel like that’s the kind of performance they should have every week. And we’ve talked about it. They’ve been in a bunch of one-sore ball games this year and just haven’t been able to finish. So, that tells you this team has been there regardless of opponent. They play really good teams, play teams who maybe not had really good records, but they have found ways to at the end of ball games not finish them. Well, on last Sunday, you just found a way to go finish a ball game. And I think that comes down to you doing what you need to do to go win a ball game. And yeah, the Jets are going to pose a couple issues for you. I mean, Archer’s talked about a couple guys on the defensive side of the ball who are game breakers. You got to know where those guys are, guys who can really force the issue when it comes to maybe you in the run game. Uh, offensively, Bree Hall is a guy who you got to worry about in the run game and the pass game. If you go out there and say, you know what, we’re not worried about this cyclone doing. we’re just going to go play our ball. You know, guess what? He going he going he going to hit you for a big day on on the ground and in the air. So, yeah, you got to go in prepare for certain guys, but at the end of the day, what you’ve done, what you’ve shown is if you executed the level that you’re supposed to ultimately that’s enough to go win your ball game, and I think that’s possible. All right. So, to finish up, fellas, we’re going to do our keys to the game. Everybody’s got to give one of them. I’m going to start here. That way, I give you guys a little bit of give you guys a second think about it before you guys take over and host this show without me is I’m from Dave Archer guys because I saw it last week and I felt like that’s what needs to continue is minimizing explosive plays on defense. I think when this defense is able to keep everything in front of them, they are able to go eat as the kids say, right? But what happens is all of a sudden if you get broken tackle, 40 yard run, if you get 58 yard pass, like now now it’s kind of like everything’s reeling, right? Like we’re trying to we got to we they got great field position like everybody’s got to refocus and then all a sudden you look up and they score a touchdown, right? I feel like if they minimize explosive plays, keep everything in front of them, and then they can just attack, attack, attack, attack. That’s what we saw last week against New Orleans. I think good things are going to happen, and I’m looking forward to seeing if the defense can stack another positive performance on top of last week. Arch, what is your key to this game? I think that um I’m going to look to you’re going to go outside and you’re and it’s supposed to be the weather’s not supposed to be great up there. I think that they’re talking about high 40s, rain. It seems like every time we go we play in New York, it rains, but and we’ve had some brutal games up there. Uh remember when Matt Ryan had to take snaps from the shotgun because he couldn’t get snaps under center because it was raining. It was just I mean so you get some nasty weather up there in Jersey. So um at this time of year, so I’m going to talk about ball security. I think that Atlanta’s been really good uh over the last few weeks with the sacks and the takeaways, right? Um and they’ve done a very good job of taking care of the football. Now all of a sudden, um, you’re outside and and our guys, for whatever reason, haven’t had to deal with that very much. And so you’ve got guys that are going to carry the football. Bjan has had the ball punched out a couple of times. Uh, Tyler’s been pretty good about taking care of the ball. We’ve had a tough time catching the football in a couple positions. Um, and so the weather and wind and a little bit of rain is going to accentuate that. So, I’m expanding the ball security in catching, you know, catch the football when it comes to you. So, just taking care of the ball and then obviously getting it out. Can you get it out from the Jets? So, that that’s kind of where I’m leaning. It’s not obviously you can say turnovers because turnovers would be a key every time. There’s two teams that have sub 500 records are in the top 10 in giveaway takeaway. Atlanta’s one of them. Atlanta’s ranked eighth in the league at plus five giveaway takeaway. And that’s provided you opportunities to be close. Now, you haven’t been able to finish until this last weekend, but that’s going to give you an opportunity to win the game. So, I’m going to go that route. Shock, what you got? I like it. I like it. What you got? Uh, for me, I think a big key in this ball game is for Tyrod or whoever is playing quarterback to win from the pocket. And I think we’ve shown the ability, baby, to get out to the quarterback with four, with five, whatever it is. I think we can win those position, baby, to get to the quarterback where you don’t want either of these guys to be as outside the pocket creating and they can do it with their legs. And sometimes as a guy who was athletic like this, sometimes you feel comfortable outside that pocket, too. And you made a lot of plays when you were trying to create or guys weren’t plastering. I think you’re good enough on the back end to if you just rush four, you rush three, whatever it is to be able to cover up the back end. Like you just mentioned, D. Offer played really well, is really good on it. He’s going to be a guy that’s going to be in that spot this week, probably for the rest of the season. Uh, obviously AJ coming back was a big deal. Hughes uh Watts got his you know what he got third pick of the ball game of the season. So I think you you got some guys who are definitely capable if you have to just rush three or four which leaves you more coverage. So I think forcing those guys to play from within the pocket. Nei these guys are really accurate throwing a football. I think Tyrod’s around 61% and you know obviously Justin’s had a tough time throwing a football. This is a a pass offense that’s uh 32nd in the NFL only averaging 145 yards a game. Uh, so if you can force them to try to beat you from the pocket, I think you feel good about that and they’ll give you a few too. So, uh, let’s force those guys to stay within the pocket, got great rush integrity, and just go get the quarterback like we’ve already been doing. Rack, real quickly, a piece that that I’m interested in from your perspective, having been a big part of the special teams units for here, is when you get a team like the Jets, what are they? Two and 10, two and nine, something along those lines. Two and Okay. And so from a trade stand, there’s they’ve done a lot of stuff up there. So they’re setting the table for and they’re looking to next season. Okay. Um they’ve already been eliminated from the playoffs and those kind of things. So how dangerous does that make Aaron Glenn’s team, especially on special teams where some of the shenanigan stuff you can pull there? Yeah, this is this is one of those games where you have to go in expecting something like that. fake punt, fake field goal, some type of like a reverse, a throwback on kickoff return maybe. Like these are all the times when they always say like nothing to lose, right? Or maybe this is something that they’ve been thinking about all season long and it’s like you know what, let’s just let her rip now. Um so even though Atlanta has had some issues on that third phase of the game, right? Whether it’s been big returns or it’s been the missed field goals, this is one of those where you definitely got to be on your P’s and Q. however they can create an advantage for themselves, right? If things are struggling, like maybe it’s a u fourth and five that they decide that they’re going to go for it or you get some type of center head bob on a punt team trying to get just trying to get a little free penalty, right, to get them a first down. You just never know. These It’s a great point. These are the type of games like you never did anything like that, did you? Sure. Yeah, we had Absolutely. We had those head bob on two. Um anytime it was fourth and four, fourth, move that ball a little bit when you know you never did that, right? I know. Just, you know, kind of move a little finger on top of the football or something. I I ain’t saying I did it from experience or nothing, but All right, three keys to the game. Rax was limit explosive plays. Arch was ball security potentially in the elements and shocks was let’s force these quarterbacks to win from the pocket. I think if we look back next week, look back at those three, if they succeed there, maybe Falcons come away with victory. All right, a couple things before we go. First of all everybody, happy Thanksgiving week. Hope you guys have a very, very happy Thanksgiving. You enjoy some football and maybe if you are bored on Thanksgiving, you want to listen, Rack will be on the call for the Cowboys and the Chiefs from Dallas. So, I’ll be there on national radio with Westwood One Sports. Otherwise, sit down on your TV after your second or your third helping of Thanksgiving meal and enjoy NFL football. Let’s go. Let’s go. All right. Also, I’ve got a note here that Pro Bowl voting begins this week, too. So, make sure you guys log on. Vote for Dave Archer. Pro Bowl radio team broadcaster. No. Um, Bjan Robinson, maybe Mike Ford on special teams. Maybe Xavier Watts. All right. Vote for your favorite. Pro Bowl voting opens this week. Let’s help them get that uh honor to get to the Pro Bowl. Um and of course remember to follow us, like us, comment, all you all the ways that you get your podcast material. We thank you so much for joining us. This is the Falcons Audible presented by AT&T. Once again, happy Thanksgiving week, everybody. And hopefully we’re back here next week recapping another How do we do it? Go ahead, Chuck. Oh, there we go. Dubs. Look at that. All right, we’ll see you guys. Enjoy Thanksgiving. See you next week. How can you have clean oldfashioned hate during Thanksgiving week?

Shock, Arch, and Rack are BACK for a WINNING edition of Falcons Audible. They break down how the Falcons snapped a 5-game losing streak on Sunday, which just so happened to be against the rival Saints. From the standouts on defense to Kirk Cousins’ return, they get deep into the weeds on how the game unraveled. Finally, they turn the page to the New York Jets and what the Falcons need to do to keep the winning going.

0:00 – Intro
2:10 – Atmosphere & post game vibes
9:41 – Impressive outing on defense
13:16 – Divine Deablo’s return
19:40 – Pass rush consistency
24:06 – Kirk Cousins & the offense
32:20 – Turning the page to NYJ
36:52 – Keys to the Game
42:53 – Outro

Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@AtlantaFalcons

#AtlantaFalcons #RiseUp #NFL #Falcons