EXPOSED: Atlanta Falcons Defense UNDERPERFORMS | Seattle Seahawks Reveal Fatal Flaws & Urgent Fixes

EXPOSED: Atlanta Falcons Defense UNDERPERFORMS | Seattle Seahawks Reveal Fatal Flaws & Urgent Fixes

The Seattle Seahawks expose some flaws in the Falcons defense. Flaws the next regime must fix to take this unit to the next level. [Music] You are Locked on Falcons, your daily Atlanta Falcons podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. Welcome back everyone to another illustrious episode of the Locked on Falcons podcast. Your daily Atlanta Falcons podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast Network, now the number one sports podcast network in America, which means it’s number one on the planet, which means it’s number one in the galaxy. And today’s Locked on Falcons is of course brought to you by FanDuel. If you want to be right in the middle of the action this season, visit fanal.com and place your live NFL bets all season long. Today’s episode is an all22 review and we’ll break down why things broke down for the Falcons defense in the second half and lessons that will help this team in the future. why Kyle Pittz’s usage improved this week from a week ago and how what the Falcons can do more to feature him to keep this offense above water uh until Drake London comes back and who’s to blame for the third down struggles. Uh but I appreciate each and every one of you that is an everydayer of this podcast. That means you make it your first listen each and every day. Uh all you got to do to become an everyday subscribe or follow for free on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. So, if you don’t know me, I’m your humble host, Aaron Freeman. Been watching the All 22 since 2012, uh, on a weekly basis, and we break it down each and every day, or not each and every week here on the podcast. So, appreciate all of you guys, but let’s get right into it. You know, one of the things that we saw in this game was the Falcons playing a lot of man coverage. I was very curious if the Falcons would do that. Uh, I like the the choice. I like the, you know, be aggressive. We talked about this with Jarvis Davis last week on the pod, like this is your identity. like, you know, don’t run away from your identity. You want to man up teams. See if AJ Terrell can handle JSN and and find out. And and if he can’t, then, you know, so be it. But if he if he, you know, zoning it to death to me was not a good strategy. So the Falcons did come out there and do that. Now, I thought there was an interesting wrinkle early on in this game with the Falcons man coverage where they weren’t truly playing a true version of cover one with one single high safety and they weren’t playing a true version of cover two man uh with two deep safeties that they would basically play a variation of a hybrid cover one and a half where basically the second safety would be shaded over to help AJ Terrell uh up against JSN. They did it on two of the first four pass plays, but thereafter I think they maybe have done it like one other time and they played just more traditional uh man coverage and left AJ Terrell on an island. Now AJ Terrell versus JSN in the first half, he did very well, right? My charting had uh in those matchups, most of them being man coverage, but a couple of them they were in quarters and whatnot uh or in match coverage. But you know, JSN against AJ Terrell had two catches and on four targets for 19 yards with a 25% success rate in the first half. In the second half that flipped, JSN had three catches on three targets for 62 yards, two touchdowns with a 100% success rate. And overall, the Seahawks had a much more effective uh were much more effective offensively in the second half attacking the Falcons man coverage. We talked about this on the Falcons squad show earlier this week. They were utilizing rub routes, crossing routes that are really effective at attacking man coverage. It wasn’t just AJ Terrell, it was the entire defense was less effective in the second half. Based off my charting in the first half, the Seahawks had four catches on six targets against man coverage for 31 yards, one interception, two sacks uh for a 25% success rate overall. Um and then in the second half was four catches, five targets, uh 78 yards, two touchdowns, 80% success rate against the Falcons, man coverage. We also saw the Falcons dial up more blitzes in the second half of the game. They only blitz based on my charting three times in the first half, eight times in the second half, but it wasn’t that effective. The Seahawks carved that up, right? All three of the Seahawks touchdowns came on blitzes when they brought pressure. And the Falcons were effective at getting pressure on non- blitzes in the first half, but not so much in the second half. Based on my charting, the Falcons had a 53% success rate in the first half and then only a or no, not a success rate, 53% pressure rate in the first half on non-b blitzes. Uh, and then only 13% in the second half. So, an overall pressure rate of 39% which is a healthy number, but obviously, you know, that contributed. And to me, the Seahawks had answers for the Blitzes. That’s been something that we’ve talked about quite a bit uh since that 49ers game where you know Kyle Shanahan and company basically came up with the answers and a lot of teams including many Kyle Shanahan protees including Seahawks offensive coordinator Clint Kubak have basically been like okay well we’ll just get the ball out quick uh and that will defeat the Blitz. And you know we’ve talked about the Falcons trying to utilize more of their fourman rush in recent weeks and we talked about how dominant it was against the Saints and it’s come back down to earth the last couple weeks. still been effective. It’s not bad or anything. It’s above average by league standards when you look at pressures and sacks and all that stuff, but it hasn’t been dominant in the way it was in that Saints game. Uh, and then you couple that with the fact that the Falcons blitzing has been far less effective. I think on five man when they’ve rushed five or more guys over the last three games, including that Saints game, uh, they are actually the lowest pressure rate in the entire NFL. um you know according to PFF data when you know the first 11 weeks they were like top five in those metrics. So you know we’ll see um if the Falcons pass rush can continue to make strides you know but like games like this to me show me that this pass rush while it has taken a big step forward I don’t feel like it’s it’s solved the problem. I think people will look at the stats and look at you know this team is on pace for 50 plus sacks this year. I I think they’re at like 45 or 46 at this point in time if I’m not mistaken. Uh and basically be like, “Oh, we solved the pass rush.” And I don’t think we have, right? And some of that’s owed to the step back that the Blitz has made. Some of that is owed to the fact the fourman rush is probably going to be due for some potential regression next year. We talked about that earlier in the week where if you walk let several veterans walk like Leonard Floyd, Arnold Leetti, Kay Nellis, David Anyada that have been instrumental in the effectiveness of that four band rush over the last couple of games. Um, and you let all those free agents walk in free agency and you don’t really have the resources with limited draft picks and limited uh uh spending money uh in free agency and salary cap space to sort of fill those voids. Like this is a unit that’s due for regression. Now hopefully we’re not talking like you know going back to getting 25 sacks uh or 18 sacks or whatever. Um but you know it is a unit that I would not as we sit here today um expect it to you know repeat of what this year in terms of sack production and pressure rate and all that sort of stuff. So, you know, for me with the pass rush, I feel like rather than saying we’ve solved it, we’ve fixed it. It’s more that we’ve taken a big step forward in terms of the pass rush, but like to me, it’s like the first of like three steps that I think the Falcons need to make uh long term in order to quote unquote solve their pass rush issues so that we’re not sitting here going like, “Oh,” and so the next time they get 50 sacks or whatever, we can sit there and say like, “Oh, this is what we can expect moving forward every year, right?” That sort of thing. similar to what the Steelers are or have been for the last 20 years uh and whatnot as a team that consistently the Eagles are another team that consistently, you know, ranked near the top of the league in terms of sack production. But, you know, because of that, I I think this next regime, assuming that there there will be a next regime replacing Raheem Morris and Terry Fontau and all those guys, they can’t make the same mistake that I think Raheem came in making, right? that Raheem came in trusting in that they the Falcons under Terry Fontino and previously under Arthur Smith had already built up most of the stuff and I think ultimately when we talk about the down what you know one of the biggest reasons for the downfall of Rahee Morris is basically his overconfidence in Terry Fontone in the roster that he had built already that he inherited coming into the league and we will talk a little bit more about some of those issues later in the episode when we talk about the offense and the lack of weapons on the wide receiver core but I feel like the next regime team can’t have that same approach. They can only have their approach of like, you know, Terry Fontino and company started to get the ball rolling, but we still have to build up the rest rather than just sort of having that complacent resting on your laurels attitude. And that’s why if and when this team, you know, cleans house and and resets, they can’t bring in new people and Arthur Blank, that owner um of the Falcons, basically say, “Well, you know, you have to build up the the current roster and you can’t h force them to have too much allegiance to the current roster as it is currently built.” Because while the current roster is solid, but it’s not, you know, worlds shattering, right? And we talked about this going into the season that a big part of this season is to find out how stocked is the cupboard because you know we weren’t necessarily sold that this regime Rahee Morris and Terry Fontau which survived this season and so we wanted to see some of the young players get the opportunity to see how stocked this cupboard is. And I think it’s clear that the the cupboard has some things in it but it isn’t as stocked as I think some people would like you to believe. It’s certainly not bare. It’s certainly not fully stocked. You know it’s somewhere in between. Um, which is why you hear me talk about the mediocrity and and and them having talent but not being loaded with talent and all those various things. And so hopefully, you know, Arthur Blank and company if and when he decides to move on from the current regime won’t force the next regime to basically, well, you got to win with the current guys. And Michael Penn is a big part of that. This is why we sit here on this podcast being like, you kind of have to turn the page on Michael Penn. But, you know, that’s a separate conversation from what we’re having talking about this defense. And so, you know, rather than approaching it from we need to tweak this thing, it’s like you kind of need to rebuild it. Um, but, you know, I know rebuild is a bad word to a lot of folks. Uh, so we like to use the term reset, uh, this thing. And so, I I feel like that’s that reset is more of a three-year process than a one-year and then we figured it out type of process. has been the pervasive approach that the Falcons have had for the better part of the decade, which I I feel like is the number one reason why they continue to spin their wheels. Uh, but I’m sure we will continue unpacking that uh in the weeks and months to come here on the podcast. But let’s continue talking about what the film showed for the offense in the Seahawks game. And it’s going to require us to tweak slightly the Kurt Cousins chaos meter that we gave on Sunday. And we’ll also talk about, you know, how Kyle Pittz needs to be featured a little bit more and rant a little bit about how terrible the Falcons wide receiver corps is without Drake London and Cado Haj as we continue today’s lockdown on Falcons. So, this holiday season, as you guys are spending money to buy gifts for all your various friends, you got to find uh, you know, ways to save money elsewhere. And Mint Mobile is the perfect place because they’re running their best deal of the year. All their unlimited plans are 50% off, which means if you sign up for three months, 6 months, 12 months, whatever, you get unlimited premium wireless for just $15 a month. It’s a great way to save. And Mint makes it easy to switch. I made the switch this summer in July, signed up for three months for $15 a month. And then when we got to October, I signed up for another year, right? 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Again, $5 a month or $50 a year. So, continuing today’s All22 breakdown, you know, let’s revisit the Kirk Cousins chaos meter. I gave Kirk a level two game manager rating. After watching the film, I feel like we might have to knock it down to a level one and a half, right? Level one is conserv Kirk, where he’s Kirk’s too conservative for his own good. There was a few too many throws where I felt like Kirk was being a little too conservative, a little too quick to check the ball down. And so I’m going to go down to a level one and a half on the Kirk Cousins chaos meter where he checked the ball down rather than potentially pushing the ball down the field. Uh there were probably about three or four explosives to Darnell Mooney that were left on the field. Right. That one of those includes that 30-yard touchdown that was taken away by the officials uh in the game. But two more were like there was a whole shot early in the second quarter where Kirk checked the ball down to Kyle Pitts on a third and 11. There was another one midway through the fourth quarter. That was a check down the pits that um I think Tariq Woolen had a taunting penalty on. Uh and that was another hole shot with the Seahawks in cover six uh quarter quarter half coverage where they could have had a one-on-one uh that was like a third and 18 and he could have uh pushed the ball down the field on a similar hole shot uh to Darnell Mooney on that particular play. you know, this game um sort of signaled why I think the Falcons should be running their offense through Kyle Pittz as well. Um you know, I last week we complained about how they weren’t giving Kyle Pittz the opportunities that he needed to in order to facil facilitate the offense more and they did give him those opportunities this week. They did a better job of that. You know, they hit him on a couple of corner uh shots, corner routes. Uh you had the Yankee concept uh which was a 20- yard gain that they had in the first quarter uh where Kyle Pittz they hit him on a crosser. You had a dagger concept uh where they got a 26-y gain early in the third quarter uh where they hit Kyle Pitts on a dig route. They had another explosive on a 21 yard check down to Tyler Alier. But the reason why Tyler Alier had that huge uh green grass to run into uh is because Kyle Pittz was able to draw the coverage. I think it was Nick Eman worry away from uh you know Algier on that checkdown and give him the room to run for that 21 yard gain. So I basically say you got to run your offense at this point without Drake London through Kyle Pittz. He is now your number one receiver. And I know Kyle Pittz is not a number one receiver. I know Jarvis Davis is listening to this and and have and flipping out like Kyle Pitt’s not a number one. And Jarvis is not wrong. He’s not a number. Under normal circumstances he’s not a number one. But I’m looking around that receiver room and I’m like, who else is making plays, right? And Kyle Pittz is the only guy that is making explosives, that is generating plays like that. And so he’s the only guy that you have a chance. And we’ve talked about this before where you kind of rank the tier the hierarchy of number one through number four wide receivers, right? A number one, and this is true pretty much across any NFL offense, right? Uh this is not exclusive to the Falcons, right? That on typical number one receiver is going to get eight to 12 targets a game. A number two is going to get five to eight targets a game. A number three is going to get three to five targets a game. And a number four is going to get one or two targets a game. And to me, David Sills, Devin Tommpkins, and Dylan Drummond who have been the Falcons, you know, two, three, and four wide receivers after Darnell Mooney with Drake London out of lineup are really number fours. Like you should not be throwing the ball to either of these guys more than one or two times a game, right? And you got to get the ball more to the guys that are actually better than them, which is Kyle Pittz, Darnell Mooney, and Cadero Hodgej. pits of that group is the closest thing that you have to a number one and you should be trying to find ways to scheme him open, you know, five, eight or more times a game. And if you’re not, I think you’re really hurting your offense and holding back your offense. And then you’re also seeing the Falcons dial up all these screens to the David Sills and Tomkins and Drummond uh in this game. Each one of those guys had at least one screen pass this week and I think Tomkins had one last week and Sills had multiple last week and whatnot. And you’ve heard me before talk about how like the Falcons are utilizing these guys in the same way that they used their former number three wide receiver and Ray Mloud with all the screen passes and whatnot. And it just leads me to being like, you know, you’re trying to get Ray Mloud like production with lesser players than Ray Mloud. Uh and for those of you that are unfamiliar, the Falcons moved on, cut Ray Mloud earlier this season for unknown reasons. And then you also have one of your number four wide receiver from last year in Cadero Hajj who is capable of at least doing a little bit more than one or two targets a game. Uh he’s not playing either on offense, right? He’s your best blocking wide receiver uh outside of Drake London. And if you doubt that, go watch the Miami Dolphins game from earlier this season. He’s a better separated and contested catch guy than any of these other guys in David Sills, Tomkins in and Drummond. And he was also your best screen guy. Now, he had a limited sample on screens, but he was your most productive wide receiver in terms of producing on screens last year. And so, if you’re going to dial up screens to your wide receivers, I don’t understand why you’re not doing all these things with uh Cado Hajj, who also is is versatile, can play in the slot, can play that Z role that David Sills has been featured in these last couple of weeks. And so, I just don’t get why the Falcons are doing all the things that they were doing with Haj and and Mloud last year with lesser players, right? And you know me guys, if you’re an everyday air of this podcast, you know that I typically am not the type that sits here and says, “Oh, you got to play this guy. The coaches should play this guy, and if they play that guy, they’ll be successful.” I I typically give the coaches the benefit of the doubt. They’re in the building every day. They’re watching practice every single week. Uh they know what they’re doing, or at least they should know what they’re doing, but this is one of those times where I just feel like I don’t get what they’re doing. And then they bring in Malik Heath uh at this stage in the season, and what is he going to do? Is he going to be get up to speed on the roster? And meanwhile, Nick Nash and Chris Blair continue to languish on the on the bench, and those were two of your better wide receivers during the summer as well. When are they going to get their opportunities? They know the offense. So, if anybody’s going to contribute to you over these last four games, it’s not going to be Malik Heath, who the Falcons scooped up off waiverss for the Packers. He’s who’s been like number five or number six wide receiver for the Packers the last couple of years. It’s going to be the guys that know the offense in Nash and Blair, right? And so this goes back to, you know, why I’m such a hater, why I’m so skeptical all the time, particularly going back to the summer when Raheem Morris was talking that talk about how great they feel about their wide receiver depth and it was just like, “All right, Raheem, we’ll see, right?” You know, talking that talk about Casey Washington. He’s been a healthy scratch the last three weeks, right? And he was he was their next man up, right? That a lot of people believed in, oh, we can move on from Ray Cloud because Casey Washington could step up and now he can’t even get on the field, right? And this is what I’ve been talking about. like this regime loves talking that talk and they never walk the walk. They never back it up. And so this is why every time I hear coach speak and they’re like, “Oh, we, you know, next man up.” And I’m like, “All right, we’ll see.” I’ve been hearing this for 20 years. And so Raheem’s not any different than any other coaching staff before, but I I you know, this is the Falcons. So they always let you down. It’s just like they say a thing. I’m like, “That’s BS, right?” And again, I come off as a hater and people are always like, “Oh, you’re not a real fan.” And all that stuff. I was like, “Man, you haven’t been hearing this BS for 20 years, and this is just another like, I remember this stuff. I remember this stuff, guys.” And so the next time coaches come along and say some stuff, and the rest of you are like, “Oh, this this time it’s going to be different.” And I’m like, “No, it ain’t. No, it ain’t.” But that’s why I’m I’m the hater. That’s why I’m Mr. Skepticism. And so, you know, I told the Lockdown Falcons insiders earlier this week um that like, you know, after they signed Malik Heath that like there’s a rant in me about this the debacle that is the wide receiver position. You’ll get you’ll get the tip of the iceberg today on episode, but like we’ll save it probably for like the year- end roster review. Uh, you know, maybe again I I can’t make any promises because there may we got four more games left, so it might all come out uh eventually on the podcast, but you know, we do the year- end positional breakdowns in January and February right before the Super Bowl, and we, you know, we’ll break down the wide receiver, and that will probably be an epic rant about how they just completely mishandled this wide receiver position, but you’re getting a taste of it today, and you’ll get a little bit more of it probably towards the end of today’s episode as we look at the third down struggles of the Falcons, Okay. And we’ll ask who’s to blame for the failures in this Seahawks game. How much of the blame is on the quarterback, the receivers, the blocking, or the play caller? And we’ll break that down as we wrap up today’s lockdown on Falcons. So guys, you know, this time of year, you know, the Falcons are struggling, but you can still make a little bit of money this holiday season by heading over to FanDuel. Right now for this Thursday night matchup between the Falcons and Bucks, the Falcons are four and a half point underdogs against the Bucks. But, you know, FanDuel’s going to make it all exciting, even if the Falcons can’t make it exciting on the football field because you can place live bets as the action unfolds from every drive, every momentum swing, every highlight moment. So, if a receiver like Kyle Pittz gets hot, you can watch those player props, you know, go up, right? If the defense starts tightening up, you can see the spreads and money lines adjust instantly, right? And if the momentum flips after a turnover, you can make those bets on who’s going to score the next touchdown coming off of that turnover. It’s not going to be the Falcons if they generate a turnover, but maybe somebody for the box, right? Uh and so it keeps every snap, every drive, every possibility exciting. So check it out by heading over to FanDuel.com, download the FanDuel app, and place your NFL live bets all season long. FanDuel, the game moves fast, and so can you. So, looking at the Falcons third downs, they once again struggled in third downs. They’ve been one of the worst third down teams in the NFL this year, right? Uh 14 third down plays in this game. One of those was nullified by penalty. So, 13 technically, and they only converted one of them. It was the very first one that Bejan was able to win on a slant and then never again for the rest of the game. 12 0 for 12 the rest of the game. 0 for 13 technically, right? And so you just look at those 12 missed opportunities, you know, based off of break breaking down the film. Four of them I think were owed to passes being broken up. Two interceptions, uh, both great plays by Deon Witherspoon on both of those interceptions. One was a tip pass from Boy Maf on a Pitts screen. One was a contested catch. I believe it was Tyreek Woolen um in the end zone against Dylan Drummond. There were two drops, one by Pitts, one by Sills. Two questionable quarterback decisions. those pitch shutdowns where you had Mooney open deep that I had mentioned before, right? One was poor blocking on an Algier run which was blown up by Leonard Williams. One was a fumble by Bejon, one was the officials uh you know collaborating to take away a Darnell Mooney touchdown. Uh and one was a poorly executed screen to Dylan Drummond. And then the one play that was nullified was a miscommunication where co where Kurt Cousins overthrew David Sils on a double move, but David Sils wasn’t open on that particular play. and David Sils is never open on any particular. So when I do the breakdown, right, I go, you know, who’s the to blame when we’re we’re d dividing up the the blame pie, right? The m the biggest slice goes to the receivers. I I put three of those on the receivers. I think two were just great plays by the defense. One was Devin Witherspoon on the the uh breakup uh that led to the Eman Warry interception and the other one was Boy Maf uh tipping that pass on the on the cockpit screen because that was wide open and Maf got his hand on the ball. Two were on the quarterback, those questionable decisions on the checkdowns. Two were on the OC. Both of those were screens, right, where you had um the poor executed screen to Dylan Drummond and then what was the other screen pass? Um there was another screen that I was like, I hate this play call. Oh, it was the um the other interception to the Devin Willer Spoon interception where Seattle saw that screen coming a mile away, right? And so we we blame the play caller because you know the Falcons have been spamming screens as of late again without Ray Mloud, without Kaj. Their two best screen guys uh to these lesser wide receivers and and defenses are not being fooled whatsoever on that. One was on the offensive line, although again, Leonard Williams was able to beat two blockers, Jake Matthews and Charlie Warner, uh, on that Alier stuff. One was on the running back, that was the Bejian fumble, and one was, of course, on the officials. Uh, and so clearly the Falcons miss Drake London if it wasn’t clear, right? If you were sitting here going, “Do the Falcons miss Drake London?” Like, yeah, I think it’s I think it’s clear, right? But, you know, I feel like the Falcons need to just like because they don’t have good wide receivers, right? uh you know they need to hide their receivers as much as possible. They need to limit like it’s it’s like Darnam Mooney and that’s really it. And so I feel like the Falcons got to lean into the heavy personnel groupings that we’ve seen them do and they did in the first half of this game and I know they got behind in this game and so they started dialing up more of the three wide receiver sets because they were playing from behind in the second half, right? But I think they’ve had success eliminating the wide receivers, these backup wide receivers from their offense and leaning on 12 personnel, 13 personnel, two, three tight end sets. Right. I want to see more 21 personnel with both Bejian and Tyler Alier, two running backs on the field. 22 personnel I think would be something that they could utilize. It was very effective in that Colts game on a handful of plays and we haven’t seen it since then. Um, and you know, that gets us to more conversation about the play caller and Zack Robinson that if and when Zack Robinson is fired at the end of the season. You know, that’s going to be a talking point that we discussed that we discussed last year and has continued this year where it does feel like so much of this offense is just kind of throwing stuff at a wall and hoping something sticks. like the fact that, you know, you had an effective use of this 22 personnel with two running backs and two tight ends uh in that Colts game and we haven’t seen it outside of that game tells you that there’s no cohesive scheme. It’s just like they’re just trying stuff and we talked about that a lot last year. It’s continued this year and it’s to me a big reason why this offense is not living up to its expectations. But, you know, if you are going to lean on your 11 personnel, can we get your best receivers on the field? You know, and it’s funny to me because like when we were going through that time with JD Bertrren getting all the snaps and everybody was like JD Burch’s the worst and it’s terrible and he’s holding back the off the defense and I was just like it’s fine, you know? And like now I feel like that with the wide receiver I I understand your your guys’ pain with the three weeks of JD Bertrren because now I feel that way with the Falcons wide receiver core where it’s just like why are we doing this? Like this is holding back your team, right? like that contributed to the downfall of the defense during those couple of games. To me, this has contributed to the downfall of the offense. Uh where this team just has so much confidence in bad players, right? And so, let’s lean into the heavy personnel groupings. Let’s get your best players on the field, right? I’m tired of David Sills getting all these snaps. I’m tired of Dylan Drummond and and Devin Tommpkins getting these snaps. Like, Charlie Warner should be getting all them snaps. Tyler Alir should be getting all them snaps, right? In addition to Mooney and Bejon and Pitts and Right now, like those are your five best players. And then if you’re going to go to expand to a six guy, it should be Cadero Hajj, not any of these other bums. I’m sorry. It’s like it’s so funny to me because like during that JD B like I think you guys are overreacting. It’s like no you’re not. You know, I apologize guys. I apologize for if if I wasn’t reacting properly to the JD Bertrren uh terribleness. Like I get it now. This is how I feel about this wide receiver core. It’s like it’s the same thing but on the offensive side of the ball. And like ultimately when we talk about the downfall of this football team, it’s stuff like this that it’s ultimately like this team’s overconfidence and bad players has contributed greatly to the downfall of this season. And it’s funny when we talk about it specifically with the wide receivers and tight ends and whatnot. And I’m talking about, oh, we got to lean on, you know, two and three tight end sets and all this stuff. It’s like we’re right back to where we were with Arthur Smith, right? Arthur Smith was like, I hate 11 personnel. I hate three wide receiver sets. I’m not running it. We’re gonna get as many tight ends on the football field, as many fullbacks and running backs and all that stuff on the football field. And now it’s like, please, Arthur Smith, come back, baby. Come back. You know, and it’s just like to me, this is a testament of why, you know, Terry Fontau is a terrorist, right? Because we’re right back here. We’re right back where we were in 2023. Like this man has not improved anything, right? It’s the same situation. Uh, and like that wide receiver core with like Matt Holland and Van Jefferson and Scotty Miller is far better than the current version of the Falcons wide receiver core uh without Drake London, you know, and with Darn Mooney falling off a cliff. And so it’s just funny to me that like we’re right back to where we were with where we ended with Arthur Smith. And that to me is just a testament to why they should absolutely clean house and completely reset this team because they have not shown any progress from where they were two years ago. uh in a lot of areas uh and as directly and and I appreciate you Mike McDonald for exposing these fools uh as thoroughly as you did, right? It didn’t feel good in the moment, but going back and re-watching the film, that was a thing I appreciated being like Mike McDonald’s out here just doing the Lord’s work and hopefully Arthur Blank is listening, right? And he will do the right thing at the end of the season or at some point between now and the end of the season and clean house with this group. So that’s where that’s where we are. dark place to end the show, guys, but it is where we and I know a large percentage of you are nodding your heads as we speak right now. So, that’s going to do it for us here. We will get into an extended All22 review for the Lockdown Falcons insiders at the link in description below at jointex.com/lockonfalcons. That extended all22 review will be coming their way before the Thursday night game. Uh we’ll be looking at the third down issues of Kyle Pittz’s usage, the good and bad of the Falcons defense. And then after Thursday night’s game, uh we get through this Bucks game, the insiders will get an updated uh in terms of my charting uh in terms of the pass rush production in the coverage production this season. Uh our last update was after, I believe, the the Colts game uh and whatnot. So, they’ll get another update and you can hit that link in description below. You get it 14-day free trial, right? So, you can give yourself a Christmas gift for the time being uh and then it’s $4.99 a month after that point. And also you’ll find a link in description to join the Everydayer Club. Again, ad free access to Locked on Falcons, a Discord server for Everyday Club, uh, you know, exclusives, as well as that merch store where you can get, you know, illustrious swag like that I’m wearing. Uh, if you want Locked on merch and whatnot, $5 a month, $50 a year, you can get a free month if you’re on Spotify. If Locked on Falcons is on your Spotify wrapped, or really any Locked On show is on your Spotify rap. Just tag uh Locked On podcast on any social media platform and you will get a code for a free month to that every dare club. you can get, you know, that delicious illustrious swag, the ad free advertising on the shows as well as access to that Discord server. Again, that’s at lockedonfalcons.supcast.com or the link in description below. So, appreciate you guys. Tomorrow, we’ll be back with Crossover Thursday with James Jark of Locked on Bucks previewing this Falcons Bucks game on Thursday night. It’s all part of Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Seattle Seahawks expose critical flaws in Atlanta Falcons’ defense—can the next regime fix what Raheem Morris and Terry Fontenot couldn’t? Host Aaron Freeman breaks down how Seattle’s rub routes, blitz-beating schemes, and Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s second-half surge that left A.J. Terrell and the Falcons’ man coverage scrambling, igniting concerns about the pass rush’s sustainability and looming roster regression.

Kyle Pitts steps up as the impromptu No. 1 receiver amid Drake London’s absence, but will underwhelming wideouts and questionable play calling sabotage Atlanta’s third-down efficiency? Freeman pinpoints the root causes of the Falcons’ offensive struggles, critiques the coaching staff’s decisions, and urges heavy personnel groupings to mask glaring weaknesses. With owner Arthur Blank considering a total reset, the pressure is on—will Atlanta finally break the cycle of mediocrity or spin its wheels yet again?

#atlantafalcons #nfl #seattleseahawks #nflweek14 #week14 #all22 #ajterrell #jaxonsmithnjigba #jsn #kirkcousins #kylepitts #drakelondon #raheemmorris

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