Michael Penix’s SLOW Start Causes Atlanta Falcons Offense to STALL | How Can Their Young QB Improve?

Michael Penix’s SLOW Start Causes Atlanta Falcons Offense to STALL | How Can Their Young QB Improve?

After another slow road start for Michael Pinnix, we’re breaking down the film to break down which areas of his game we need to see the most improvement in. You are Locked on Falcons, your daily Atlanta Falcons podcast, part of the Locked on Podcast 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, your team every day. And today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use all across the FanDuel app. And also on today’s episode, we’ll break down the film of the Falcons week seven loss to the 49ers and we’ll be doing a deep deep dive into the offensive issues. We’ll talk about play calling as well as some of the areas where we need to see Michael Penn’s game improve the most. We’ll contrast that with why and how the 49ers game plan so well against this very good Falcons defense. We’ll give Kyle Pittz’s flowers. We’ll talk about why we don’t have to worry about Jesse Bates as others are like Jarvis Davis and uh we’ll talk about Ray Ray Mloud’s release as well. But if you don’t know who I am, I’m your very humble host Aaron Freeman. Been covering the Atlanta Falcons for almost two decades. Formerly at faulfans.com rip still going strong on this illustrious podcast. And I thank each and every one of you that go strong with me as everydayers. That means you make this podcast your first listen each and every day. And all you have to do to become an everydayer is subscribe or follow for free on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. So let’s get into the offensive film. And you know, we’ll start off before we get into Michael Penn, let’s talk about my general thoughts on the play calling. I thought Zack Robinson’s play calling was mostly okay. Uh, you know, certainly I think it’s a lot of things that you’re fair to criticize, but you know, I’ll give Zack Robinson the benefit of the doubt because I thought he was trying some new stuff and after spending basically the better part of the last year saying we need to see Zack Robinson evolve and expand the offense, I’m not going to complain when Zack Robinson tries to evolve and expand the offense. I think overall the Falcons offensive issues were boiled down to poor execution. They just did not execute a lot of the things that they wanted to do uh this past Sunday night against the 49ers. But one of the best examples of a new wrinkle in this offense that we saw, I think for the first time ever, uh, was the insert playaction play where we spent a lot of time talking about how the Falcons need to marry their run game with their their passing game and the play action. Uh, and one of their favorite run concepts is having the insert block. Uh, where in in this case, Drake London sort of inserts into the C gap as a run blocker. Uh and for the first time I believe that the Falcons have ever run it. They had him running a route on that particular play. It came on the second series in the first late in the first quarter. Uh it resulted in an incomplete pass because and I think there was a penalty on Ryan for an eligible receiver downfield. But it was nice to sort of see like oh it took a while but we we finally got that. So hopefully we’ll see continue to see more strides in that arena. But let’s talk about Michael Penn. big topic of the week. And I want to make this clear before we get into this. This is not meant to be a referendum on Michael Penn. This is purely a data point. I’m going to be critical of Michael Penn. I know a lot of discourse you’re seeing elsewhere is being very critical and saying Michael Penn isn’t the answer. I don’t believe any of that nonsense. This is a data point and then at the end of the season we’ll have a full evaluation of Michael Pennix hopefully as a fullear starter and we will look at this data point as well as several others along the way and we will see the data points at the end of the season and we’ll basically assess is it trending up is it staying even is it trending down that’s to me what matters. So, you know, it’s one of those things where uh you know, someone in the Discord I thought put it very eloquently the other day where he basically said, “Everyone says rookies need time to develop until it’s their time, then it needs to be Super Bowl or bust or he’s a bust.” And I feel like that is a lot of the discourse surrounding Michael Penn at this point in time. But let’s get into some of my issues with Michael Penn. Think the main issues I had was he struggled early in this game, right? Um, and so, you know, this has been a throughine for the Falcons and Michael Penn through his short time as a starter with slow road starts. Um, and I do think he did start to settle in in the second half, particularly in the third quarter after the Bejian touchdown. Um, and then at that point he kind of got derailed because the 49ers threw a blitz at him. Uh, and he had a potential hot route on an inbreaker to Kyle Pittz. He didn’t quite pull the trigger on that. He tried to escape the pocket and wound up getting hit on that play leading to an incomplete pass. And that just kind of is illustrative of some of the main topics I want to talk about when we really isolate Michael Pinnick himself, right? It’s attacking the middle of the field. It’s a play extending ability and it’s how the Falcons handled the blitz. Right? You know, that play I just mentioned was one of three plays that I cited in my notes where I felt like the Falcons had an opportunity to attack the 49ers over the middle of the field and Pennix didn’t pull the trigger on any of those throws. Now, to be fair, in all three instances, he was under pressure, right? Um, and so, you know, it’s a question of is Penn beating the allegations that he doesn’t like attacking the middle of the field. And in this game, he was certainly hesitant when there was pressure when it came time to making tight window throws under duress over the middle of the field. So, you know, my thoughts on the Falcons ability, this offense is overall beyond Pennix’s ability to attack the middle of the field, I think, is is perfectly summarized by a tweet that Tawn Diaz of the Falcoholic had after the game. He said, “The Falcons have a limited menu of middle of the field concepts that they’ve used since 2024. Kirk, a very efficient middle- of the field thrower, was able to make do. Pinnix, but Pennix isn’t he isn’t comfortable attacking that part of the field, and there’s no fix besides taking more shots and learning through reps. So, I generally agree with Traan’s uh point there. Again, this is a data point, and we’ll see if this improves or gets worse uh over the course of the season, and we’ll keep an eye on it, but um you know, we’ll talk, you know, and we’ll keep an eye both on Pennix’s ability to attack it as well as the play calling doing a better job uh you know, featuring that area of the field. Uh but you know talking about the play extending ability um he did try to do that a little bit more in this game than we’ve seen to date and to me in some ways it’s a form of progress but it remains a work in progress just because like he wasn’t very efficient when he did it. Now I know his success rate uh according to PFF when he’s throwing outside the pocket this season is about 38%. That’s in the bottom third of the NFL. And if you go a couple of spots higher on the rankings, that’s where you usually get around 40 plus percent is on terms of success rate is where most of the good quarterbacks, like all the quarterbacks that are below Michael Penn um are like not good quarterbacks basically, you know, or at least guys that aren’t playing at a super high level. Uh and so we just need to get him a little bit higher. We need to get him in the 40s uh when it comes to making plays outside the pocket. And it matters because when you’re a young quarterback, you’re not always going to have the right answers, right? When you it’s comes to getting beyond that first read. You got to get to the right answers. And to me, that was an issue at times in this 49ers game uh on on a select couple of plays, but you don’t have that right answer initially and you got to get to the right answer. And oftentimes that requires you to extend the play, go off structure, second reaction, whatever you want to call those plays. And it’s not that Pennix lacks the instincts to do that. they don’t necessarily worry me. The only concern I have from an instinctual standpoint is like he has a tendency to want to roll left and rather than roll right even when there’s an opening to the right. Uh you know with a collapsing pocket. Uh but it’s just mostly like when it comes time to actually making those throws on the run to open receivers. He’s missing too many of those throws and that’s leading to the Falcons not having as many of those second reaction plays that you want to have particularly for a young quarterback that’s still developing. Uh, and so just can we make some more catchable passes in those situations? Now, when it comes to the Falcons handling of the blitz, right, this is less of a Pennix issue and more of a Zack Robinson issue. I felt like the 49ers really did a good job catching the Falcons slipping in this area. Uh, we talked about that a little bit on previous episodes this week. Uh, we talked about with lockdown 49ers host Brian Peacock last week on the crossover Thursday how the 49ers don’t do a great job of sort of supplementing their pass rush with a blitz in Nick Bosa’s absence. So, it felt like in this game they borrowed a page from the Falcons uh last week against the Bills and dialed up similar blitz concepts and they caught the Falcons slipping a couple of times. I noted in my notes at least 10 instances where the 49ers dialed up pressure and on those 10 plays the Falcons were successful on just one of those 10 plays. Uh, and I think it’s owed to a variety of factors, but two main ones are, you know, too often in those situations, the Falcons had long developing routes, and in other situations, receivers just weren’t getting open, right? And when you have those long developing routes when team splits, you want to get the ball out quickly, right? Because pressure is coming, right? And there were too many times where Pennix was kind of forced to hold on to the ball a beat too long uh versus that pressure. uh you know and and that came via the Falcons having longer developing routes on those plays, including the play where Pennix got injured in the fourth quarter was one such instance where the 49ers brought a blitz. They had long developing routes and and Pennix really had no outlet on that particular play. Uh, and you know, the other thing that stood out was, um, you know, you heard Raheem mention this on on Monday, uh, that, you know, the 49ers dialed up a little bit more man coverage than they thought they were, uh, expected to. And I looked it up and the 49ers, according to PFF, had played 15% man coverage in the first six weeks of the season and then they dialed it up to about 35% uh, against the Falcons. And unfortunately for the Falcons, guys weren’t winning in those situations, right? except for one, Kyle Pittz. We’ll break into him uh and break that down later. But, you know, I’m not one of these people that thinks, oh, like because guys weren’t winning against man coverage in this game or in other games, that means that the Falcons got to go out there and trade for a new wide receiver. I just think the players currently on the team, including the quarterback, you know, again, we’re talking specifically about, you know, separating from man coverage, they just got to perform better. But in terms of just overall fixes to the Falcons problems, that’s basically the fix to their problems. guys have to play better and usually this team when they have a poor performance like that they respond the following week and play better and so hopefully we’ll get that from them this weekend against Miami. But you know this is not the first time we’ve had conversations on this podcast about guys not winning consistently against man coverage. I recall last year particularly in the second half of last year where there were times where teams were able to man up this Falcon team. I remember that first quarter of that second Saints game in week 10 where the Falcons got off to a slow start in large part because the Saints were like, “We’re going to man up your receivers.” And our guys weren’t winning in those situations. Eventually, they did start winning, but it was a little too little too little too late at that point in the game for the Falcons to pull off that win. But we’ll get into more of those situations when we explore the extended All 22 review, uh, which I’ll plug at the end of today’s episode. But, you know, as I mentioned earlier, the Falcons did not have good answers for the 49ers blitz, but the 49ers had great answers for the Falcons blitzes. And we’ll break into that and that will get us into a conversation on, you know, the whole notion of this team getting out coached uh as we continue today’s locked on Falcons. So, with the NFL season in the midst, you know, we’re almost at the end of October, you know, you want to go check it out and get back into the stadium, especially if you want to be in Mercedes-Benz to root your favorite team on. And a great place to go to be able to get back into the stadium is with Game Time, right? The game time is fast, easy. It’s backed by the Game Time guarantee. You’ll always get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time at the best price, plus with all fees included. The price you see is the price you pay and what you see is what you get with those panoramic seat views before you buy. So, Game Time, they make it super simple on the app. Uh, and so go check it out and take the guesswork out of buying tickets by downloading the Game Time app. Create an account, use code locked on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. And if you know uh Mercedes-Benz Stadium, you know $20 can go a long way towards concessions. So, terms apply. Again, redeem code L ke NFL NFL for 20% $20 off. Swipe, tap, ticket, go. Download Game Time Today. So, as I said on yesterday’s episode, I do think watching the film I, you know, I was a little skeptical of saying this on the rapid reaction, but after watching the film, I do think the Falcons did get out coached. But as I said on yesterday’s episode and tried to explain, I don’t think that’s in in indic indicative of the Falcons coaches doing a bad job. I think this is just more a testament to the 49ers having good coaches, right? And just similar to how we don’t do referendums on quarterbacks on a weekly basis here, we’re not going to try to do referendums on coaches, right? We’re going to talk about how they performed in each game, but you know, the deciding factor, you know, not every game has to be the deciding factor when it comes to whether Zack Robinson’s a good play caller or whether Raheem Morris is the long-term answer and can be the guy that’s going to lead this team to a like, you know, just like Penn, we’re going to evaluate all these coaches at the end of the season and we’re just going to wait and see how the entire season plays out before we sit here and definitively plant our flag on are these coaches worth bringing back in 2026. Uh, but you know, I am on today’s episode going to give Kyle Shanahan his flowers uh on this episode. And if you happen to be a Falcon fan that hates, you know, praising, hearing praise of Kyle Shanahan, I I apologize in advance. I know there are still many Falcon fans to this day that feel like Kyle Shanahan is a bad coach or overrated. And my response to those people is they are, you know, they are entitled to their opinion, but they are just simply wrong, right? Uh, and you know, similar to how the Falcons out coached or outskinned the Bills last week, particularly with their blitzes, you know, the 49ers watched the film of that game and made good adjustments like good coaches are supposed to do. Uh, and they kind of plan for, okay, we don’t want the Falcons to kill us with their blitzes like they killed the Bills. So, we’re going to give our quarterback good answers to that. We’re going to avoid those situations. We’re going to use the run game. We’re going to use the quick passing game. And so we’re going to have answers for their blitz and the Falcons did not have those same answers for the 49ers blitz as I mentioned earlier and that led to a dichotomy between their success and our success. But um you know one of the things that we were worried about going into this game was the use of play action. But I think the for the 49ers didn’t I don’t think they ran a single play action pass in the first half of the game. And you know, in hindsight, it’s like, oh well, you know, play action is too long a developing play, right? That’s giving the pass rushers and and potential blitzers too much time to get home, right? Uh and so instead, we’re just going to go for the seven to 15 yard completions on inb breakakers and checkdowns. When they send pressure, we’re going to throw into that void, right? We’re going to allow M. Jones to get rid of the ball quickly. And then you couple that with the run game, uh, you know, that kept them ahead of of the chains, out of long downs and distance for the most part. I heard postgame that Kyle Shanahan said he their goal was to run the ball 40 times in this game. I believe they had 36 designed runs in this game if I’m not mistaken. Uh, and he praised the the entire 49ers team for achieving that, right? Because you need your offense to be able to execute that game plan. You need your defense to be able to get stops so that you don’t necessarily have to play from behind like the Falcons were forced to uh later in the game. And you also need your special teams to help out in that regard. And the 49ers got that, right? They got the complete three-phase experience that the Falcons experienced the previous week against the Bills, right? And so that’s where I mean where it’s just like it’s not necessarily an indictment of this coaching staff that the shoe was on the other foot. Last week the Falcons were favorable in that situation. This week the 49ers were favorable in that situation. That is how this often works in the NFL and it’s one of the reasons why I’m not as broken up as other people are about this loss. I’m disappointed as I am always disappointed when the Falcons lose football games, but like it’s not one of those things where it’s like this is the end of the world. That’s what I mean when I say like this is not really a referendum. So, you know, hopefully we will see, you know, this is an issue uh with the Falcons when it comes to the slow starts and not performing at a high level on the road. And as we’ve said before, like for the Falcons next six games are going to be on the road. Uh and you know, it’s got to get better when it comes to this coaching staff and and playing better on the road. Uh and you know, you want to be in a position where in those four road games over the next six weeks, you want to go at least two and two, if not three and one or better uh to keep your playoff hopes alive. Uh and if you don’t perform better than what the Falcons did against this 49ers team, you know, you’re going to be potentially staring at one and three or 0 and4. Uh, and at that point, your season might be over. Uh, and so we will see. But now I’m going to throw some numbers at you guys when it comes to the Falcons pressure and blitz and the 49ers success rate. And I know some of you guys eyes glaze over when I start throwing numbers at you. But based off my charting of the Falcons defense, they pressured uh the 49ers about 46% of the time. Uh, they got better pressure in the second half, 33% pressure rate in the first half, 62% in the second half. The Falcons had a 36% blitz rate. But San Francisco’s success rate when the Falcons splits was 60% uh this week. Um and then when you look at San Francisco’s success rate when the Falcons did get pressure, it was 38%. In the first half it was 20% and then that improved to 50% in the second half. And then San Francisco’s success rate when the Falcons did not get pressure was 80% which is a extremely high uh number. In the first half that was 70%. In the second half that was 100%. Um and so you know M. Jones wasn’t great against pressure when the Falcons did get it. Um, but the 49ers again gave him good answers when he saw blitz when he recognized blitz and was able to get the ball out quickly. Uh, and so that mitigated a lot of the pressure which is why the Falcons pressure rate in my opinion in the first half was so low relatively speaking to what we expected it to be. Um, and so, you know, that second half improvement for the 49ers offense was owed to, you know, making good in-game adjustments and seeing what the Falcons were doing. like, okay, this is how they’re attacking us. Let’s, you know, make these adjustments. And they did a better job in the second half. But I do think the Falcons defense overall did play better in my for my eyes in the second half, uh, than they did in the first, but it didn’t really matter all that much. And, you know, McCaffrey only not only gave the Falcons problems on the ground as a runner, he also gave them problems in the air as a pass catcher, as a checkown and quick outlet. You know, the success rate on the eight targets to Christian McCaffrey was 88%. So, they were successful on seven of those eight throws to McAffrey. The lone failure was a attempted screen that David Anyamada was able to bust up, you know, and you know, a big challenge for why they couldn’t deal with Christian McCaffrey of course had to deal with Devon Diablo’s early injury. Uh, you know, even the one rep that Diablo had before he got injured, he got beat by McCaffrey on an option route. So, it wasn’t even guaranteed that Devine Diablo was going to lock down Christian McCaffrey in this game. Uh but basically he was the only guy that really had a realistic chance uh in this game at that linebacker uh position. Uh and so once he exited it, you know, Christian McAffrey just was basically able to do whatever he wanted for the remainder of the game. And so, you know, obviously, as we discussed on yesterday’s episode, you know, we’re not expecting Divine Diablo for a couple more games. Uh but, you know, a player that we will not be seeing for presumably the remainder of the season is Ray Ray Mloud, who was just released on Tuesday. We’ll break that down as well as give Kyle Pitts his flowers as we wrap up today’s Lock On Falcons. I’m Cody Ro from Locked On Broncos and this episode is brought to you by Pelaton. Pelaton is shaping the future of fitness with the brand new Pelaton crossraining tread plus powered by Pelaton IQ. This is Pelaton’s most advanced equipment yet, giving you real time guidance and endless ways to move. Whether you’re running, lifting, or you’re crossraining with your favorite instructors like Alex Tousant, it’s training reimagined to make your workout more personal. Pelaton is built for breakthroughs with features that help you plan, stay motivated, and hit peak performance. You can let yourself run, lift, flex, and go while Pelaton handles all the rest. Plus, Pelaton IQ provides real time strength coaching, tracking your progress and suggesting weights that challenge you so you can get stronger. Plus, the new movement tracking camera. It counts your reps and corrects your form in real time, making sure every rep is safer and smarter. So, let yourself run, lift, flex, push, and go. Explore the new Pelaton crossraining tread plus at onepelon.com. And today’s episode is also brought to you by FanDuel with us in the middle of the NFL season. FanDuel wants to continue to keep you invested with this can’t miss offer. Right now, new customers can bet just $5 and get $300 in bonus bets if you win. That’s right. Pick a bet, put down five bucks, and if it hits, you’ll unlock $300 in bonus bets to use all across the FanDuel app. And FanDuel gives you so many different ways to win. Whether we’re talking football, basketball, baseball, all the sports, you got the same game parlays, you got the player props, you got the uh straight up money line bets, or you can bet against the spread. The Falcons are seven and a half point favorites at home against this Miami Dolphins team. So, if you want to take advantage of any of these offers, make sure you head on over to FanDuel.com and download the FanDuel app today to get started. So, the Falcons uh released Ray Ray Mloud on Tuesday. It felt like once he became a healthy scratch for the 49ers game after initially being a healthy scratch for the Bills game, it felt like the writing was on the wall that Ray Ray had played his last down in Atlanta. At that point, you know, Raheem in his presser on Monday said, you know, uh that is an issue between Ray Ray and him alone. So, you know, hopefully we’ll get some more clarity and some more insight. You know, hopefully one of these NFL insiders will get the scoop on this. Uh, but you know, it sounds like there was an incident between Raheem and and Ray during the by-week. Um, and you know, we’ll see. It’s it’s reminiscent of when Raheem was the interim head coach and and there was an incident with Tac McKinley, but that incident was basically Tac going on Twitter and and and ripping the team. Uh, and that ultimately led to Tax release, which is what I think Tac was trying to do. But anyway, that’s a separate conversation. So, um, you know, losing Ray Ray, I think, is a blow. You know, he had been marginalized in the offense. Maybe that has something to do, uh, with the incident. Um, but he had basically been marginalized in the offense in part due to the emergence of Kyle Pittz, we’ll talk about later. Uh, I think losing him is a bigger blow on special teams than it is on offense given that he’s to me, you know, Jamal Agnu had a a good game against the 49ers. So hopefully it won’t be as big an issue now. Um, but you know, prior to Jamal Agnu’s big 45 yard return against the 49ers, I thought Ray Ray had been the team’s most effective kickoff returner so far this year. But it still is a notable loss on offense because basically after your big four pass catchers and Pitts, Drake, Bejan, Mooney, in whatever order you want to put those guys in, you know, Ray Ray is your most proven fifth option, right? And so if you need a fifth guy out there, as often is the case when you, you know, you’re you’re throwing the football, right? You have five receivers in the route, uh, one quarterback and and five offensive linemen. Um, you know, Ray Ray was your best option compared to the rest of this Falcons receiver core, right? Uh, his body of work is light years better than any other pass catcher, but you know, his departure is going to give opportunities for those other pass catchers to, you know, close the gap, right? And and, you know, improve their body of work. Casey Washington, David Sills, several practice squad players on the roster. I don’t expect the Falcons to go after outside wide receiver help. You know, I’ve seen people throw around Tyler Lockett, who I believe was just released by the Titans. I’ve seen people for the last three weeks talking about the Falcons making a trade at the trade deadline. I’ve said several times over the last several months, you know, I want to see this team develop their young players. Uh, and you know, rather than trying to, you know, get outside fixes and that applies to JD Bertrand getting an opportunity with Divine Diablo, that applies to Casey Washington or Nick Nash or Chris Blair. You know, we’re we’re on team Blair here on this podcast because we basically believe that Drake London is by far the best slot receiver on this team. give me a wide an outside wide receiver that can do some damage. And Chris Blair to me is probably your best outside wide receiver out beyond Drake London and Kyle Pittz and um Darnell Mooney. Um so speaking of Kyle Pittz being on the outside, it’s time to give Kyle Pitts some flowers on this podcast, right? He was the best player on the Falcons offense in this 49ers game. Um he was the one guy that was consistently able to beat man coverage. Uh, and so most of the time when the few times the Falcons did have success against the 49ers man coverage, it was most often when they were throwing to Kyle Pittz. And I feel like this is one of the best games that he’s played in his Falcon career. I think this is probably in the top three, three or five games, even if it doesn’t necessarily pop in terms of, you know, the box score, uh, in terms of his performance. And you know, the reason why we want to do this and we want to take time to do this is because, you know, we spend a lot of time over the last year talking about what Kyle Pittz isn’t, how what he is, you know, how he’s utilized in the offense. Um, and I’ve been someone who’s firmly been in the Kyle Pitts corner that this guy has a lot of ability that is untapped in the 2024 version of the Falcons offense under Zack Robinson. And I feel like they are tapping fully into maybe not fully, but they’re they’re, you know, tapping quite a bit into that potential uh in this year’s version of the offense. And I think you saw that on display against the 49ers. You saw the separation. You saw the body control. You saw, you know, the clean route running. Like this is everything that we’ve wanted from Kyle Pittz these last several years in this game. Uh and unfortunately it came in a loss for the Falcons. So it’s it’s going to get overshadowed. We’ll do a full breakdown of it on the extended all 22 for the listeners uh for the lock on Falcons insiders. But I mentioned this on yesterday’s or Monday’s Falcon squad show over at Lock on Sports Atlanta that you know Kyle Pittz is well on track for someone paying him. He’s having that, you know, infamous contract year boost bump or whatever. I don’t know if the Falcons are going to be the team that pays him this offseason. Again, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it uh in the offseason. Um, but he is absolutely living up to his billing right now as we sit here as one of the, you know, top five tight ends in the NFL, right? Whether he’s putting up the production of a top five tight end, I don’t know. But I think he’s performing like a top five tight end. And hopefully we will see this trend continue for Kyle Pittz for the remainder of the season. Uh, but the last thing I will say before we duck out of here is, you know, Jarvis Davis, I know you sometimes listen to these episodes, so I’m I’m talking to you and all these other listeners that, you know, no one listens to the show because, you know, you’ve seen the numbers. Uh, go back to a couple of weeks ago for that reference. But, um, you know, I wasn’t ready because I hadn’t done all the film study at that point on yesterday’s Falcon Squad show. I wasn’t ready to give an offer a rebuttal to your Jesse Bates comments, but now I am after I’ve watched the film. And Jarvis called out Jesse said Jesse’s not playing well, the tackling. And all that’s fair criticisms, but I’ve seen a lot of people, not just Jarvis Davis, sort of talk about, you know, do we need to have a conversation about Jesse Bates? And I’m going to hear on this podcast and say, no, we do not need to have a conversation about Jesse Bates. Yes, you can sit there and say there’s been a a handful of uncharacteristic, you know, instances where his cheating has uh burned the Falcons, right? you know, figuratively and li literally a handful. Like, we’re talking like three times. Like, you know what I’m saying? Like, I know the perception is going to be like, “No, it’s been way more.” It’s like three times, guys, in like six games. Like, calm down, right? And the tackling was not particularly good against the 49ers. That is a fair criticism of Jesse Bates, but the tackling was not good for anybody on the Falcons defense. And so singling out Jesse Bates, who is not, you know, Ke O’Neal is not Cam Chancellor, is not a runthumping is not Malik Mustafa for the 49ers, a runthumping safety, you know, feels unfair to me to single him out and be like, his tackling is bad and ignore everybody else’s, right? And so the last point I will say about Jesse Bates is he has been very underrated when coverage, right? we’re focused on the the the splash plays, the big explosive, the big touchdown that he gives up or the lack of interceptions that he’s not getting. And so are people hyperfocus on the handful of splash plays that Jesse Bates is not making or being victimized on and ignoring the 95% of plays in between those two extremes where he is playing outstanding football for the most part. Again, minus a handful of of of missed tackles, right? because I sit here and I’m watching the film now Jarvis and anybody else who’s out here coming for Jesse Bates, right? We do not believe on in monogamy here on the Locked on Falcons podcast. So, we will support our polyamorous king in Jesse Bates. But why do you think George KD was so quiet in this game? Did you wonder George KD? What did he did he have any catches, two targets, whatever it was, right? You know who was primarily responsible for covering George KD for the vast majority of this game? It was Jesse Bates. Jesse Bates has been outstanding in coverage, even if it isn’t resulting in interceptions this year. He has been one of the Falcons best cover, arguably based off my charting of the Falcons defense. You know, I have to update the numbers for week seven. But, you know, it’s like Devine Diablo and Jesse Bates are like the two best coverage guys on the team uh through, you know, the first six games of the season. And I think because Diablo got beat on the one coverage play or No, no. Yeah, they were the two best in man coverage, I think, is is what my charting said. And because Diablo gave up one reception in this game, he now moves to second place, I think. And Jesse Bates is the team’s best man coverage defender on the entire roster based off my charting uh this upcoming this current season. So, we are not worried about Jesse Bates, guys. You know, again, y’all can come for the king, but you know, he’s sitting on his throne. All right, so that’s it for uh that conversation. We’ll be breaking it down fully. You know, if you’re rather than just listening to me talk about the plays, you want to see me break down the plays, becoming a lockedown Falcons insider may be for you for the extended all22 review. We’ll be looking at all these topics as well as other things this week. And you can become an insider by joining at the link in description below at joinsubttex.com/lockdonfalcons. It is a 14-day free trial, so you can check out this film analysis for free right now if you sign up. that’ll be available probably for you guys Wednesday. So, if you sign up on Tuesday night, you know, it’ll be probably there for you Wednesday afternoon or whatever. Uh, a 14-day free trial and then $4.99 a month thereafter if you like it. So, you can get this breakdown, you’ll get the Dolphins breakdown, and you’ll probably, you know, depending on the timing of when you sign up, you’re like, you wait till Thursday, you’ll probably get the Patriots breakdown for free before you have to pay a single cent. So, why not become a locked on Falcons insider? there’s every incentive for it. As well as you got my reaction to the Ray Ray release hours ago, like you know, however many hours before you’re listening to this episode, immediately after it was announced, like within five minutes of it being announced. Uh that’s one of the benefits of being a Lock on Falcons Insiders. You get the immediate reaction as opposed to having to wait for the podcast. So, uh that is there for you. Continue to make us your first listen. Check us out on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. Check out Locked on NFL as your second listen. It is all part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Tomorrow we will be doing a crossover Thursday with Locked on Dolphins host Kyle Krabs.

Is another slow start from Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Penix a concern? Host Aaron Freeman dissects the All-22 film from the team’s loss to the San Francisco 49ers to diagnose crucial areas for improvement in the young QB’s game. Explore Penix’s performance, Zach Robinson’s play-calling, and the Falcons’ defensive strategies against Kyle Shanahan’s 49ers. Key topics include Kyle Pitts’ standout game, Ray-Ray McCloud’s release, and Jessie Bates’ recent criticism.

#atlantafalcons #nfl #zacrobinson #michaelpenixjr #kylepitts #rayraymccloud #jessiebates #kyleshanahan #sanfrancisco49ers #nflweek7 #week7 #all22

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOFalcons?sid=YouTube

Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More
🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL

Become a Locked On Falcons Insider for in-depth analysis every day!
https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonfalcons

Join our Discord server!
https://discord.gg/lockedonfalcons

Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!

Peloton
Let yourself run, lift, flex, and push forward. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread+ today at https://www.onepeloton.com.

Rippling
Get Rippling FREE for 6 months. Terms and conditions apply. See site for details: https://app.rippling.com/legal/promoterms

PrizePicks
Download the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.
Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNFL

Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.

FanDuel
Right now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at https://sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit https://FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit https://ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit https://ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)