Atlanta Falcons Third Down NIGHTMARE: Michael Penix’s Issues UNDER Scrutiny | Week 10 All-22 Review

Atlanta Falcons Third Down NIGHTMARE: Michael Penix’s Issues UNDER Scrutiny | Week 10 All-22 Review

I’m not overly concerned about Michael Penn’s performance against the Colts, but he showed some yellow flags that we certainly need to talk about. [Music] 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. I’m your humble host Aaron Freeman and welcome to Locked on Falcons. Part of the Locked On podcast network, your team every day. And of course, the Locked On Network is the now the number one sports podcast network, not only in America, but on the planet and in the solar system and in the galaxy and therefore the universe. Until those aliens come down and take that number one spot, we are number one. And we thank each and every one of you that have helped make us number one. You, the everydayers, that means you make these humble podcasts across this galactic spanning podcast network. Your first listen each and every day. And all you got to do to become an everydayer is subscribe or follow for free on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcasts. Today’s Lockdown Falcons 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 app. Today’s locked on Falcons, we’ll be talking about the All22. We’ll be reviewing the All22 from the Falcons week 10 loss to the Indianapolis Colts. I’ll be breaking down why I’m not overly concerned about Michael Penn. Uh, and I’ll explain why when we look at his third down struggles against the Colts, but why I think the mechanical issues that Penn showed are a potential red flag or a potential yellow flag at this point for his future development. And then we’ll talk about the Falcons defensive struggles in this game and despite the positives, why there’s still a lot of work to be done on that side of the ball in terms of looking to ahead to the long-term future of the Falcons. Let’s start off with the third down struggles. The Falcons were of course 0 for8 on third down. There were a total of nine third down plays. One of them didn’t count uh due to uh what a legal contact penalty. Uh but the Falcons failed to convert any of those nine that that penalty. They got a first down because of the penalty, not because they completed a pass or anything like that. And I went through the film and broke down all nine of those plays and basically looked at who I thought was primarily at fault for why those plays failed. Five of them were on the quarterback. Three of them were on the offensive line and one was on the play caller. The one on the play caller was that screen in the first quarter. And it’s mostly not because I thought it was a terrible play call. It was just I don’t think it was a wellexecuted play. And I can’t remember which game it was. It probably like the Bills game where I was like, “Oh man, you know, screens to Bejon are just easy buttons for this offense and they should just need to dial that up.” And basically, ever since whatever that game was, they haven’t been able to execute a screen. And this has been an ongoing issue with this team going back to last year. whether we’re talking about play action, whether we’re talking about the screens, they’re just not good at designing and and executing those plays. And to me, it’s a sign of poor coaching that they’re not really investing in the details of those things. And it’s one of the reasons why they’ve been so inconsistent in that area. So, that’s why I put it on the play caller, more really the coaches in that regard. Now, let’s focus on the five that were on the quarterback, right? Because the big topic all week long and continuing for the rest of the season is going to be about, you know, Michael Penn. Is he the guy? Isn’t he the guy? And you look at some of the third down stuff, he really struggled in this game. The five uh on the quarterback to me, the most egregious one was the first one where he got sacked uh where they audible to a play and then they didn’t count for the blitzer and that to me is on the quarterback. The quarterback has to get rid of the ball. He’s staring down Kyle Pittz on a one-on-one outside. He has a hot read to Bean underneath. If he recognizes the blitz, get the ball out quickly and move on. He doesn’t. That blitzer comes free, knocks it loose uh on the sack strip. Uh and the Colt Colts turn that into seven points. Then you have the missed throw in the third quarter uh where he lacked touch on that go ball to Kyle Pittz. Um then you had the mis throw on the intercept a near interception later in the third quarter where Sgardner almost picked that pass off. That was a bad throw. Uh you had early in the fourth quarter he turned down an option route to Bejian Robinson on a middle of the field throw due to pressure where Quiddyp Pay was able to beat Elijah Wilkinson. And then you had a middle of the field throw that he missed to David Sills in the fourth quarter where he showed bad mechanics. And we’ll circle back to the mechanical issues that were fully on display or poor mechanical issues uh for Pennix later in the episode. So when we look at this larger picture of Penn’s struggles, it’s not me sort of downplaying it. Um but it does feel like a large percentage of people are just basically ready to pull the parachute on Michael Penn. And I I’m not ready there, right? You know, I I feel like one of the issue, one of the reasons why is because like Pennix has been so good at home and it’s been such a long time since Pedix has played a home game, right? Like and one of the other things that looking up with the third down like the Falcons are, you know, we’ll we’ll talk in a second about down and distance, but like because the Falcons are behind the chain so much. Um, you know, they get into these third and longs and defenses are able to blitz them and the Falcons have been bad against the Blitz, they need to come up with better answers against the Blitz and that will help them on third downs. Like according to NextGen stats, they’re 27th in uh EPA expected points added per drop back against the Blitz. Uh but when you look at the home away splits and so many stats with this offense is basically they’re really good at home, they’re really bad away. We talked about the points scored last yesterday, you know, against the Blitz, they’re ninth at home in terms of EPA per drop back. So top 10 offense and 31st away, right? The second worst offense against the Blitz in road games. And when you look at PennX specifically, because again those numbers include the Kirk Cousins game against Miami, uh Penn is fourth in EPA per drop back against the Blitz at home and 39th out of 43 quarterbacks in away games. So like that’s part of it where it’s like I think part of the reason why it’s been a month since Pennix has played a home game and if he can get back to playing well at home as he has consistently done, I think a lot of the people are like, “Oh, like we’re it’s too early to bail on PennX.” The issue is we got to get better play from Penn on the road. Uh and you know we saw some signs of progress last week against New England and I think some people look at this oh this is a regression uh against the Colts. I’m not looking at it that way because this team has a tendency to struggle in back-to-back road games. This has been a trend over the years like you go back to that 23 season that London game against the Jaguars that was Desmond Ritter’s worst game. You saw the 24 game against the Broncos where the Falcons just didn’t show up at all. Uh, and then you had earlier this season the week three game against Carolina. And I remember having the conversation with Zack Hicks of Locked on Colts last week on the crossover where he talked about how these international games tend to get ugly. Uh, and you kind of saw that and you saw that with Desmond Ritter in the last international game the Falcons played uh back in in 2023 in that London game against Jacksonville which was terrible and then he rebounded at home with arguably his best game of his career against Houston. Now, I know you’re yelling at your phone like, “What? What happened with Ritter after that?” That’s irrelevant to the conversation. Okay, don’t worry about that. The point I’m trying to make is I think there’s still I I’m not going to look at a international game where Pennock struggled as like, “Oh, well, he can’t do it.” Like, this is sort of the sort of referendum game. So, that’s where I’m at with with Pennix in in the home away splits and so hopefully he’ll bounce back. Now, the third down stuff, circling back to that point, the Falcons need to get into better manageable situations. Hopefully, they’ll avoid those blitzes, but like all nine of plays in this Colts game were third and five or longer. And if you just factor in the average conversion rate for an average NFL offense based off of the downing distances of these nine plays, an average NFL team would have converted three of these nine plays. So obviously the Falcons need to do better, but three out of nine is 33% and that on third down would basically be a bottom three conversion rate on third down. So basically what I’m arguing is based off of the down and distance, you’re not setting up your offense to be successful on third downs because you’re getting in all these third and fives, third and sevens, third and nines, third and 10, third and 12s, right? And so you need to get better on earlier downs to get in more manageable situations. Uh, some of that’s on the quarterback, some of that’s on the offensive line, some of that’s on the run game, all that sort of stuff. So, I do feel like while these issues are a concern, I do think there are ways to fix it if this team can just step up and be better. Coming home this week against Carolina, I think it’s going to it’s going to be a big week, right? Um, and that’s contributing to why I’m not abandoning ship for Michael Penn. Now, if he struggles this week against Carolina at home when the conditions are more favorable, that’s going to be a much greater cause for concern a week from now and everybody will be like, “Oh, well, you know, you’re you’re a week too late, Aaron.” But, you know, we’ve already kind of built up this game. Yesterday, we talked about how this is kind of the big game for Raheem Morris because there’s a possibility. You know, it’s not a huge possibility, but there’s a possibility that Raheem Morris could get fired if the Falcons struggle in this Carolina game. And now we’re talking about PennX needing a big bounceback game. And you know, I don’t want to necessarily build this game up to be like the end all be all of the season. Uh because then if they don’t live up to that hype, then what am I going to talk about on podcast for the next seven weeks? I guess we’ll just talk about the draft. Wait, we can’t talk about the draft because somebody traded our top 10 draft pick away. But, you know, I do think this is an important game. All all jokes aside. And so basically if there’s any fight left in this dog that is the Atlanta Falcons and to a lesser extent Michael Pennix, you know, it’s it should show uh this Sunday. So we will see on that. But talking about the third down issues, the bigger concern in this game was Michael Pinnick’s mechanics rearing their ugly head. And we’ll talk about what that means if he can’t correct those issues. uh what that means for his long-term future as we continue today’s locked on Falcons. This show is sponsored by Better Help. As the days get shorter, nights get longer, uh it can start to feel a little heavy, especially when your life is already packed with work, family, and everything else. And this season, it’s so important that we reach out and check in with friends, family, and even yourself. And certainly in lie of tragedies like that involving Marshon Nean, checking in can certainly make a difference. Therapy isn’t just for when things are falling apart. It’s about staying balanced and growing through these tough times. BetterHelp can make that first step easier by connecting you with a licensed therapist online from wherever you are, whenever you need it. Finding that right fit is easy with Better Help because you can switch anytime if it’s not the right match. 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So, I want to thank each and every one of you that makes Locked on Falcons your first listen and thank you for making Locked On the number one sports podcast network in all of the galaxy. So, like I said earlier, you know that miss to David Sills uh you know on the third down midway through the fourth quarter over the middle of the field was owed to poor mechanics footwork. And when we’re talking about mechanics, we’re mostly talking about the feet of Michael Penn. As I’ve discussed previously on the podcast, like you know, I don’t know if you can change the arm angle or I don’t think it’s that realistic that you can change his arm angle. It’s really about getting those feet in line. And the feet were not consistently in line in this game. There were I flagged five plays uh other than that sills miss where I thought Pennix had questionable mechanics and footwork on those particular plays. And so five is not an egregious amount of plays, but it’s also not an insignificant amount of plays. And there were certainly other throws where Pennix missed, you know, was offtarget, under threw balls because he couldn’t step in the throws because of pressure, right? More due to pressure than necessarily poor mechanics. And again, you recall back to after that 24 draft after the Falcons selected Michael Penn, I talked about how my biggest concern was the erratic footwork and mechanics that were a major contributing factor to the accuracy issues that he showed in college. and through 11 starts in his NFL career, you know, it’s been a relatively minor issue. Like the first 10 starts, like it’s shown up occasionally, but never to a a significant degree. And it’s notable that in his 11th start, this game against the Colts was where it first kind of showed up in a significant way. Um and you know those ways were you know instances where he wasn’t stepping in the throws overstriding um you know times where he had to kind of step up in the pocket to avoid pressure and have to reset his feet uh and couldn’t do so and that led to passes sailing on him that led to passes kind of dying on him and despite having this you know incredible arm you know him shortarming some throws and dirting some throws that you know I think is owed mostly to poor mechanics and footwork. Oh, you know, if the trend that has existed so far where we’re talking about like 10% of his games where this has been an issue, if that continues long term, then it’s probably not going to be a big deal. You can live with, you know, one or two games where Michael Pennix misses, you know, a half dozen throws or whatever. you know, you don’t, you know, obvious ideally you don’t want to live with any games, but you know, again, big picture over a 17 game season, that’s not going to necessarily derail your season if you have one or two games where Pennix has a half dozen bad throws because of poor mechanics or footwork, right? But the question of course is going to be with eight games left to be played, will we see this issue, this uh mechanical issue, this footwork issue rear its ugly head more in the back half of the season than we have seen in the front half of the season? So that’s going to be an ongoing question and it’s going to be part of the ongoing evaluation we have of Michael Penn. You know, we we talk about all the things that when we try to evaluate Michael Penn, we try to isolate him from the scheme, the supporting cast, right? We talk about the mechanics, we talk about the footwork, we talk about his willingness to attack the middle of the field, we talk about his ability to extend plays, his ability to turn his back to the defense and operate uh you know potentially under center play action passing attack, all those various things, right? And we’ve been talking about those for several weeks and we’ll continue talking about those. Uh, you know, and all of these issues have been issues and concerns for Michael Penn. Um, and they got to get better if there’s a realistic hope for him to be a highle NFL quarterback, to be the franchise quarterback that we all hope and want him to be. And for me, a lot of these issues right now are are yellow flags. Some of them are orange flags. I don’t think any of them are red flags where it’s uh to a point where it’s like oh this is going to potentially break him as a passer but as we you know watch more and more games and if we don’t see that development you know orange can turn into red and yellow can turn into orange and all that stuff. So um you know right now I would sort of categorize the mechanics turning your back to the defense. These are more yellow flags to me than uh anything at this point in time. um middle of the field and play extension to me are more orange flags than at this point in time. And you know, to me, the reason why the other the mechanics in and turning your back to the defense are yellow is because I have a lot more optimism that those things can get improved with time. Right now, will they get improved during the season? I think is an certainly an open question. But I I certainly think there’s reason to believe that over, you know, the next year or so, year and a half, that we assume Michael Penn is going to be the starter, which is not a safe assumption at this point. But those things can be improved. The orange ones, I’m less optimistic that those things can get better. Like it to me, if you’re not, you know, if you’re not willing to attack the middle of the field unless you’re in a clean pocket, um that’s a problem. if you don’t have the natural instincts to to know how to extend plays and consistently be able to do so. Like I don’t know if that’s going to get better right now. What’s interesting in this Colts game, I thought Pennix probably made more middle of the field throws in this game than he probably has in pretty much any other game. So, there is hope there. But like when I look at like the four times where I felt like he he did a good job attacking the middle of the field, three of those four times he had a clean pocket. And the one time he had a muddy pocket was that 14 yard throw to Charlie Warner. Um, and that was essentially a five-yard checkdown. And I don’t want to sit here and celebrate. Oh my god, he made a five- yard checkdown. Uh, that Charlie Warner was able to break a tackle and turn into a 14 yard gain. Uh, and that means that problem is solved now. It’s, you know, it’s a checkdown. Like, it’s the most basic thing. So, we’ll see what the progress is, uh, when it comes to those things, but it’s hard to declare significant progress based off of that. And that’s always been an issue with this team, you know, especially when we’re talking about the play calling. I know we’re talking about the quarterback now, but like I know with the play calling, like every time when I sit here and try to defend our guy, uh, Zack Robinson, right? Like we always talk about, oh, we saw this one thing in this game, and then like three or four or more games go by where we didn’t we don’t see it again. And that’s that’s you know part of the reason why I’m I’m kind of out on this coaching staff because it’s like there’s they’re not able to build progress and certainly I understand given that you’re certainly very concerned about whether or not Pennix is going to improve over the course of these eight games under this coaching staff and so that’s more than fair but hopefully we’ll see some of these orange flags turn yellow and hopefully we’ll see some of these yellow flags turn green you know uh and that’s going to be very important for Michael Penn’s future you know because you know if a new regime regime comes in, if and win, whatever you want to say, a new regime comes in here, you know, they’re not going to be loyal to Michael Penn, right? That’s just the reality of the situation. He’s not going to be their guy, whether it’s a GM, whether it’s a head coach, etc., right? And so, if that regime is going to come in and and be committed to fixing Michael Penn, it’s going to require him to play better football over these next eight games. Um, otherwise, the leash is going to be very short. Otherwise, you’re going to get a potential Bryce Young situation as you’re seeing up the road in Carolina. Uh, and so to me, this upcoming two-month stretch, uh, including this upcoming game against Bryce Young and Carolina, is going to be very important for this team. Uh, and again, uh, begins this weekend against the Panthers. So, we’ll see if the Falcons can take care of business. Uh, and Michael Pennis can show that improvement and and give us some hope and optimism by years in. Um, but as I said earlier, I’m not all the way out on Michael Penn, but you know, we’ll we’ll see what this upcoming game does in in terms of moving the needle forward or backwards when it comes to our evaluation of Michael Penn. So, let’s talk about the Falcons defense. You know, the offense deservedly gets a lot of scrutiny, uh, but the defense doesn’t necessarily deserve a pass. and we’ll talk about, you know, why despite some of the promise that this defense is showing, I still think there’s very much a work in progress to go. And we’ll break that down as we wrap up today’s locked on Falcons. So, when the opening whistle blows on a new repair, new repair, you get your crew moving forward with supply house. If you order today and see parts on your doorstep tomorrow, you’ll get over two 280,000 plumbing, HVAC, and electrical items from the most trusted brands in the business. Their real-time inventory and honest lead times are going to keep you from punting on projects with their industryleading customer service, always protecting your blind side. Uh, Supply House will save you time on your next project. 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And like you look at the some of the numbers over the last four games with the Falcons defense, it’s not been great, right? They’ve allowed over 27 points a game, which if you know extrapolated over a full season would be the 27th best scoring defense in the NFL. Uh so, bottom six. And then they’ve been 24th in EPA per play allowed in in those last four games. Uh and that comes off the heel of the first five games of the season where the Falcons were only allowing 28 points per game, which would have been the eighth best defense in the league and were fifth in EPA per play. And so it’s common for defenses to start fast and kind of fade as the season wears on. And it was funny because we talked about this coming out of the by against the Bills in week six and being like, “Oh, well, this is the prove it game. if this defense is for real, they’ll prove it against the Bills or they’ll fade like we expect them to and they played outstanding and then they’ve basically been fading ever since. So, we were, you know, a week too early, I guess, on that front. But, we’ll see if they can bounce back this week at home where they have generally been better similar to the quarterback. We will chalk up the Miami game as this year’s Bruno game. We just don’t talk about that Miami game uh because it’s kind of the outlier uh when it comes to things. But, you know, this defense struggled against the Colts in the first half. The pass defense was getting carved up. The Colts had a 62% success rate on all their drop backs. For the sake of comparison, last year’s Falcons defense that was so atrocious under Jimmy Lake and company, uh they only gave up a success rate over 62% one time in all of last season. Uh that was the week five game against Tampa Bay. They I think it was like 61% in that week 18 game against Carolina where Bryce Young carved them up. Now, after the first half, the Falcons pass defense improved greatly. They only gave up a success rate of 29%. And the main reason, I think, is because they were able to play with a lead and therefore they were able to, you know, do the thing that Jeff Ober said, hey, we’re built to play with leads and they were able to ratchet up their blitz, right? They had a lead for all but, I think, four minutes of that entire second half. Um, and they were able to ratch up a a ton of blitzes based off my charting. They blitzed on 11 of 17 drop backs in the second half about 65% which compared to that Bills game where they we talked all about how the blitz was kind of their superpower in that game. They well they blitzed in that Bills game on 46% of all the plays in that game. And so to see 65% in the second half uh and they created four out of the five sacks that they had in the second half and you know so this clearly the story I’m trying to paint is like this defense is good when they’re able to dial up the blitz. They’re not as good when they’re not able to do that. And that’s kind of where you know the issues in this game where going back to that conversation I had on the crossover Thursday with Zack Hicks of Locked on Colts where he talked about how the Colts want to play. who want to throw early and then run late and the Colts kind of were successful able to do that uh in this game with the passing attack being very effective early in the game and then Jonathan Taylor just basically like okay JT take us away and he absolutely annihilated the Facets in the second half of that game um and then you know closed it out in overtime and so you know the reason why we bring this up is not to hate on the defense but like my worry when we project the future of this defense right because we talk all all about, you know, evaluating pickics and what’s in the long-term future of the Falcons because this season’s kind of over with, right? Uh and so it’s about projecting the long term. I don’t want the defense to get a pass, right? And you know, we’re going to sit here and we’re going to be like, we’re going to give the defense a pass because it’s not the biggest issue on the team, right? We’re going to focus on the quarterback. We’re going to focus on the play caller. We’re going to focus on the head coach and be like, oh, those are much bigger concerns and the Falcons solve those problems, then all their problems go away. And that to me has been the wrong-headed notion that this organization has had for years. Um, and you know, we tend to we focus on the top one or two problems and then we kind of ignore problems three through eight. And that’s kind of where what I’m getting at where I think the defense is kind of problems three through eight at this point in time, right? We got to get better at stopping the run. They’ve been one of the worst run defenses in the NFL. They don’t get reliable pressure uh and uh really reliable and effective pressure when they only rush four, which is why they have to blitz in order to be this good defense and they don’t really have the horses in the back end to really match up in coverage. Uh and you saw that early in this game were Alec Pierce and Tyler Warren were really carving them up um in in a lot of ways uh because they weren’t being covered by Jesse Bas and AJ Terrell who were like the the two like legit good pieces in the secondary when it comes to man coverage. Um, and so we’ll see how this defense performs over the next eight games. Um, you know, I think there’s reasons to be optimistic that we will see improvement from what this last month have has been because of the youth on that side of the ball. And hopefully they will start, you know, playing better collectively and we’ve seen that already with Jaylen Walker. We’ve seen that with Xavier Watts. You saw that with James Pierce Jr. having his best game uh basically since like week two uh if you ask me. Probably week one if we’re being honest. I have to go back and check my notes. But yeah, um and you know, Billy Bowman just got back. You know, I don’t think he played well, but like um we’ll see if he can, you know, figure that out. Uh as well as some of these 24 draft picks where Brandon Doris is trending in the right direction. Rook is still a work in progress. You know, JD Bertrren has gotten better each week. He’s still not good. He’s gotten better each week. Um so, you know, like they’re they’re trending in the right direction. So, we’ll see if they can continue trending in that. And I I know I’m being harsh to a lot of people. I’m being a hater. Yes, I’m absolutely being a hater. But, you know, understandably, this defense is going to get a pass for two reasons, right? They’re young. That’s one, as we just discussed. And two, the low expectations we had, right? And it’s like, you know, why are we why are we complaining about the defense when, you know, we’ve been complaining about not getting sacks for 20 years and didn’t get, you know, 13 sacks or whatever it is in the last two games and now we’re still complaining about the defense. And it’s like, yeah, I get it, right? We’re so used to having a terrible defense and a terrible pass rush that the fact that what we’re getting from this defense is a vast improvement from what we have seen from a typical Falcons defense over any point in time. And I understand that like I I’m there with you. You know, it’s a massive improvement over previous years, right? But my worry is that we’re going to get to the offseason, right? And we’re going to get complacent again because we’re going to sit here and be like, “Oh, well, all the struggles that this defense had were just because we’re young.” And this myth that if you’ve been a Falcon fan for these long years of watching bad defense, the myth that Falcon fans and this the organization, you know, I’m not not blaming the fans, but like always buys into is that development is linear and like you know that as a fan, you know, that’s not true because that’s been has led to these struggles of the Falcons defense for years where like the players don’t always get better just because they add more experience. Some do, but a lot of them don’t. Um, and again, this is going to come off as me being a hater, understandably. You know, I’ll lean into it. You know, I I like when we look at this 24 and 25 draft class. Um, I like development that we’ve seen as of late for Jaylen Walker. He’s been outstanding the last couple of games. I think Xavier Watts even though he is not getting interceptions like to me like early in the season when he was getting picks like I felt like he was being overrated and I feel like he’s really come together uh since you know that you know what NFC rookie of the month or whatever uh since then and being a lot more consistent. I even saw him cheating in this game and I’m like Jesse are you being a bad influence here? This this young man this upstanding young individual is out here cheating. Uh, so we’ll see if he gets burned by that. But, you know, I like where those two guys are. But when I look at the rest of the group, not to say they’re all bums or anything like that, but like to me, they’re more trending towards being like role players. We’re talking about guys like Arnold McKenna, guys like Ricardo Allen, like good solid players that contribute in positive ways, but they’re not like cornerstone pieces of your defense. And I think the Falcons need to continue to work on adding cornerstone pieces on their defense. you know, finding the next AJ Terrell, finding the next Grady Jarrett, those type of guys. And, you know, I think if they can and find those guys, like this defense not only will be the type of defense that can start off as a top five unit in the first five games, but maintain that for, you know, the entirety of the season. And you know, a great way of finding those cornerstone pieces would be having a top 10 pick in a draft that by most accounts has a premier defensive prospect at pretty much any position that you would like. Uh, and that would be a perfect position. But I I guess you know, the Falcons don’t have that. But hey, you know, Terry, you’re doing great. You’re doing great, Terry. Terry, let’s let’s give you a a Zack Robinson salute because you’re doing great, right? God bless America here on this Veterans Day, okay? You know, no terrorists here on the Lockdown Falcons podcast. So, that’s going to do it for us here, guys. Um, we’ll see where this team trends this week. Again, pivotal week, big turning point potential for this season. Um, because boy, you know, they lose this one. I guess I got to be a draft podcast. Well, I can’t be a draft podcast because we have a terrorist in the front office. But, uh, that’s it, guys. Well, that’s do it for our All 22 review. This will be a great week to become a Lockdown Falcons insider so that you can get access to the extended All22 review that is exclusive to the Lockdown Falcons insiders. You can join at the link in description below at joinsubttex.com/lockdownfins. It is a 14-day free trial. You can get that for free and then if you like it after 14 days, then you pay $4.99 a month thereafter. This uh extended all 22 review is going to feature a ton of Michael Penn. Last week we broke down 17 plays from that Patriots game and that wound up being I think 57 minutes of that breakdown. I think the total we did over close to an hour and a half of film breakdown of that. um Patriots game, you know, this week. You know, I haven’t exactly nailed down exactly how many plays of Pinnix I’m going to break down, but we might double that number. So, we might be pushing two, maybe even two and a half hours of quarterback film in addition to, you know, looking at the defense and and really focusing on where these 24 and 25 defensive players are at this stage in their career. And so, if you are not interested in seeing potentially three hours, I don’t know. Uh we’ll see. I haven’t I haven’t I haven’t done it yet, right? It usually drops on Wednesday. So, as I’m recording this, I haven’t actually sat down and done the extended all 22 review. Uh but um if you hear three hours of film content and you go, “Oh, I’m interested in that.” Then you are exactly the type of sicko that should be a locked on Falcons Insider. Again, you can become a sicko here for free for the next two weeks and get, you know, however many hours of of extended uh film analysis that we will give you for uh this Colts game, next week’s Panthers game potentially, you know, depending on when you time it up in the the Saints game, you know. So, and if you’re hearing like what two plus hours of film analysis, ew, gross. I don’t want that. Well, you know, not being an insider is is is is not for you. Not, you know, you’re not a sicko. That’s fine, right? Just be an everydayer, right? And you’re the reason why, you know, this is the number one sports podcast network in the entire galaxy. So, continue to make Lock on Falcons your first listen. Uh, hit that link in the description below if you want to become a Locked On Falcons insider. Uh, check us out on YouTube or wherever you listen to podcast. Give us that like. Give us that subscribe. And for your second listen, continue to make Locked On the number one sports podcast in the entire universe by checking out Locked on NFL, where you get two shows daily that will give you the scoop on all things around the NFL. It is all part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day.

Is Michael Penix the franchise quarterback the Atlanta Falcons need, or are his third-down struggles and mechanical issues a sign of deeper trouble? Host Aaron Freeman reviews the young quarterback’s film from the Week 10 loss to the Indianapolis Colts, as the pressure mounts. Will Penix’s third-down struggles, blitz vulnerability, and inconsistent road performances rebound at home against the Carolina Panthers?

Freeman also spotlights the emergence of young players like Jalon Walker and Xavier Watts, but questions whether Atlanta’s defense can progress beyond being a collection of solid role players. Are poor run defense and fading pass coverage holding the team back from elite status? With speculation swirling around Raheem Morris’s future, upcoming matchups could define Atlanta’s season and long-term outlook. Can the Falcons find answers on both sides of the ball before it’s too late?

#atlantafalcons #nfl #indianapoliscolts #nflweek10 #week10 #all22 #michaelpenix #raheemmorris #jeffulbrich #jalonwalker #xavierwatts #jamespearce

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