1-yard scoring run<\/a> in the second quarter.<\/p>\nShough completed 22 of 35 passes for 259 yards with one touchdown and one interception. He also ran for a score.<\/p>\n
Penalty costs the Saints a TD<\/p>\n
The Saints were denied a touchdown on an apparent 1-yard scoring pass from Shough to Kevin Austin Jr. in the third quarter when Austin was called for offensive pass interference. The Saints settled for Charlie Smyth\u2019s 29-yard field goal.<\/p>\n
Morris gets a hug from Blank, then gets fired<\/p>\n
Falcons owner Arthur Blank attended Morris\u2019 postgame news conference and gave the second-year coach a hug following the session. Blank listened when Morris was asked if he expects to return after his second straight 8-9 finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know, my expectation is always to be back, right?\u201d Morris said before looking at Blank and adding, \u201cI\u2019m going to coach this football team as long as he allows it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Blank showed no emotion when Morris spoke. The owner and coach embraced, and a few hours later, Morris was out of a job.<\/p>\n
Rookie edge rusher Jalon Walker said Morris did \u201ca great job of keeping the culture here strong. I commend him. All of our trials and tribulations this season, we\u2019ve found a way, we\u2019ve made a way.\u201d<\/p>\n
Falcons hit by the flu<\/p>\n
Cousins played after testing positive for the flu this week and acknowledged he was \u201ca little weaker than normal.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI walked in today with a briefcase, my suitcase, and a Kleenex box,\u201d Cousins said. \u201cSo I knew what kind of day it was going to be, but adrenaline takes over and you feel pretty good.\u201d<\/p>\n
Inside linebacker Ronnie Harrison did not play due to the flu. Defensive tackle David Onyemata played after testing positive for the virus.<\/p>\n
Sacks record<\/p>\n
Rookie James Pearce Jr. sacked Shough on back-to-back plays in the third quarter. It gave the Falcons four sacks in the game and a team-record 57 for the season. The Falcons entered the weekend second in the league with 53 after finishing next-to-last with 31 last season.<\/p>\n
Pearce finished with 10 1\/2 sacks to lead NFL rookies.<\/p>\n
Injury report<\/p>\n
Saints: LT Kelvin Banks Jr. (left ankle) was ruled out after he was carted to the locker room in the second quarter. QB\/TE Taysom Hill left with a right shoulder injury.<\/p>\n
Falcons: CB Cobee Bryant (concussion) was knocked out of the game late in the first quarter. … DL Brandon Dorlus (hamstring) and CB Clark Phillips (triceps, illness) were held out. <\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Saints: New Orleans looks forward to the NFL draft, in which it holds the No. 8 overall pick.<\/p>\n
Falcons: Atlanta said its searches for a new coach and GM would be conducted concurrently and begin right away.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP NFL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nfl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 A fourth straight win by the Atlanta Falcons and a season sweep of their biggest…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":654919,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[5576,23809,223,254,11427,6868,260,8531,94989,2726,9270,11413,6710,4130,9703,4432,380,7,4645,629,1486,2951,6839,16771,7166,2987,15670,294,6153,5556,82906,981,22221,896,55,2572,2571,6,498,941,2663,6292,35943,12476,397,9,1438,7762,2660,283,1416,6433],"class_list":["post-654918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-orleans-saints","tag-ap-top-news","tag-arthur-blank","tag-atlanta","tag-atlanta-falcons","tag-brandon-dorlus","tag-carl-granderson","tag-carolina-panthers","tag-charlie-smyth","tag-clark-phillips","tag-cobee-bryant","tag-dante-pettis","tag-david-onyemata","tag-dee-alford","tag-drake-london","tag-feleipe-franks","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-florida","tag-football","tag-ga-state-wire","tag-georgia","tag-jalon-walker","tag-jammie-robinson","tag-juwan-johnson","tag-kai-kroeger","tag-kellen-moore","tag-kelvin-banks-jr","tag-kevin-austin-jr","tag-kirk-cousins","tag-kyle-pitts","tag-la-state-wire","tag-local-news-for-apple","tag-louisiana","tag-nc-state-wire","tag-new-orleans","tag-new-orleans-saints","tag-neworleans","tag-neworleanssaints","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-football","tag-north-carolina","tag-raheem-morris","tag-ronnie-bell","tag-ronnie-harrison","tag-ronnie-harrison-jr","tag-saints","tag-sports","tag-sports-transactions","tag-taysom-hill","tag-terry-fontenot","tag-tyler-shough","tag-xavier-watts","tag-zane-gonzalez"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=654918"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/654918\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/654919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=654918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=654918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=654918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}