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Atlanta continued their mess of a season with a second straight road loss, this time to the division rival Panthers, in a game where the outcome was never really in doubt despite a close score at times.
Few single plays can adequately capture the Falcon’s season so far, but Cam Newton’s touchdown pass to a WIDE open Greg Olsen at 4:20 of the second quarter is about as good as you can get
.
With their fourth straight victory, Carolina moves to 5-3 on the year and, with a New Orleans loss, are now just one game back in the NFC South.
There were definitely some eye-catching performances in this one, so let’s take a look.
Atlanta – Three Performances of Note
Mistakes Haunt Ryan
Outside of a few mistakes, Matt Ryan actually played fairly decently, completing 20 of his 26 aimed passes for 219 yards. However, his blunders proved too much to overcome, as the Panthers took full advantage of his three interceptions.
The first came on the team’s second drive, and though it led to seven Carolina points, Ryan moved past it pretty quickly, with a number of first down throws leading the team to 10 points before halftime, including an impressive TD pass at the two-minute warning.
The bad Ryan came back late in the game, though, as he helped turn what was a reasonably close game (seven point differential) into a Panther blowout. There was some luck involved in the tip drill interception at 3:36 of the third, but it was a regrettable decision to begin with as three Panther defenders surrounded Harry Douglas on the throw.
And his decision at 8:39 of the fourth was even worse, when he gave Drayton Florence an easy path to the end zone on a clearly predetermined hitch throw to Drew Davis. What made his play worse is that he faced no pressure on any of his three interceptions.
Jerry
No Falcon defender struggled quite as much as Peria Jerry, who after being a first round pick in 2009, has had yet to make an impact commensurate with what the Falcons paid to get him. Against Carolina, he played 52 snaps, but finished at -3.4, bested by the Panther front in both facets. No pressure in 22 rushes was actually his worst pass rushing performance this season. He was sealed in run defense a number of times as well, though did make a couple of positive plays in the third quarter; he beat RG Nate Chandler outside to widen RB towards the sideline at one point, and later in the quarter (3:01), he forced a Travelle Wharton hold.
With a stop on neither of his tackles, though, the Falcons need him to do more than that. Perhaps the play that best sums up his performance came at 10:56 of the fourth quarter, when he made a good outside move to beat the RT, but subsequently missed the tackle attempt on Jonathan Stewart, allowing the back to gain four yards on a play that should have gone for zero.
Rookie Corner
One bright spot for the Falcons was the play of their rookie defensive back, Desmond Trufant, who despite being flagged for two defensive pass interference penalties, still managed to grade at +1.3 in coverage. This performance also moved him to +4.2 on the season, which isn’t spectacular, but still impressive for a rookie to be one of the 20 highest-graded players at the position through nine weeks.
Among his highlights against the Panthers were a second quarter interception (10:19), a hit to knock the ball loose from Steve Smith (2Q, 1:07), a tackle for no gain on a screen pass (3Q, 7:24) and a pass defense at 6:45 of the third, both coming against Smith as well. Of course, he also benefited from a few overthrows by Newton, making his statistics look slightly better – just two catches allowed in eight targets – but as evidenced by his grade, it was much more good than bad for Trufant.
Game Notes
- Stephen Jackson averaged 7.1 yards per carry on six runs outside the tackles, compared to just 2 YPC running to interior gaps
- Safety William Moore has missed a tackle in every game since Week 4 after not missing any in the first three weeks.
Other notes:
Matt Ryan has been a completely different quarterback on the road this season and that has been bad news for the Atlanta Falcons.
Home W-L2-2 Comp pct.73.2 TD-Int 9-1
Road W-L0-4 Comp pct 62.2 TD-Int 6-9
Few single plays can adequately capture the Falcon’s season so far, but Cam Newton’s touchdown pass to a WIDE open Greg Olsen at 4:20 of the second quarter is about as good as you can get
.
With their fourth straight victory, Carolina moves to 5-3 on the year and, with a New Orleans loss, are now just one game back in the NFC South.
There were definitely some eye-catching performances in this one, so let’s take a look.
Atlanta – Three Performances of Note
Mistakes Haunt Ryan
Outside of a few mistakes, Matt Ryan actually played fairly decently, completing 20 of his 26 aimed passes for 219 yards. However, his blunders proved too much to overcome, as the Panthers took full advantage of his three interceptions.
The first came on the team’s second drive, and though it led to seven Carolina points, Ryan moved past it pretty quickly, with a number of first down throws leading the team to 10 points before halftime, including an impressive TD pass at the two-minute warning.
The bad Ryan came back late in the game, though, as he helped turn what was a reasonably close game (seven point differential) into a Panther blowout. There was some luck involved in the tip drill interception at 3:36 of the third, but it was a regrettable decision to begin with as three Panther defenders surrounded Harry Douglas on the throw.
And his decision at 8:39 of the fourth was even worse, when he gave Drayton Florence an easy path to the end zone on a clearly predetermined hitch throw to Drew Davis. What made his play worse is that he faced no pressure on any of his three interceptions.
Jerry
No Falcon defender struggled quite as much as Peria Jerry, who after being a first round pick in 2009, has had yet to make an impact commensurate with what the Falcons paid to get him. Against Carolina, he played 52 snaps, but finished at -3.4, bested by the Panther front in both facets. No pressure in 22 rushes was actually his worst pass rushing performance this season. He was sealed in run defense a number of times as well, though did make a couple of positive plays in the third quarter; he beat RG Nate Chandler outside to widen RB towards the sideline at one point, and later in the quarter (3:01), he forced a Travelle Wharton hold.
With a stop on neither of his tackles, though, the Falcons need him to do more than that. Perhaps the play that best sums up his performance came at 10:56 of the fourth quarter, when he made a good outside move to beat the RT, but subsequently missed the tackle attempt on Jonathan Stewart, allowing the back to gain four yards on a play that should have gone for zero.
Rookie Corner
One bright spot for the Falcons was the play of their rookie defensive back, Desmond Trufant, who despite being flagged for two defensive pass interference penalties, still managed to grade at +1.3 in coverage. This performance also moved him to +4.2 on the season, which isn’t spectacular, but still impressive for a rookie to be one of the 20 highest-graded players at the position through nine weeks.
Among his highlights against the Panthers were a second quarter interception (10:19), a hit to knock the ball loose from Steve Smith (2Q, 1:07), a tackle for no gain on a screen pass (3Q, 7:24) and a pass defense at 6:45 of the third, both coming against Smith as well. Of course, he also benefited from a few overthrows by Newton, making his statistics look slightly better – just two catches allowed in eight targets – but as evidenced by his grade, it was much more good than bad for Trufant.
Game Notes
- Stephen Jackson averaged 7.1 yards per carry on six runs outside the tackles, compared to just 2 YPC running to interior gaps
- Safety William Moore has missed a tackle in every game since Week 4 after not missing any in the first three weeks.
Other notes:
Matt Ryan has been a completely different quarterback on the road this season and that has been bad news for the Atlanta Falcons.
Home W-L2-2 Comp pct.73.2 TD-Int 9-1
Road W-L0-4 Comp pct 62.2 TD-Int 6-9
