Some Falcons insight from outside this forum

[JOEinPHX]

I just read DOL's article from yesterday about Coach Smith's decision to take the field goal on fourth and one. There were a couple comments from a guy calling himself Keith that made an awful lot of sense to me. It galls me to give credit to a Steelers fan, but he made more sense than about 95% of the post-game comments in this forum. At the risk of copyright infringement, I'll cut and paste them here.

Are you Falcon’s fans kidding me? You have a good up and coming team and all I’m hearing is nonsense. Here’s a reality check. 1) Nobody runs on the Steelers. They’ve given up 100yds to a back something like 5 times in the last 10 yrs. Even Chris johnson only had 57 yards on them during his record yr last yr. JUST 57! His first game he only had 69 yds. 2)Ryan had Steelers fan giving him much respect. He was under duress against the best pass rush in the league and kept his team in the game. 3) The Steelers took away Gonzalez with Troy and zone help the entire game. It wasn’t until that play that **** Labeau changed his defense and let Troy roam to help the corner (in the switch the corner ran deep and the safety snuck underneath) Ryan hadn’t seen Troy back there the whole game and still it was a good throw except Troy is the only player in the league who could get there and intercept that pass. 4)On 4th and 1 it was a toss up. They hadn’t run all day so what makes you all sure they woulda got that yard. I doubt it with the Steelers waiting for it. Bottom line is everybody on that team defense has 2 rings for a reason. Your left tackle was going up against the defenseive MVP and a rare beast in the league. Your team needs to get better BUT you have a good team and a very good QB.

One more thing. You never win or lose a game because of one play. Or one time your coach doesn’t go for it. The Steelers felt they won the game 3 times. First the sack/fumble/return for TD was called back….Second the INT only to have a missed FG…Third the TD run…But the Steelers are winners…and their fans know the game…and they don’t cry to fire the best coach you ever had or say the best QB they ever had has a weak arm when he completed the same pass all day. Common people, I am a Steelers fan living in the ATL (loving it) and I had Falcons Season tix for 3 yrs (I love ftball) And I’ve been shocked at how fickle the fans are here.

It's a bit silly that anyone would see that sack/fumble/return as anything but an incomplete pass, but otherwise, this guy nailed it.

[Zenduke]

I just read DOL's article from yesterday about Coach Smith's decision to take the field goal on fourth and one. There were a couple comments from a guy calling himself Keith that made an awful lot of sense to me. It galls me to give credit to a Steelers fan, but he made more sense than about 95% of the post-game comments in this forum. At the risk of copyright infringement, I'll cut and paste them here.

Are you Falcon’s fans kidding me? You have a good up and coming team and all I’m hearing is nonsense. Here’s a reality check. 1) Nobody runs on the Steelers. They’ve given up 100yds to a back something like 5 times in the last 10 yrs. Even Chris johnson only had 57 yards on them during his record yr last yr. JUST 57! His first game he only had 69 yds. 2)Ryan had Steelers fan giving him much respect. He was under duress against the best pass rush in the league and kept his team in the game. 3) The Steelers took away Gonzalez with Troy and zone help the entire game. It wasn’t until that play that **** Labeau changed his defense and let Troy roam to help the corner (in the switch the corner ran deep and the safety snuck underneath) Ryan hadn’t seen Troy back there the whole game and still it was a good throw except Troy is the only player in the league who could get there and intercept that pass. 4)On 4th and 1 it was a toss up. They hadn’t run all day so what makes you all sure they woulda got that yard. I doubt it with the Steelers waiting for it. Bottom line is everybody on that team defense has 2 rings for a reason. Your left tackle was going up against the defenseive MVP and a rare beast in the league. Your team needs to get better BUT you have a good team and a very good QB.

One more thing. You never win or lose a game because of one play. Or one time your coach doesn’t go for it. The Steelers felt they won the game 3 times. First the sack/fumble/return for TD was called back….Second the INT only to have a missed FG…Third the TD run…But the Steelers are winners…and their fans know the game…and they don’t cry to fire the best coach you ever had or say the best QB they ever had has a weak arm when he completed the same pass all day. Common people, I am a Steelers fan living in the ATL (loving it) and I had Falcons Season tix for 3 yrs (I love ftball) And I’ve been shocked at how fickle the fans are here.

It's a bit silly that anyone would see that sack/fumble/return as anything but an incomplete pass, but otherwise, this guy nailed it.

And right he is....I agree you thought that was a incomplete pass. What bothers me is the fact that we don't seem to have any plays that have the second reciever as the primary target. With White and Gonzo on one side we never seemed to test the secondary against Douglas' speed on the other side. Im thinking Polumula (sp?) was over on White and Gonzos side the whole time.

[AtlantaFalconPokerPro]

I just read DOL's article from yesterday about Coach Smith's decision to take the field goal on fourth and one. There were a couple comments from a guy calling himself Keith that made an awful lot of sense to me. It galls me to give credit to a Steelers fan, but he made more sense than about 95% of the post-game comments in this forum. At the risk of copyright infringement, I'll cut and paste them here.

Are you Falcon’s fans kidding me? You have a good up and coming team and all I’m hearing is nonsense. Here’s a reality check. 1) Nobody runs on the Steelers. They’ve given up 100yds to a back something like 5 times in the last 10 yrs. Even Chris johnson only had 57 yards on them during his record yr last yr. JUST 57! His first game he only had 69 yds. 2)Ryan had Steelers fan giving him much respect. He was under duress against the best pass rush in the league and kept his team in the game. 3) The Steelers took away Gonzalez with Troy and zone help the entire game. It wasn’t until that play that **** Labeau changed his defense and let Troy roam to help the corner (in the switch the corner ran deep and the safety snuck underneath) Ryan hadn’t seen Troy back there the whole game and still it was a good throw except Troy is the only player in the league who could get there and intercept that pass. 4)On 4th and 1 it was a toss up. They hadn’t run all day so what makes you all sure they woulda got that yard. I doubt it with the Steelers waiting for it. Bottom line is everybody on that team defense has 2 rings for a reason. Your left tackle was going up against the defenseive MVP and a rare beast in the league. Your team needs to get better BUT you have a good team and a very good QB.

One more thing. You never win or lose a game because of one play. Or one time your coach doesn’t go for it. The Steelers felt they won the game 3 times. First the sack/fumble/return for TD was called back….Second the INT only to have a missed FG…Third the TD run…But the Steelers are winners…and their fans know the game…and they don’t cry to fire the best coach you ever had or say the best QB they ever had has a weak arm when he completed the same pass all day. Common people, I am a Steelers fan living in the ATL (loving it) and I had Falcons Season tix for 3 yrs (I love ftball) And I’ve been shocked at how fickle the fans are here.

It's a bit silly that anyone would see that sack/fumble/return as anything but an incomplete pass, but otherwise, this guy nailed it.

Good post Joe, interesting read.

[stripedss]

I just read DOL's article from yesterday about Coach Smith's decision to take the field goal on fourth and one. There were a couple comments from a guy calling himself Keith that made an awful lot of sense to me. It galls me to give credit to a Steelers fan, but he made more sense than about 95% of the post-game comments in this forum. At the risk of copyright infringement, I'll cut and paste them here.

Are you Falcon’s fans kidding me? You have a good up and coming team and all I’m hearing is nonsense. Here’s a reality check. 1) Nobody runs on the Steelers. They’ve given up 100yds to a back something like 5 times in the last 10 yrs. Even Chris johnson only had 57 yards on them during his record yr last yr. JUST 57! His first game he only had 69 yds. 2)Ryan had Steelers fan giving him much respect. He was under duress against the best pass rush in the league and kept his team in the game. 3) The Steelers took away Gonzalez with Troy and zone help the entire game. It wasn’t until that play that **** Labeau changed his defense and let Troy roam to help the corner (in the switch the corner ran deep and the safety snuck underneath) Ryan hadn’t seen Troy back there the whole game and still it was a good throw except Troy is the only player in the league who could get there and intercept that pass. 4)On 4th and 1 it was a toss up. They hadn’t run all day so what makes you all sure they woulda got that yard. I doubt it with the Steelers waiting for it. Bottom line is everybody on that team defense has 2 rings for a reason. Your left tackle was going up against the defenseive MVP and a rare beast in the league. Your team needs to get better BUT you have a good team and a very good QB.

One more thing. You never win or lose a game because of one play. Or one time your coach doesn’t go for it. The Steelers felt they won the game 3 times. First the sack/fumble/return for TD was called back….Second the INT only to have a missed FG…Third the TD run…But the Steelers are winners…and their fans know the game…and they don’t cry to fire the best coach you ever had or say the best QB they ever had has a weak arm when he completed the same pass all day. Common people, I am a Steelers fan living in the ATL (loving it) and I had Falcons Season tix for 3 yrs (I love ftball) And I’ve been shocked at how fickle the fans are here.

It's a bit silly that anyone would see that sack/fumble/return as anything but an incomplete pass, but otherwise, this guy nailed it.

Ha ha ha...Coming from a guy that favorite team has 6 RINGS. Please!!!!!! Save this crap.

[Ga_spider]

My thought was maybe we wanted to try and maybe draw them offsides concidering they were timeing our snap count.

[Durrty]

Excellent read. This guy understands that even in that loss, our team showed some true grit. Whether some of you will admit it or not, Matt Ryan and our defense kept us in that game. Period. Ryan made the best of every play called while being under pressure the entire game. He was efficient in his completions, a milestone he set for himself. We just have to get more creative in the redzone. Boudreau needs to tweak his blocking scheme and the OL needs to get better in their execution. All of the issues we saw in that game can be easily corrected as Smitty mentioned.

[RunningThePiszOuttaTheBall]

I just read DOL's article from yesterday about Coach Smith's decision to take the field goal on fourth and one. There were a couple comments from a guy calling himself Keith that made an awful lot of sense to me. It galls me to give credit to a Steelers fan, but he made more sense than about 95% of the post-game comments in this forum. At the risk of copyright infringement, I'll cut and paste them here.

Are you Falcon’s fans kidding me? You have a good up and coming team and all I’m hearing is nonsense. Here’s a reality check. 1) Nobody runs on the Steelers. They’ve given up 100yds to a back something like 5 times in the last 10 yrs. Even Chris johnson only had 57 yards on them during his record yr last yr. JUST 57! His first game he only had 69 yds. 2)Ryan had Steelers fan giving him much respect. He was under duress against the best pass rush in the league and kept his team in the game. 3) The Steelers took away Gonzalez with Troy and zone help the entire game. It wasn’t until that play that **** Labeau changed his defense and let Troy roam to help the corner (in the switch the corner ran deep and the safety snuck underneath) Ryan hadn’t seen Troy back there the whole game and still it was a good throw except Troy is the only player in the league who could get there and intercept that pass. 4)On 4th and 1 it was a toss up. They hadn’t run all day so what makes you all sure they woulda got that yard. I doubt it with the Steelers waiting for it. Bottom line is everybody on that team defense has 2 rings for a reason. Your left tackle was going up against the defenseive MVP and a rare beast in the league. Your team needs to get better BUT you have a good team and a very good QB.

One more thing. You never win or lose a game because of one play. Or one time your coach doesn’t go for it. The Steelers felt they won the game 3 times. First the sack/fumble/return for TD was called back….Second the INT only to have a missed FG…Third the TD run…But the Steelers are winners…and their fans know the game…and they don’t cry to fire the best coach you ever had or say the best QB they ever had has a weak arm when he completed the same pass all day. Common people, I am a Steelers fan living in the ATL (loving it) and I had Falcons Season tix for 3 yrs (I love ftball) And I’ve been shocked at how fickle the fans are here.

It's a bit silly that anyone would see that sack/fumble/return as anything but an incomplete pass, but otherwise, this guy nailed it.

This guy is absolutely right. It was obvious to me from watching the game.

I'm a Falcons fan forever, but I'm no homer -- if something is bad, I'll say it. There's no point blinding yourself to holes in your team, because reality is reality. So if I thought Ryan played poorly yesterday, I would say so. If I thought the Falcons had a serious problems based on yesterday's game, I'd say so.

But the fact is, this Falcons team looks scary good. Matt Ryan actually showed me he is much further along than I thought he was. He's not Peyton Manning yet, but he is close. He was calling the plays correctly against a hard-to-read defense. Most QB's would fail at that, Peyton would dominate at it, and Ryan held his own at it.

And our defense is far better than I had hoped it would be. I think the hype really is true there. Not so much Dunta (yet anyway), but the pressure from the D Line, and the improved linebacker play.

I still don't know if we have the 2008 Turner yet though. We might, and it could just be that "no one runs on the Steelers" as this guy said. Or we might not. If we do, look the heck out.

And we definitely need to take more shots down the field.

[KJinCton]

It's amazing to me that a Steeler's fan has more faith in our team than the majority of the posters on this board. It's good to see that our front office doesn't "kneejerk" this way when we lose a close one.

Can you imagine how our history might have turned out differently if Rankin Smith hadn't of acted like a "the sky is falling" message board poster back in 1982 when he dumped Leeman Bennett.

I know that most here can see that we're far from perfect, but it is annoying to hear the armchair GMs/Coachs rant about how our season is over after one tough loss.

Let's see how well Smith has them prepared for Arizona. If the same issues arise with the offense as they did against one very stout Pittsburgh defense, then we've got some cause for concern. But one game does not make the season.

[redwolfcfc]

great post!

[Magic Man]

that was some of the best insight I have heard on the game yet. Putting CJ's rushing numbers up puts it in perspective. Hearing people calling for TD, MS, Matt, or Turner's head is ridiculous and little more than atrociously ridiculous. I think it was the Chargers some years back that went 0-4 and the sky was falling all around them, and they ended the season 12-4 and went to the Superbowl. They lost, but they got to dance in the big game. Anything can happen. Questioning the Falcons is one thing...lambasting the home team just to enflame others is another.

[since68andcounting]

Can you imagine how our history might have turned out differently if Rankin Smith hadn't of acted like a "the sky is falling" message board poster back in 1982 when he dumped Leeman Bennett.

Or if Blank had not done the same and dumped Reeves. We'd probably have almost as many rings as the Steelers.

Here's a stat for you:

Looking backwards from 2007 The Atlanta Falcons had the same number of head coaching changes in FIVE years as the Pittsburgh Steelers had in FIFTY.

[SYD]

Our fans have no faith in this team and I suspect alot of them are fans of this team for the sole reason it gives them a constant supply of things to complain about.

Breaking the back to back curse should be a sign to the fans that things have changed.

Not every year is going to be amazing but even the best teams have an off year but that doesn't mean the team is going down the toilet.

The key is for the first time we have a coach and a GM on the same page and we have a group of young core players that will be here several years and have alot of talent.

These things mean we certainly have the potential for a good year ever year but sometimes outside circumstances get in the way like injuries did last year.

[foreverfalcon]

that was some of the best insight I have heard on the game yet. Putting CJ's rushing numbers up puts it in perspective. Hearing people calling for TD, MS, Matt, or Turner's head is ridiculous and little more than atrociously ridiculous. I think it was the Chargers some years back that went 0-4 and the sky was falling all around them, and they ended the season 12-4 and went to the Superbowl. They lost, but they got to dance in the big game. Anything can happen. Questioning the Falcons is one thing...lambasting the home team just to enflame others is another.

I concur,

Railing on your team and calling for heads after 1 loss during the season opener to an excellent team and recent Superbowl Champs is just nonsense.

I think most of the negative posters on our forum are "young adult males" (sorry, that's the nicest way i know to say dumbazzzes) who don't know much about being faithful to a cause. We all tend to react but most "part-time/newbie fans" overreact immediately and much too strongly.

These boards fell apart years ago with whiners, quitters, trolls and you can now observe a new infusion of "babies" who want it all to be good all the time.

Anyway, I thought the Falcons played a good game and look forward to some more aggressive play calling from Mullarky, Smith and Van Gorder. It was an exciting game that deserves due respect from fans from both sides.

[Statick]

Ha ha ha...Coming from a guy that favorite team has 6 RINGS. Please!!!!!! Save this crap.

Does it pay to be an *ss in your world?

[CraigSmackDaddy]

Keith hit the nail on the head. I really haven't posted or read much on AFMB since before Sunday b/c I just don't want to read BS. We will be fine and this team is only going to get better as the season goes on. I still have no doubt we will make it to the playoffs and have a chance at the SB... no doubt.

[RFlagg]

Great Post.

When Mendenhall ran for that TD in OT, my reaction wasn't "$#!+ %&*$#$%!", I could only think "That was probably the game of the week right there, we looked really good for all but one play". And that's truly how I feel. Our O did a good job against a very tough D (I bet the Steelers end the season top 5 again), and our D looked much improved over last season, when we probably would have given up 20-30 points to this same team.

I really think the Falcons are in great shape. We have Babs back this week and, looking ahead, I honestly think we have a chance to win every game between now and our BYE (Yep, I'm including the Saints game).

Even without Big Ben, the Steelers were going to be one of our toughest games of the year, and we fought them beyond the 60 minute mark. That says a lot for our team.

[Mid-Nite-Toker]

Sorry if I sound fickle, but the Pitt fan's post to me only justifies what many on this board felt about the FG kick on the 5yd line. Pitt has a great def. so by kicking the FG Coach Smith expected his def. to stop Pitt and march on their def. to win the game? Pitt's punting game was tremendous. Coach Smith's team was in the best position they had all game in respect to being able to score a TD and if stopped have Pitt pinned deep. They(ATL) had won the field position game at that point.

A 1st down or subsequent TD would have put the clock in ATL's favor forcing Pitt to score a TD to win. Pitt stopped the run all day but I still have faith in Turner and O-line on 4th/short. White was a beast and TG/HD/Norwood are weapons. Put it on Ryan's arm for crying out loud. Pitt's def. deserves respect but when do you show too much respect and not rely on your studs to pick up a big 1st dwn or TD? Coach Smith was gambling with scared money @ the 5yd of Pitt last Sunday. I guess I'm fickle.

Edited September 15, 2010 by Mid-Nite-Toker