Just Looked At Play By Play And Some Interesting Points

[GET-ME-A-DB-TD]

So we had 10+ posessions in this game and I dont want to drag it out so here it goes.

A) Everytime Freeman ran it outside the tackle he was tackled for a loss or no more than 3 yds

Everytime Freeman ran it BETWEEN the tackles he gained chunks i.e. 5,6,7 yards.

C) On several occassions on 2nd or 3rd and long, Ryan threw the ball well short of the first down and would need the Rec to pick up the first in YAC.

D) SF d-lineman Jerod-Eddie knocked down two 3rd down conversions...1 on the SF 18 yard line.

E) I cant even tell you how many times I saw that (example) we would pick up a 3rd-6 bc he would hit freeman and freeman would get it at the LOS and have 6YAC.

SF dropped ALOT of passes that wouldve made this very ugly had they not. Its very obvious when you go through each play that:

A) Matt Ryan is being told to get the ball out of his hands IMMEDIATELY simply because most of our 3rd downs we failed to pick up were due to a throw well short of the marker

Bowman was SOLELY responsible for Freeman. Most of Freemans tackles were made by Bowman

C) We never lost yards running between the tackles, only when we bounced it outside.

D) Julio or Freemans name is mentioned at least a combined 30 times in the play by play.

Bottom line - If Freeman or Julio are taken out of the game then we are F\/CKED. If your offense has 60 plays and 35 of those involve only 2 players then its easy for the Opposing D. In last weeks presser Shanny even said "if its an obvious true man coverage were gonna go to Julio 10/10 times". Lol how do you expect to surprise anybody that way. Weeks 1-4 I would look at the P-b-p and see bootlegs, play action and throws to or past the 3rd down sticks to convert. Something has happened.

[djbrough]

Here's some more:

1. Matt gets his passes blocked because his eyes never move off of his first read. He's not scanning the whole field. He's forcing the ball to his first read.
2. Shanahan is calling too many plays with 3-5 yd routes. We tested the SF safeties one time yesterday, and Julio came up with a big play. We've got to stretch the field.
3. Quinn is being a bit bull-headed about not blitzing more often. 4-man pressure isn't going to cut it, and he's got to mix it up.
4. We need to play more man-press on the outside. We do not have the speed at linebacker to effectively play the cover three zone.
5. We didn't run a single counter play yesterday on a defense that was aggressively run-blitzing. Misdirection is the way to beat that. We also didn't utilize the screen game.
6. For the record, Roddy is open most of the time. You've got to get him more involved. He's still an effective possession receiver.

I hope that the same coaching arrogance that we saw in the Smith regime does not show up again now. Coaches must change their game planning to match the talents that they have on the field. It's no question that we are going to have to acquire more talent, but we are loosing games that are winnable because of silly decisions.

Let's get healthy and go on a run.

[notthatcool]

agree with most of points in first post

disagree with most points on second post

[etherdome]

Here's some more:

• Matt gets his passes blocked because his eyes never move off of his first read. He's not scanning the whole field. He's forcing the ball to his first read.
• Shanahan is calling too many plays with 3-5 yd routes. We tested the SF safeties one time yesterday, and Julio came up with a big play. We've got to stretch the field.
• Quinn is being a bit bull-headed about not blitzing more often. 4-man pressure isn't going to cut it, and he's got to mix it up.
• We need to play more man-press on the outside. We do not have the speed at linebacker to effectively play the cover three zone.
• We didn't run a single counter play yesterday on a defense that was aggressively run-blitzing. Misdirection is the way to beat that. We also didn't utilize the screen game.
• For the record, Roddy is open most of the time. You've got to get him more involved. He's still an effective possession receiver.

I hope that the same coaching arrogance that we saw in the Smith regime does not show up again now. Coaches must change their game planning to match the talents that they have on the field. It's no question that we are going to have to acquire more talent, but we are loosing games that are winnable because of silly decisions.

Let's get healthy and go on a run.

I actually agree with most of this.

1. Matt has been told to get rid of the ball quickly....it is obvious. Because of this, he locks onto the primary target and fires away. Defenders have watched film and they are on to us.

2. It is clear that Shanny wants to run a classic WCO. The quick hit routes have been a staple of that offense since Montana's days. It can still work, if your OL's can create passing lanes in pass protection. I don't think our guys are there yet.

The fundamental problem is that Shanny does not have faith in our OL, yet. He does not believe that our OL can sustain their blocks long enough to allow routes to develop. To be honest, I can see why he feels that way.

3. We don't have the LB's or CB's to throw blitzes at offenses. Injuries and lack of talent pretty much dictate that we need to keep more players in coverage.

4. I agree. However, we only have one healthy press CB. And, I am not convinced that Trufant is 100% healthy.

5. Counters would have helped.....a lot. I am not sure about screen plays. SF's LB's are fast.

6. Roddy should be targeted much more. I have no explanation for what is going on.

Edited November 9, 2015 by etherdome

[capologist]

Batted passes aren't all on the QB. The offensive line has got to keep dlinemen engaged so they can't get their arms in the air. Just standing in front of the guy isn't good enough...

[etherdome]

Batted passes aren't all on the QB. The offensive line has got to keep dlinemen engaged so they can't get their arms in the air. Just standing in front of the guy isn't good enough...

Correct. If your offense features quick and short routes, your OL has to push defenders laterally to create passing lanes.

[djbrough]

Correct. If your offense features quick and short routes, your OL has to push defenders laterally to create passing lanes.

I agree with this as well. Everybody has to do their jobs.

I actually agree with most of this.

1. Matt has been told to get rid of the ball quickly....it is obvious. Because of this, he locks onto the primary target and fires away. Defenders have watched film and they are on to us.

2. It is clear that Shanny wants to run a classic WCO. The quick hit routes have been a staple of that offense since Montana's days. It can still work, if your OL's can create passing lanes in pass protection. I don't think our guys are there yet.

The fundamental problem is that Shanny does not have faith in our OL, yet. He does not believe that our OL can sustain their blocks long enough to allow routes to develop. To be honest, I can see why he feels that way.

3. We don't have the LB's or CB's to throw blitzes at offenses. Injuries and lack of talent pretty much dictate that we need to keep more players in coverage.

4. I agree. However, we only have one healthy press CB. And, I am not convinced that Trufant is 100% healthy.

5. Counters would have helped.....a lot. I am not sure about screen plays. SF's LB's are fast.

6. Roddy should be targeted much more. I have no explanation for what is going on.

2. I agree. We need more talent up front

3. I agree to a point. With less experienced QB's, blitz packages can cause offensive mistakes. Gabbert was the poster child for that in Jacksonville, and we should have tested him more. With all of that being said, we didn't loose this game (or the last 2 games) because of the defense.

[The Falcon Jedi Knight]

Matt Ryan has more batted down passes than any QB i have ever seen

[falcon22]

He does have a lot of batted down passes, more this season since he is taking quick 3 step or 5 step back, but is that really all his fault? or does the OL has a responsibility also to keep the DL engaged to prevent this? I do not think it is all on Ryan, some may, but mostly what I saw yesterday, the OL did a terrible job.

[UGABOZ]

for the most part that oline gave him sufficient time to get the ball off, batted passes are combination of a few things

1. like above poster stated only reading one key wr and staring him down.

2. olineman not getting their hands on the defender or the defender is beat by the olineman and does not make a move just watches the qb until pass is thrown to wr that was being stared at for 4 seconds.

[QuantumFalconz]

Can we please run the no huddle once again.

[GET-ME-A-DB-TD]

Falcons offense going nowhere fast

Quinn's not happy with back-to-back losses

Vaughn McClure, ESPN Staff Writer

SANTA CLARA, Calif. -- The explanations continue to sound repetitive, but the solutions have yet to be found.

An Atlanta Falcons offense expected to carry the team this season while the defense found its way is suddenly lost in the wilderness. A team boasting arguably the league's top receiver in Julio Jonesand maybe the league's most surprising player in running back Devonta Freemanhasn't scored more than 20 points in three straight games. And franchise quarterback Matt Ryan doesn't look like a $100 million player.

And on Sunday against the San Francisco 49ers, a team ESPN NFL Nation reporter Paul Gutierrez said resembled an NFL Europe roster with three top cornerbacks out, the Falcons looked like they didn't know what in the world they were doing. But the world certainly knew what they were doing with a suddenly predictable offense.

Falcons right tackle Ryan Schraeder even admitted the 49ers "figured us out." Considering how Atlanta offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan has been praised for his brilliance, that shouldn't be the case.

So how do the Falcons, losers of three of their last four games while averaging just 16.8 points per game in those contests, resolve their offensive issues? Veteran receiver Roddy White think he knows the answer.

"I think we just have to play a little bit faster," White said. "We have to up-tempo the ball, get up to the line of scrimmage, run plays and not let the defense dictate what we do on offense, but we dictate what they do on defense."

White, who has not been called upon much this season, noted how stagnant the Falcons have been offensively over the last five or six quarters. But it's been a little longer than that. They are 4 of 11 in the red zone over the last four games. And slow starts don't help, with the Falcons not scoring a first-quarter touchdown since Week 4 against Houston.

"We're playing methodical football," White said. "Everything looks slow. The tempo's not up. You know what I'm saying? We've got to get ourselves in a groove. And I keep telling people we need to play ourselves into a groove, but we're not doing that.

"One drive, we go out there and we play fast and we go down there right before the half and score a touchdown when we feel the pressure is on. And then we just come back out and be methodical and we run the ball and we throw the ball, then we have incomplete passes, a miss here or there, and then third-and-long. When you get in those situations, they just drop back and play zone, rush three people and tackle you before you get to the sticks. That's just NFL football. You've got to stay ahead of the chains. And if you don't, it's an easy way to get beat every week."

At least the bye week will give the players a chance to reflect and make adjustments.

"I think any time you don't play up to your standards, we're all going to evaluate what we need to do differently," Ryan said. "But from a playcalling standpoint, I thought Kyle called a good game. From a player's perspective, we've got to make it work, and that's always the mindset that I have."

Ryan was asked about White insisting the offense needs to play faster and when that will actually happen.

"I think it gets done during the bye week," Ryan said. "We have the opportunity to be critical and self-evaluate and find out what we're doing well because I think there are a lot of things we've done well. It's been nine weeks. We also need to find out what we're not doing well and either change what you're doing or just trying to get better at those things.

"I think it will be a good opportunity for us, without having a game plan, to take a look at what we do and try and improve."

With two games against undefeated NFC South leader Carolina and its suffocating defense still on the schedule, the Falcons better improve fast.

http://espn.go.com/b...ng-nowhere-fast

I think this article sums it all up. It shows the type of quarterback Ryan is. Ryan is going to run what is called and puts it on the offense to execute. Schraeder says it plain and simple that this Shanahan offense has been "figured out".

If the Niners can figure out our offense, think about what a team like Carolina and their defense will do. We may not score at all against them.

[GET-ME-A-DB-TD]

This article says it all. Schraeder says "They figured us out". Cant be that hard when 60% of the time it goes to Julio or Freeman.

[HASHBROWN3]

So we had 10+ posessions in this game and I dont want to drag it out so here it goes.

A) Everytime Freeman ran it outside the tackle he was tackled for a loss or no more than 3 yds

Everytime Freeman ran it BETWEEN the tackles he gained chunks i.e. 5,6,7 yards.

C) On several occassions on 2nd or 3rd and long, Ryan threw the ball well short of the first down and would need the Rec to pick up the first in YAC.

D) SF d-lineman Jerod-Eddie knocked down two 3rd down conversions...1 on the SF 18 yard line.

E) I cant even tell you how many times I saw that (example) we would pick up a 3rd-6 bc he would hit freeman and freeman would get it at the LOS and have 6YAC.

SF dropped ALOT of passes that wouldve made this very ugly had they not. Its very obvious when you go through each play that:

A) Matt Ryan is being told to get the ball out of his hands IMMEDIATELY simply because most of our 3rd downs we failed to pick up were due to a throw well short of the marker

Bowman was SOLELY responsible for Freeman. Most of Freemans tackles were made by Bowman

C) We never lost yards running between the tackles, only when we bounced it outside.

D) Julio or Freemans name is mentioned at least a combined 30 times in the play by play.

Bottom line - If Freeman or Julio are taken out of the game then we are F\/CKED. If your offense has 60 plays and 35 of those involve only 2 players then its easy for the Opposing D. In last weeks presser Shanny even said "if its an obvious true man coverage were gonna go to Julio 10/10 times". Lol how do you expect to surprise anybody that way. Weeks 1-4 I would look at the P-b-p and see bootlegs, play action and throws to or past the 3rd down sticks to convert. Something has happened.

All beautiful observations OP. Bowman was absolutely slaying it and his sole mission was to hunt down Freeman no matter what he did.

And most of the time Bowman went unblocked. His speed is definitely back.

The blocked passes just killed us man.

I have no freaking idea why Shanahan was dialing up these underneath routes instead of throwing the dam ball downfield. Unbelievably frustrating!! One long ball to JJ resulted in our only score. Heck we had beautiful field position with Weems having a great day and we just kept doing the same old crap that had been figured out by SF. Meanwhile, Shanny is doing virtually NOTHING to change things up.

The frustration was so thick you could cut it with a knife. Just watching Ryan and JJ you could see the WTF are we doing in their expressions.

We did nothing on O. JJ or Free or bust was savant OC's entire playbook Sunday.

No way we lose that game with Ryan calling the shots in no-huddle. No way.

[HASHBROWN3]

Enough Wally Cleaver nicey nice talk from Ryan. Dude, shanahan didn't call a good game since the game where we dragged JJ accross the back of the Oline to catch a pass for a TD in the Redzone.

And here you are protecting shanny saying he called a good game when you are the main guy catching **** for his lame chit.

Cmon Ryan, speak out and make waves. Instead of sitting down with him on the bench and sharing the miserable plays on the ipad, just tell him the truth and say we need to throw the ball down field bro! they're killing us on the short stuff and JJ is triple teamed. Cmon Matt!!

[Theyhateme : )]

Batted passes aren't all on the QB. The offensive line has got to keep dlinemen engaged so they can't get their arms in the air. Just standing in front of the guy isn't good enough...

Wouldn't that be holding?

[since68andcounting]

Here's some more:

• Matt gets his passes blocked because his eyes never move off of his first read. He's not scanning the whole field. He's forcing the ball to his first read.
• Shanahan is calling too many plays with 3-5 yd routes. We tested the SF safeties one time yesterday, and Julio came up with a big play. We've got to stretch the field.
• Quinn is being a bit bull-headed about not blitzing more often. 4-man pressure isn't going to cut it, and he's got to mix it up.
• We need to play more man-press on the outside. We do not have the speed at linebacker to effectively play the cover three zone.
• We didn't run a single counter play yesterday on a defense that was aggressively run-blitzing. Misdirection is the way to beat that. We also didn't utilize the screen game.
• For the record, Roddy is open most of the time. You've got to get him more involved. He's still an effective possession receiver.

I hope that the same coaching arrogance that we saw in the Smith regime does not show up again now. Coaches must change their game planning to match the talents that they have on the field. It's no question that we are going to have to acquire more talent, but we are loosing games that are winnable because of silly decisions.

Let's get healthy and go on a run.

All 6 of these points are spot on imo

[since68andcounting]

Batted passes aren't all on the QB. The offensive line has got to keep dlinemen engaged so they can't get their arms in the air. Just standing in front of the guy isn't good enough...

When they show the replay and you watch the DL keeping his eyes on Matt as he stares down ONE guy for 2-3 seconds, then jump in front right where he's looking as he takes his typical long windup, it absolutely IS on the QB.

[mc]

Why make stuff up. Matt is going through his reads. He does them in 2 sec but you can see him doing it.

[Kaptain Krazy]

Two big problems with the pass game

1) Roddy being open but hardly ever being thrown the ball is a serious problem.

Watching live at the game, i've started keeping an eye on Roddy and his route. It is not an exaggeration to say that at least 25% of the time when the other team is playing zone, there's not a defender within 10 yards of him. And it doesn't matter what route he runs. It frequently looks like it's pregame and he's just running practice routes by himself.

Clearly opposition scouting has learned that the Falcons are relying on a read progression scheme in which Julio is the first read, then the TE, then maybe Roddy (or more likely Hankerson/Hardy), or flip it, the TE is the only read. When it was happening at the start of the season, i rationalized it by assuming that the Falcons were setting up the opponent and would exploit the negligent coverage in key spots or vs particular opponents. But 9 games in, it's obvious that is not the case.

My hope is that the bye week will allow for the kind of film review that reveals this as a huge missed opportunity on offense.

2) Not throwing deep to Julio more often. Yes, it risks an INT, but Julio's athletic superiority and the possibility of a PI call in his favor make it a risk worth taking. These "50/50" balls have to be thrown to keep the D honest. If every game resulted in one 40+ yard reception and 1 INT that functioned like a punt, it would have been an overall positive.

[mc]

When they show the replay and you watch the DL keeping his eyes on Matt as he stares down ONE guy for 2-3 seconds, then jump in front right where he's looking as he takes his typical long windup, it absolutely IS on the QB.

Another lie. Show these plays.

When they show the replay and you watch the DL keeping his eyes on Matt as he stares down ONE guy for 2-3 seconds, then jump in front right where he's looking as he takes his typical long windup, it absolutely IS on the QB.

Another lie. Show these plays.

[Guest Gritz]

Enough Wally Cleaver nicey nice talk from Ryan. Dude, shanahan didn't call a good game since the game where we dragged JJ accross the back of the Oline to catch a pass for a TD in the Redzone.

And here you are protecting shanny saying he called a good game when you are the main guy catching **** for his lame chit.

Cmon Ryan, speak out and make waves. Instead of sitting down with him on the bench and sharing the miserable plays on the ipad, just tell him the truth and say we need to throw the ball down field bro! they're killing us on the short stuff and JJ is triple teamed. Cmon Matt!!

You might as well ask a pig to bark.

Ryan is the ultimate good soldier. He literally hasn't said a word since he's been the Falcons QB that couldn't have come out of the Falcons PR office.

[GET-ME-A-DB-TD]

I personally feel like 3rd and 10+ should result in a bomb 50% of the time to keep them off the sticks. Ryan can throw it as far as Bosher can punt so whats the diff.

[Mid-Nite-Toker]

A) Everytime Freeman ran it outside the tackle he was tackled for a loss or no more than 3 yds

Everytime Freeman ran it BETWEEN the tackles he gained chunks i.e. 5,6,7 yards.

C) We never lost yards running between the tackles, only when we bounced it outside.

+1

I noticed this as well and Shanny continued to try and force the issue outside the tackles.

Start of th 3rd qtr we ran twice between the tackles and got good gains...then inexplicably returned to doing what was unsuccessful.

The OC took Freeman out of the game...as far as rushing is concerned.

[PokerSteve]

for the most part that oline gave him sufficient time to get the ball off, batted passes are combination of a few things

1. like above poster stated only reading one key wr and staring him down.

2. olineman not getting their hands on the defender or the defender is beat by the olineman and does not make a move just watches the qb until pass is thrown to wr that was being stared at for 4 seconds.

3. QB failing to put any loft and touch on the football so it clears the upraised hands of the oncoming DL and into the hands of his receiver. That should be a no-brainer, but Ryan apparently still hasn't caught on.