By Don Stone - Football Atlanta
A headline read, "Falcons and Bucs have
fallen short of expectations." Quite an obvious one with a single win
between them in ten starts. Atlanta could reason that their poor start is
mainly due to key injuries to players like Roddy White, Julio Jones,
Sean Witherspoon, Asante Samuel and
Steven Jackson.
For Tampa Bay, it goes a lot deeper with internal bickering, so much that
they released their quarterback of the future, Josh Freeman,
because of it. And its likely that their head coach will be working
someplace else next year.
So, here they congregated trying to salvage something from nothing. The
Falcons see some light ahead with a cream puff schedule in the next month
including games after the Bucs with Arizona and Carolina.
But, then, the Jets last week were part one of those cream puffs as well.
And, that didn't turn out well.
This one started right with Thomas DeCoud
scooping up a Mike Glennon fumble from
a sack all the way to the end zone to put the Falcons up quickly 7-0.
Neither team could get going on offense. Neither team made it past
midfield until Atlanta started moving on their third drive aided by a
roughing the passer call. With a new set of downs, Matt Ryan
started finding receivers with Harry Douglas
making a nice 26 yard catch and 21 more coming by Tony Gonzalez.
That ended the first quarter with Atlanta
having a first and ten at the TB 24.
LB Stephen Nicholas suffered a
thigh injury, his return questionable.
The drive would culminate win a Jacquizz Rodgers catch with eight plays,
83 yards, in just 4:23. Atlanta had a two touchdown lead for only the second
time this season since they lead the Rams 21-0.
But, the Bucs would get it in gear on their next drive easily going 80
yards in three plays in just 1:29 highlighted by a 59 yard TD pass to WR
Vincent Jackson wrestling the ball
from Asante Samuel to make it 14-7.
The Falcons would renew acquaintances with an old friend, the red zone as
they got down to the five, but took something else all too familiar in that
area, a field goal. 17-7.
The Bucs would remind fans of why they're winless on the next drive as an
unnecessary roughness call brought up a third and sixteen from their 12,
then a fumble which they recovered. Icing on the cake was a terrible 20 yard
punt to give the Falcons outstanding field position at the enemy 37. On one
play and eight seconds, Matt Ryan made
them pay when he hit Harry Douglas on
the way to the end zone and a 24-7 lead. The six catches and 140 yards for
Douglas was a career day as he seemed to relish the #1 WR spot.
“Harry had a career day," said head coach
Mike Smith after the game.
"Everybody’s role changes in the NFL. Harry’s role changed two weeks ago
because of our situation at wide receiver. He stepped up to the plate and
did an extremely good job today. Harry is a very good wide receiver; he just
hasn’t had an opportunity to be the number one receiver, and he was the
number one receiver in the game today.”
As the first half came to an end, Tampa Bay threatened by moving the ball
downfield. But a ten yard sack forced a 36 yard field goal to make it a
24-10 halftime score.
Samuel would play is last in this game with a thigh injury.
The Bucs started the second half with another nice drive. On the two yard
line, they went for it on fourth and one and got it. It paid off with a
quick score by Vincent Jackson to pull
them to within seven. But, in the process, they lost Doug Martin
with a shoulder injury. They would shut the Falcons down for the whole third
quarter, another area of concern this season.
As the Falcons went three and out, flashbacks to the aforementioned Rams
game reminded us of the 21-0 Atlanta lead that saw them make it close when
St. Louis outscored them 24-10 the rest of the way in Atlanta's only
previous win of the season. Here it had started 14-0 only to see the Falcons
outscored 17-10 since.
Atlanta was able to add some security in the fourth quarter on an 80 yard
eight play drive capped off by another Rodgers touchdown catch to put them
up 31-17.
Tampa Bay continued moving the ball and dominating most of the stats but
again showed us why they are having trouble winning as they kept the ball
for an agonizing 18 plays over the next nine minutes taking them to a first
down at the Atlanta five. But, they continued to shoot themselves in the
foot with four more penalties including a costly facemask on Jackson that
moved it back tot the 15. They converted a fourth down to extend the drive
but ultimately had to settle on a Rian Lindell
41 yard field goal with just five minutes
remaining.
Atlanta could only eat up a minute of clock on a three and out, giving
the Bucs a ray of hope. But, they could only get three more points on
another 36 yard field goal to bring up a last chance on sides kick, which
went Atlanta's way.
Tampa Bay won the game in virtually every way except in scoring, where
they came up a TD short.
In time of possession, they had the ball 37.49 to Atlanta's 22:11. They
lead in first downs 23-15, total plays 75-44, total yards 337-291 and held
the Falcons to a pitiful 18 yards total rushing on 18 carries.
Against a team that knows how to win, this one would have probably had a
different outcome. But, all that matters is that it was a win. The Falcons
desperately needed it to go to 2-4 as they now make plans to head west for a
late Sunday start at 3-4 Arizona. |
