Flick's Forum: Despite Expensive Offseason, Atlanta Falcons Back in Same Position
After Sunday's 28-23 loss to the Tennessee Titans inside Nissan Stadium, the Atlanta Falcons are 4-4 and have plenty of questions surrounding quarterback play.
Sound familiar?
It should - the Falcons were in the same spot last year, though instead of being tied for the NFC South lead, held sole possession.
Many fans were over the experiment at quarterback. The backup was quickly becoming one of the most popular players on the roster as a result. A middling division gave Atlanta a real chance to finish atop the standings and make the playoffs.
It all feels fresh ... probably because it is.
The similarities are startling - and particularly concerning considering the Falcons spent nearly $200 million in free agency this spring.
Atlanta's remodeled defense, which entered Sunday ranked top-10 in many key metrics, allowed Titans rookie quarterback Will Levis to throw four touchdown passes in his professional defense.
The Falcons' offense, with Desmond Ridder under center, mustered three points and 87 total net yards of offense in the first half. Ridder was sacked five times, one of which resulted in a fumble, his league-high 12th giveaway this season.
The unit grew more productive when backup Taylor Heinicke entered the game after Ridder was submitted to concussion protocol, but Falcons coach Arthur Smith has hitched his wagon to Ridder and didn't say anything postgame that would suggest a move is imminent.
Turnovers can't be discounted, but Ridder was playing the best football of his young career prior to Sunday; his 297 passing yards per game in the previous three contests was second most in the NFL, trailing only Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
So, Smith is likely to stick with Ridder - all the while Heinicke's 12-of-21, 175-yard, one-touchdown passing performance will likely continue to prompt questions moving forward.
Atlanta Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder was sacked five times in the first half by the Tennessee Titans before being placed in concussion protocol.
© Denny Simmons / The Tennessean / USA TODAY NETWORK
The Falcons are confident things will turn around. The key becomes turning potential into action, which has been the goal for much of this season ... and yet, they're in all-too-familiar position.
"We’ve seen us - and I won't even say we've seen us at our best - but we played at a high level and still got a lot of things to improve on," tight end Jonnu Smith said. "So that's encouraging. I say it week in and week out, when we play our brand of football, we find a way to win games."
The dilemma, of course, is that Atlanta's just 2-4 in its last six games after starting 2-0. It's alternated wins and losses over the past four weeks.
Perhaps most frustrating, the Falcons' last two losses have come in games they were favored to win.
In Week 6, Atlanta hosted the Washington Commanders, who were fresh off three consecutive losses. Despite outgaining the Commanders 402 to 193 in yards, the Falcons suffered a 24-16 defeat.
The Titans were 2-4 entering Sunday, traded star safety Kevin Byard to the Philadelphia Eagles earlier in the week and were without starting quarterback Ryan Tannehill. Sure, coach Mike Vrabel is undefeated after bye weeks - but Atlanta, with where the two franchises were trending, was supposed to handle business.
"Chances were we were going to win," safety Jessie Bates III said postgame. "Obviously, we think we're going to win, but we gave up explosives and that's what it was."
Falcons owner Arthur Blank noted during training camp that this is Year 3 for Smith and general manager Terry Fontenot. The first two years were spent rebuilding in preparation for a breakthrough 2023.
With considerable money expensed on the lines of scrimmage, upgrades brought to the secondary and three consecutive top-10 draft picks spent on offensive playmakers, confidence was high that Smith and Fontenot assembled a winner.
Atlanta's certainly better. Don't lose sight of that. The defense has taken big strides under coordinator Ryan Nielsen, and the offense recorded three straight games of at least 400 yards for the first time since the end of the 2018 season.
But the record remains the same ... and that's ultimately what matters most.
The Falcons have played eight games. Quite a bit has changed - but the sobering reality is that Atlanta, with the easiest strength of schedule in the NFL, is no further ahead than it was this time last year, just with another year of service time added to contracts and several big free agency investments in the rearview mirror.
There's still time for the Falcons to flip the script - but the same things they're finding solace in existed last year, too, with hundreds of millions of dollars more in expectations added on top.
"We didn’t panic, we didn’t flinch, we just kept fighting, we gave ourselves a chance to win at the end of the game, which is huge," veteran defensive end Calais Campbell said. "That’s who we are. So, at the end of the day, today was just their day.
"We kept fighting, we had a chance at the end of the game, and that’s all you can really ask for in this business."
Atlanta stressed Tennessee played well, and Levis certainly outplayed the level many thought he would.
But Sunday wasn't about the Titans.
It's about the 12-month juxtaposition between last year's Falcons and this year's, and how the more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
