Falcons End Five-Week Slide With Road Win at Saints

NEW ORLEANS – A deep sigh of relief emanated from Caesars Superdome on Sunday night. After five long weeks, the Atlanta Falcons have finally put themselves back in the win column.

In a week where the team lost its starting quarterback, were without its star wide receiver, and put two more players on injured reserve, a win over the New Orleans Saints will come as sweet relief for the Falcons.

The last several Sundays have been brutal for the Falcons. They have experienced one excruciating loss after another, with each offering its own painful chapter to the disappointing story of this season.

Week 12 was a breath of fresh air, and one of their best total team performances of the season.

Kirk Cousins, making his second start of the season for an injured Michael Penix Jr., and this Falcons offense were steady in this game. The veteran finished the day with 199 yards through the air and completed 16 of his 23 passes. Darnell Mooney and David Sills V both found the end zone, the first touchdowns for wide receivers not named Drake London this season.

The quarterback spent a lot of time under center rather than from the pistol, a facet of this offense that has repeatedly drawn the ire of fans.

“That’s what Kirk’s been throughout his whole career,” Falcons head coach Raheem Morris said after the win. “He’s back to what he’s been in the past and what he’s played for the [14] years in the National Football League. We did want to accommodate Kirk and make him look the best, and what made us feel the best about going out there and operating.”

The rushing attack also got going in this one, rumbling for 121 yards. Bijan Robinson added his seventh game of 100 or more total yards and Tyler Allgeier came in to slam the door in the second half.

It was a good day for the offense, but it was far from perfect – a pick-six served up to Justin Reid after Cousins made an aggressive throw to Kyle Pitts Sr. immediately comes to mind. The unit also struggled on third-down (3-for-12, 25%) and did not see the field very much in the second half (just 16 plays to the Saints’ 51).

It wasn’t perfect, but it was enough.

The Falcons defense hounded rookie quarterback Tyler Shough in this game, sacking him five times – their fourth-straight game with five or more sacks. All five of those came from players in either their first or second season.

“Over the last couple of weeks we’ve really been able to show that,” Morris said about the development of the young pass rushers. “They kept it up today.”

Divine Deablo returned on Sunday, and his presence was immediately felt all over this defense. The linebacker led the team with eight tackles, and they held their hated rivals to just 293 total yards, and three offensive points. The 95 yards allowed in the first half were the fewest they had given up all season.

But after the strong first half, the Saints came out and punched the Falcons, hitting them with a pair of 15-play drives to start the third quarter. They were not dismayed, however, and held their division rivals to just three points after having to defend nine plays inside their own 10-yard line.

Struggling to get teams off the field has been a bit of a troubling theme for the Falcons in recent weeks, and the Saints hurt them here. They ran 78 plays to Atlanta’s 55 and picked up eight more first downs in this game. It didn’t end up hurting them, at least not this time, because of their red-zone effectiveness.

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No win is perfect, but after the week and difficult stretch this Falcons team had, a win will always be enough.

“Really well-played game by the guys today,” Morris said, crediting the job of his coordinators. “Those guys went out and were able to execute it and keep [the Saints] out of the end zone.”

Sunday snaps the five-game skid, but this team is far from out of the woods. They avoid the cellar of the NFC South, but at 4-7, 2.5 games still separate them from the Buccaneers in the division. They will have the opportunity to build on this performance next Sunday against the Jets, as they start to dig themselves out of this midseason hole.