Falcons air it out in second preseason loss
By Don Stone - Football Atlanta
One
objective going into this second preseason game of 2012 was to figure out
what happened last week. The starters came out strong, looking very
impressive against a Ravens team that has been in the playoffs the last four
seasons and made it to the AFC Championship game in 2011, four points away
from the Super Bowl.
After the starters left the field with a 14-0 lead,
Baltimore's backups proceeded to outscore Atlanta's second and third units
31-3.
So, as the Falcons took the field at the Georgia Dome Thursday night, it
wasn't Matt Ryan and Julio
Jones the coaching staff was concerned about.
It was everybody else with the same uniform and how they would perform once
those guys moved to the sidelines.
Atlanta faced a 2011 playoff team for the second week in a row.
Cincinnati didn't go as deep as Baltimore as the AFC Wild Card team, but is
optimistic; especially after a preseason opening 17-6 win over the Jets.
The beginning of this game didn't resemble last week's. The Falcons
occasionally moved the ball, but stalled on each drive able to only come up
with a short field goal.
The Bengals, on the other hand, put up 10 early on. One play,
in particular, got the attention of local football fans as former Georgia
Bulldog A.J. Green burned
Asante Samuel on an impressive 50 yard
touchdown catch.
"He sat on the route before, and I got him on the double
move," Green said. "Yeah, we took advantage of that. We got to go over the
top on him."
Cincy QB Andy Dalton,
coming off a rookie Pro Bowl season, was 8 of 14 for 125 yards and that TD.
The first team stayed in longer until late in the first half when
the Falcons finally moved the ball, thanks in large part to some acrobatics
by Jones. It took a two yard touchdown pass from Lousaka Polite
to tie it at 10.
Lousaka who? He was brought in as a free agent from New
England just a few days ago when rookie fullback Brady Ewing
was sidelined for 2012. The third string
fullback is in his seventh season out of Pittsburgh.
The starters again turned over a lead to the reserves 13-10 at the
half. And, again, the backups let it slip away with Cincinnati scoring two
unanswered touchdowns to make it 24-13.
One bright spot appeared for Atlanta at that point as
Dominique Davis stepped in at quarterback.
The undrafted rookie out of East Carolina almost led the Falcons to a fourth
quarter comeback going 8-for-8 and finishing 11-of-18 for 121 yards and a TD
to make it 24-19. A two point conversion didn't work and that's how it
ended.
"We didn't finish. We got the L," Davis said. "I'm a guy that's very hard
on myself. If we don't get the W, I'm very hard on myself. That's all I can
really say. There's something to look forward to next game."
So, in his first two preseason appearances, Matt Ryan is a combined
27 of 34, with a 79% completion rate for a total of 329 yards and two
touchdowns in roughly three quarters of play.
"I think we've improved since we got here three weeks ago," said
Ryan after the game. "We've continued to get better. We've improved day to
day and I think that's the key. You want to keep getting better and start
playing good football when you get to the regular season."
Quite a bit of passing, which doesn't speak well for the running
game, or lack thereof. Michael Turner
only had three carries for -3 yards. Jacquizz Rodgers
accounted for pretty much all of the rest for a total of 26 first half yards
on the ground. Compare that to 224 yards in the air. In the first half, The
Falcons executed eight running plays with twenty nine passing. Is this a new
approach or just necessity to move the ball somehow?
Rookie wide receiver Drew Davis
out of Georgia Tech had to be wondering what
kind of strange offense this is, having grown accustomed to run, run, and
run under Coach Paul Johnson.
"'We really wanted to look at the passing game,'" head coach
Mike Smith said. '"It was more so of an
emphasis of what we wanted to do. There were some nice opportunities."
The Falcons
coaching staff has to be concerned about the depth of the team. When the
starters are in, things go well. When they're not, the team struggles.
So, it's on to a pair of games in Florida to wrap up the
postseason with still a lot to figure out.
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