The Falcons announced their injury report for this weekend’s upcoming game against the Washington Redskins. Tight end Michael Palmer will miss his second consecutive game with a shoulder injury, as he was listed as out. Center Todd McClure, safety William Moore, and fullback Lousaka Polite were all listed as questionable. Both McClure and Moore were limited in practice all week long with pectroal and hip injuries, respectively. Polite missed both Wednesday and Thursday practices with a hamstring injury, but was upgraded on Friday and participated on a limited basis.

Also on the Falcons injury report were defensive tackle Jonathan Babineaux (groin), wide receiver Julio Jones (hand), linebacker Stephen Nicholas (thigh), cornerback Chris Owens (concussion), and running back Antone Smith (hamstring), all listed as probable. All five players were full go in Friday’s practice. Babineaux and Smith were limited on both Wednesday and Thursday, while Nicholas and Owens were only limited in Wednesday’s practice.

For the Redskins, safety Brandon Meriweather (knee) and cornerback Cedric Griffin (hamstring) are out this Sunday. Running back Evan Royster (knee) is questionable. Wide receiver Pierre Garcon (foot), tackle Trent Williams (knee), returner Brandon Banks (hip), and cornerback DeAngelo Hall (flu) were listed as probable.

The biggest key for the Falcons this week will not be getting off to the slow start they did a week ago. They want to take advantage of their passing attack going against the weak Redskin secondary.

The health of Julio Jones (hand) will be a factor in this game. The team will need him to have a bigger game. He will have that opportunity going up against DeAngelo Hall and Josh Wilson. Hall struggled with the size that A.J. Green and Vincent Jackson presented on the outside the past two weeks, and thus the Falcons hope to similarly take advantage with Jones. The last time Roddy White went against Josh Wilson, he had one of his better games in 2010. He wound up catching 12 passes for 138 yards and two touchdowns, including the game-winner against the Ravens on Thursday Night that year. Tony Gonzalez will also be licking his chops going up against Madieu Williams and DeJon Gomes. He’ll also get some opportunities going up against the Redskin linebackers in London Fletcher and Perry Riley.

Because of the advantages the Falcons feature in this game, even if they get behind early they should still be able to get back into the game. The one worry the Falcons have is their pass protection. Last week, Tyson Clabo really struggled to block Charles Johnson. His job won’t get much easier as he’ll be facing the Redskins top pass rusher in Ryan Kerrigan. Kerrigan is not an elite pass rusher in the class of Brian Orakpo (out for the year), but he has the skills to give Clabo fits with his speed on the edge.

Pat Hill will likely be lighting a fire under the butts of the line, and Dirk Koetter will likely modify the protections and play-calling to try and prevent the breakdowns that occurred last week.

The running game has looked somewhat resurgent in recent weeks, but it’s unlikely that it will do a lot this week vs. Washington. The strength of the Redskins defense is their front seven and in the middle. But that doesn’t mean that the Falcons won’t try to make some plays on the ground. The area where they may try and attack is the edges by trying to get Turner and Rodgers going on some outside runs. If Jones’ hand limits his effectiveness as a receiver, the Falcons may try to get the ball in his hands on reverses, end-arounds, and screens to try and attack those edges as well.

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As I outlined a week ago in the preview for the Panther game, there are two basic formulas/blueprints that teams are likely to adopt to try and knock off the Falcons.

Like Carolina, Washington will likely adopt the one that involves running the football and trying to shorten the game so that the explosive Falcons offense stays on the sideline. Carolina was nearly successful in pulling off that gameplan, but made a few too many mistakes and allowed too many big plays from Atlanta to get the win. Washington will try to do what Carolina could not do.

Washington’s gameplan will involve a heavy dose of their ground game. Alfred Morris is having a solid season and looks like a great fit behind Washington’s zone-blocking line. He is the newest back in the long line of runners that has shined in Mike Shanahan’s offense. The Redskins will likely also try and take advantage of Robert Griffin III’s mobility much like Carolina did with Cam Newton to supplement Morris.

Washington will want to get out to a fast start, because they don’t really have the playmakers on the outside to really try and come from behind against Atlanta. Griffin is off to an excellent start this season, but he’s still not quite developed enough as a passer to think he can drop back and throw the ball a bunch of times and win that way. He’ll likely rely on his legs to extend plays and try and make something out of nothing, which he has done numerous times already this season.

That is an area where they could attack the Falcons defense. It’s going to be difficult for the Falcons to get Griffin down because he is especially adept at avoiding sacks, extending plays, and creating things with his arm and legs in the face of pressure.

However like Carolina, pound for pound Washington just can’t match up with the Falcons. Thus why they will also need to take advantage of some costly mistakes by the Falcons. They will need to create some turnovers and hope the Falcons make some mental errors and shoot themselves in the foot a couple of times.

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This was a pretty ugly win. There were a few instances of outstanding execution on the part of the Falcons, particularly in the final minute. But for the most part the Falcons had a pretty mediocre game, largely because of some mental errors, poor execution, etc. Thankfully for the Falcons, Carolina really lost this game at the end with some really poor execution and bad coaching decision. It’s not the first time the Falcons have benefited from a bad decision from an opposing coach. The Bears gave of ’08, and two games against the Bucs where Raheem Morris made a bad decision at the end resulted in Falcon wins. This is just another notch in the Falcons belt. Mike Smith may not be the world’s greatest game manager, but it does make you appreciate that he certainly is on the upper end of that scale.

Matt Ryan, Michael Turner, and Roddy White really stood out in this game. Really the only issues you have with Ryan is that two of the sacks he had I attributed directly to him holding onto the ball too long. He was a little inaccurate on a couple of throws (particularly the deep ball out of bounds to Jones on the penultimate drive), but other than that he was playing at a very high level. Those are really nitpicks on a handful of plays. And with that lone exception, it’s really good to see Ryan being able to hit on these deep balls. You look at the five deep passes he had in this game, where he completed three of them. The one noted previously to Jones was only off by a few feet, and would have been a touchdown otherwise. And he also missed a near touchdown to Roddy on a back-shoulder throw that Roddy didn’t get his head around quick enough to adjust to. A year ago, very few of his deep passes were catchable. Up until this week, you didn’t really see the Falcons trying to hit on the deep balls very often. But one hopes that after this game, it’s something that is newly acquired in the Falcons repertoire.

I have to take my hat off to Turner in this game as well. He looked like the young Turner due to the fact that he was running hard, breaking tackles, and getting yards after contact. I think my favorite run by Turner in this game was on their second offensive series near the goalline. It was just a simple little 6-yard run, but on it Turner made a nice jump cut to the outside, and pick up another 5 yards to get the ball down to the 4-yard line. I can probably count on one hand how many times over the past few years where I’ve seen Turner make a jump cut like that. The question going forward is going to be whether this is Turner getting some of that old magic back, or whether he was just able to prey upon one of the league’s weakest run defenses.

Roddy once again showed in this game why he is one of the best receivers in the game with this game. On the other side of the field Julio Jones was the polar opposite and largely a non-factor. Part of that was due to pressure. And part of that was because he wasn’t getting open. Several incompletions to Jones were because defenders broke up passes. Which is hard to blame on Jones, but they were situations where he could have done a better job attacking the ball. Gonzo had another solid game.

Up front, the Falcons really struggled to protect Ryan. The crosshairs firmly fall on Clabo for he really struggled in this game against Charles Johnson. But he wasn’t alone. Not strong performances for Todd McClure and Sam Baker as well. Blalock and Reynolds definitely did their jobs. The positive thing for Clabo is that he made up for some of his problems in pass protection by having a fairly solid game run blocking. It was interesting to see the Falcons mix in Mike Johnson and Joe Hawley to help out in pass protection and the ground game. They didn’t fare well in pass protection, but they made some solid contributions in the ground game at times. It’s certainly something that I think the Falcons should continue to do situationally going forward.

PLAYER	PASS	RUSH	REC	BLOCK	SPEC	PEN	TOTALS
Michael Turner	$0	$14	$3	$0	$0	$0	$17.00
Matt Ryan	$14	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$14.00
Roddy White	$0	$0	$12	$1	$0	$0	$13.00
Jacquizz Rodgers	$0	$1	$4	$0	$0	$0	$5.00
Tony Gonzalez	$0	$1	$3	$0	$0	$0	$4.00
Justin Blalock	$0	$0	$0	$3	$0	$0	$3.00
Julio Jones	$0	$0	$2	$0	$0	$0	$2.00
Garrett Reynolds	$0	$0	$0	$2	$0	$0	$2.00
Sam Baker	$0	$0	$0	$0.5	$0	$0	$0.50
Tyson Clabo	$0	$0	$0	$0.5	$0	$0	$0.50
Tommy Gallarda	$0	$0	$0	$1	$0	-$1	$0.00
Harry Douglas	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0.00
Todd McClure	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0.00
Kevin Cone	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	-$1	-$1.00
Mike Johnson	$0	$0	$0	-$1	$0	$0	-$1.00

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As mentioned earlier, the Panthers do have some of the tools to potentially beat the Falcons. But I do not think they will.

If the Falcons just have a “normal” game based around what they have done these first three weeks they will beat the Panthers. They simply are a better team. But they cannot take the Panthers lightly, because as mentioned earlier, the Panthers can do a couple of things that can hurt the Falcons.

The main key for the Falcons is going to be able to throw to win. They can throw fairly easily on this Panther secondary. Rookie Josh Norman is likely to be matched up on Julio Jones on the outside for most of the game. Norman is not a bad player, and down the road he might turn into a pretty good starting corner. But he’s not there yet, and I think Julio should be poised to prey on that. The question becomes is Julio’s hand injury more serious than we expect, and will it impact the game?

What is interesting about Roddy White is that you look over the past few seasons, and there is always one game against Carolina where he’s very good, and another where he’s just mediocre. And there’s no real rhyme or reason to which performance he has. Sometimes it is at home, sometimes on the road. But you wonder if Jones is less than 100%, and this is the game that Roddy decides not to show up for, then the Falcons could potentially be in trouble.

I don’t think that will happen, and it’s going to be a cold day in hell when both Roddy and Julio are no shows on this offense. But this is also why the Falcons have Tony Gonzalez and Harry Douglas, to help pick up that slack.

The Panthers run defense is weak, so I suspect Michael Turner and the ground attack could have another strong week. I would be shocked if Blalock and Reynolds have much problems with the Edwardses (Dwan and Ron) and opening lanes for Turner. The Falcons seem poised to give Rodgers a bit more reps on the ground going forward, and he could also have a good day.

Defensively, John Abraham tends to have a field day against the Panthers. I expect the Falcons to be able to get pressure against Newton. Newton has that ability to extend plays and make things happen with his legs, but the Falcons have been fairly competent at containing that. I think the Falcons will try and be aggressive with Newton, attack him with blitzes and challenge him to make accurate throws downfield.

Mike Nolan is probably going to throw a lot of things at Cam, frankly things that I can hardly imagine at this point. But if he can design schemes that can get Peyton Manning off balance, he can certainly do some things that can get Newton’s mind twisted.

Because the Panthers will likely rely on a steady ground attack, like last week, Akeem Dent should get more opportunities to emerge. That should also mean increased reps for Ray Edwards as well.

Cam Newton is currently second in the NFL in terms of highest interception rate. And the Falcons right now are the most opportunistic secondary in the league. This is why this should be a good matchup for the Falcons. With Abraham’s pressure and Nolan’s blitzing schemes, they should be able to create a number of turnovers this week. At some point this season, the Falcons defense is probably not going to be able to create multiple turnovers in a game. But I doubt that this week is the time when that occurs.

It’s becoming less and less about the Falcons opponents, at least during this early slate of 2012 games. It’s becoming more about competing with themselves for this Falcon team. Meaning their biggest obstacle is their own complacency. The day they decide to just show up some place, and think they can win with minimal effort, is the day they will get beat.

And what Mike Smith has done a pretty good job instilling in his time in Atlanta, is a hungry mentality week to week that keeps his team motivated and moving forward. And that is why I think they will win this game. It’s a division rival, and it’s an opportunity to really send out a signal to the other teams in the division and conference that this team is as formidable as advertised. It’s their first NFC game, and while they have eleven more that will also affect the season, they cannot really afford to dig themselves in a hole at the outset with an 0-1 record. Especially to a division rival and lesser team like Carolina.

Long gone are the days of Mora where as a fan you weren’t sure what Falcon team would show up in a given week. The Mike Smith Falcons are much more consistent, and rarely lay eggs. I expect that trend to continue and the Falcons extend their record to 4-0 this week.

The Falcons pushed their record to 3-0 by taking down the undefeated San Diego Chargers with a 27-3 victory on the road. The Falcons got off to a strong start and never looked back, as the Chargers were scoreless through the first half of the game.

Matt Ryan had another strong performance, completing 30 of 40 passes for 275 yards, 3 touchdowns, and an interception. On the ground, Michael Turner bounced back from a slow start this season by leading the team with 80 yards on 14 carries with a touchdown. Jacquizz Rodgers also added 10 rushes for 32 yards. In the air, Tony Gonzalez led receivers with 9 grabs for 91 yards and a touchdown. Julio Jones, Roddy White, and Rodgers each had 5 catches for 67, 55, and 35 yards respectively. Jones and Rodgers both caught Ryan’s other two touchdown passes. Matt Bryant did not attempt a field goal on the day. Matt Bosher punted 5 times for an average of 44.6 yards, with 2 placed inside the 20-yard line. Dominique Franks returned a pair of punts for an average of 17 yards. The Falcons offense had little issue moving the ball against the Chargers. They dominated time of possession, holding onto the ball for over 36 minutes compared to the Chargers’ 24. In the first half, the Falcons held the ball for over twice as long as the Chargers with nearly 20.5 minutes of possession. The offense finished 8 of 13 on third down conversions and put up 384 total yards.

Defensively, the Falcons were too much for the Chargers offense. The Chargers struggled to convert third downs, particularly in the first half where they were 0 for 3. They wound up finishing the game 5 of 11 on their third down conversion attempts. They were limited to 280 total yards and had four turnovers. Dunta Robinson led defenders with 7 tackles. John Abraham (2 tackles, 1 sack); Thomas DeCoud (3 tackles, 2 interceptions, 1 fumble recovery);Dominique Franks (3 tackles); William Moore (5 tackles, 1 forced fumble, 1 fumble recovery); Stephen Nicholas (6 tackles); Asante Samuel (6 tackles); Vance Walker (4 tackles); and Sean Weatherspoon (5 tackles, 1 forced fumble) all had noteworthy performances.

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Yesterday, the Falcons released their injury report for this weekend’s road game against the San Diego Chargers. Cornerback Chris Owens and running back Antone Smith were declared out for the game. Both players were injured during last Monday’s win against the Denver Broncos, Owens suffering a concussion and Smith injuring his hamstring. Neither player participated in this week’s three days of practice.

Also on the report were tackle Tyson Clabo (hip) and linebacker Sean Weatherspoon (thigh), both declared as questionable. Defensive end John Abraham (knee), wide receiver Julio Jones (thigh), linebacker Stephen Nicholas (thigh), and wide receiver Roddy White (knee) were all listed as probable. All six players were limited in their participation of Wednesday and Thursday’s practice. All those listed as probable fully participated in Friday’s practice however.

With Owens out of the game, Dominique Franks is expected to fill in at nickel cornerback. Franks was inserted into the Broncos game after Owens left early.

This game was won in the first quarter by the Falcons with their ability to generate 4 turnovers, and score 13 points off those turnovers. Because otherwise, the offense was fairly mediocre for the Falcons on most of the night. The offense did generate 14 points of their own volition, but other than those two drives, they really looked lackluster.

First off the Broncos defense should get a ton of credit for that. They are a tough unit and kept their team in the game despite those numerous turnovers early in the game that got them behind. Von Miller is a beast and he showed it several times throughout this game. They had Reynolds help Clabo a ton in this game to keep Miller in check. Any time Gonzalez was put on an island against him as a run blocker, Miller made him look fairly foolish.

The offensive line did a fairly good job against the formidable Broncos pass rush. Miller and Dumervil were held in check. They were able at times to get pressure on Ryan, but it wasn’t an amount that swung the game in the Broncos’ favor. The Falcons gave up 8 pressures, with 3 of them coming from backs and receivers. The run blocking was non-existent and the Falcons ground attack was paltry at best. The Falcons had 15 first down runs in the game, and were successful on only 1 of them, which happened to be the 14th one on the final drive of the game. The Falcons averaged 1.6 yards per carry on first down. That’s the polar opposite of what I was talking about last week about how the running game could be an X-Factor. That’s a success rate of 7% on first down. A poor success rate would be 25%, so 7% is downright pathetic.

Most of the blame for that poor ground attack has to put on the line. But Turner missed holes and did not run with great burst or explosion. Quizz did little with his limited opportunities, but the Falcons have to start giving him and Snelling more opportunities, because Turner is not getting the job done. And in light of his off-field issues, this week against San Diego will be a perfect opportunity to shift towards an offense spear-headed by Quizz/Snelling. I also can’t help but think some of it is missing Ovie Mughelli. Not that Lousaka Polite has played poorly, but he’s an average fullback.

Ryan played well, making some very good throws in this game. Roddy White was excellent, and Tony Gonzalez played very well as well. Julio Jones was a non-entity and that is worrisome given that the whole point of trading for Jones was so that our No. 2 WR (formerly Michael Jenkins) would no longer be a non-entity in games.

PLAYER	PASS	RUSH	REC	BLK	SPEC	PEN	TOTALS
Matt Ryan	$14	$1	$0	$0	$0	$0	$15.00
Roddy White	$0	$0	$9	$0	$0	$0	$9.00
Michael Turner	$0	$5	$0	$0	$0	$0	$5.00
Tony Gonzalez	$0	$0	$6	-$2	$0	$0	$4.00
D.J. Davis	$0	$0	$0	$0	$1.5	$0	$1.50
Harry Douglas	$0	$0	$1	$0	$0	$0	$1.00
Todd McClure	$0	$0	$0	$1	$0	$0	$1.00
Lousaka Polite	$0	$0	$0	$1	$0	$0	$1.00
Kevin Cone	$0	$0	$0	$0	$1	$0	$1.00
Justin Blalock	$0	$0	$0	$1	$0	-$1	$0.00
Garrett Reynolds	$0	$0	$0	$1	$0	-$1	$0.00
Sam Baker	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0.00
Tyson Clabo	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0.00
Julio Jones	$0	$0	-$1	$0	$0	$0	-$1.00
Jacquizz Rodgers	$0	$0	-$1	$0	$0	$0	-$1.00

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I would have posted this yesterday, but I wanted to take a look at the All-22 film to see if it would modify my scoring. And it did to a slight degree, as I should have because I was able to get a better look at the line play and secondary play. So I had to reassign a missed block here, a blown coverage there, that you just don’t get a clear picture of when it comes from the normal television broadcast viewpoint. The Coaches Film on NFL Game Rewind is supposed to be up by Wednesday at noon at the latest, but it went up Tuesday evening. So more than likely, going forward these reviews will come only after I’ve seen that All-22. So you’ll probably have to wait until late Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon from this point on.

But anyway, onward to the game. It was a very good showing by the Falcons offense. They were aided heavily by the fact that the Chiefs had no discernible pass rush, as well as Jacques Reeves covering Roddy White for much of hte game. Matt Ryan had an excellent game, with his passing earnings matching his season high from a year ago (vs. Carolina in Week 14).

The ground game had little impact, partially because the line didn’t do a great job opening holes up front. But other than that small complaint, the line had a solid game holding the Chiefs inept pass rush at bay. Ryan was only pressured or sacked on 2 of his 32 dropbacks, which is a very good mark.

In the air, Julio Jones was dynamic showcasing his abilities after the catch, as he was able to get 10 or more yards after the catch on half of his six receptions. He eclipsed his season high from a year ago as a receiver. White was excellent at moving the chains, collecting five first downs. Gonzalez and Douglas also contributed as well with solid days.

PLAYER	PASS	RUSH	REC	BLOCK	SPEC	PEN	TOTALS
Matt Ryan	$17	$5	$0	$0	$0	-$1	$21.00
Julio Jones	$0	$0	$10	$0	$0	$0	$10.00
Tony Gonzalez	$0	$0	$6	$0	$0	$0	$6.00
Roddy White	$0	$0	$5	$0	$0	$0	$5.00
Jacquizz Rodgers	$0	$3	$1	$0	$1	$0	$5.00
Justin Blalock	$0	$0	$0	$3	$0	$0	$3.00
Michael Turner	$0	$3	$0	$0	$0	$0	$3.00
Harry Douglas	$0	$0	$2	$1	$0	-$1	$2.00
Todd McClure	$0	$0	$0	$2	$0	$0	$2.00
Garrett Reynolds	$0	$0	$0	$2	$0	$0	$2.00
Sam Baker	$0	$0	$0	$2	$0	$0	$2.00
Tyson Clabo	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0.00
Peter Konz	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0	$0.00
Kevin Cone	$0	$0	$0	-$1	$0	$0	-$1.00
Lousaka Polite	$0	$0	-$1	-$1	$0	$0	-$2.00

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The Falcons opened their 2012 regular season strongly with a 40-24 thumping of the Kansas City Chiefs on the road. It was the first opening day win for Mike Smith on the road in his tenure, and the third time in five seasons that the Falcons have begun their season with a win.

Matt Ryan had an excellent game, completing 23 of 31 passes for 299 yards and 3 touchdowns. He also rushed for 25 yards on the ground on 3 carries with a rushing touchdown. Michael Turner led rushers with 32 yards on 11 carries, while Jacquizz Rodgers added 7 carries for 22 yards. Julio Jones and Roddy White led receivers, each with 6 catches for 108 and 87 yards, respectively. Jones caught 2 of Ryan’s touchdown passes, with Tony Gonzalez having the third. Gonzalez finished the game with 5 receptions for 53 yards. Harry Douglas also contributed with 3 catches for 32 yards. Matt Bryant connected on four field goal tries of 34, 21, 30, and 41 yards. Matt Bosher only had to punt a single time thanks to the success of the Falcons offensive attack, which went for 52 yards. Jacquizz Rodgers returned a pair of kickoffs for a total of 104 yards, including a 77-yarder that set up a Falcons score.

Defensively, the Falcons did not get off to a great start. The Chiefs scored 17 first half points, capping their first three drives with points. The Falcons gave up 292 of 410 total yards accumulated by the Chiefs in that half, including 96 yards on the ground. But they put the clamps down in the second half, able to generate three turnovers. Stephen Nicholas led defenders with 12 stops, and collecting one of the team’s interceptions, as well as a fumble recovery. John Abraham (3 tackles, 1 sack, 1 forced fumble); Jonathan Babineaux (1 tackle, 1 sack); Thomas DeCoud (7 tackles); Ray Edwards (2 tackles, 1 tackle for loss); Brent Grimes (6 tackles); William Moore (7 tackles, 1 interception); Asante Samuel (3 tackles, 1 pass defended); and Sean Weatherspoon (7 tackles, 2 tackles for loss, 1 pass defended) all had noteworthy performances.

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