Written by Adrian Beecher
Charlotte, NC- Week 16 of the NFL season is upon us and the Atlanta Falcons will travel up to Charlotte to take on an NFC South division rival in the Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium.
Although Atlanta is out of playoff contention at this point of the season, there is still a battle for pride as the Panthers will try to avenge their 31-24 week 2 loss to Atlanta, and keep their slim playoff hopes alive.
Atlanta Falcons head coach Dan Quinn on the upcoming matchup with the Panthers and how his team will prepare, “It has been a while since we played them and we’ll go back and look through the years in matchups and games and although they’re different with Norv Turner, there’s a lot of things that carry over based on the scheme which is not surprising.”
The Falcons snapped their five-game losing skid last week with a 40-14 win over the Arizona Cardinals. In what was their best overall performance of the 2018 season, Atlanta finally looked like they put everything together as they are finally starting to overcome the defensive injuries that have plagued them all season, and they’ll look to continue their good play against a Carolina team that is coming off a disappointing 12-9 loss to the New Orleans Saints that ended their playoff hopes.
Leading the offense for Atlanta is longtime quarterback Matt Ryan, who is coming off his 100th career win last week after a performance where he completed 22 of his 36 passes for 231-yards and two passing touchdowns. The former MVP has been a bright spot for this team, and will try to finish his season strong with two games left to play.
Matt Ryan on the matchup with the Panthers defense, “ Their defense is playing really well. But that’s been the case with them for a long time. They have a lot of talented players, a really good front-seven, some linebackers that are great tacklers and they play sideline to sideline and they cover ground both in the run game and in the passing game. They have some young players in the secondary at corner that are getting better and have shown improvement throughout the year.”
Star wide receiver Julio Jones will be a game-time decision for Atlanta, as Jones is battling a hip injury that has held him out of practice throughout the week. With the playoffs out of reach, it’s difficult to see why they would risk further injury, but it will still be something to keep an eye on prior to kickoff.
For Carolina, the Panthers will be without star quarterback Cam Newton for this game and will turn to backup Taylor Heinicke to lead the offense. This will be the first start for the former Old Dominion quarterback, who went undrafted in 2015.
Coach Quinn on finding out Heinicke will be starting for the Panthers, “It was interesting I was on the conference call with their media when that came through. So, you’re on the phone talking about one topic and then you’re going to the other.” He continued, “He’s good on the move, he’s good on the boots, he’s good on keepers. So, I’ve gone back through to find film on him to study any. So, what we came back from, system-wise he’s able to do all that based on his ability to run.”
This will be a different look for the Falcons defense that is looking to build off of their best performance of the season last week, where they held the Cardinals to just 14 points and 253-yards of total offense.
Linebacker Deion Jones, who missed most of the season after a foot injury, is back and making an impact as the leader on that side of the ball. The third-year backer out of LSU had a pick-six last week and will be the man to watch on the Falcons defense.
It’s been a disappointing season for Atlanta, who had high expectations for themselves coming into the year, and although they will miss the playoffs, they have a chance to finish the season strong and will try and come away with a big win over the rival Carolina Panthers on Sunday.
The Panthers and Falcons will kick-off this Sunday at 1:00 p.m. from Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte, NC.
