Atlanta, GA- Behind five forced turnovers and their best defensive performance of the season, the Atlanta Falcons dismantle the Las Vegas Raiders 43 to 6.
Atlanta Falcons interim head coach Raheem Morris on the win, “I really kept it from the individual accolades and I talked about the team win and talked about the guys come out and doing what they’re capable of doing and finishing the game like that. I think these guys need a little bit of what you would call a push in the head to let them know this is how a game should end when you got control. And today to go out and be able to do those things I thought was really good for us, good for our team, and good for the organization, and definitely good for our city.”
The game ended with a lot of points scored in favor of Atlanta, but the story of the game was the tremendous defensive performance displayed from the Falcons on their way to a big win. Allowing just 223-total yards in the game, the Falcons defense never allowed the Raiders to get going, and five forced turnovers set the Atlanta offense to pull away in the second half. Interim coach Morris on the impressive defensive performance with forcing five turnovers and tallying five sacks, “You know stats are for losers, but when you get those things that work in your favor, you go out there and you get those guys to believe in themselves and believe in what they can do, those things always work out in the right favor and always in the right way for you. Today that’s what happened for us.”
The play of the game was a pick-six from linebacker Deion Jones. Facing great pressure from the Falcons pass rush, Raiders quarterback Derrick Carr forced a throw that was behind his receiver where Jones was in the perfect position for the interception. The man called “Debo” would go untouched for 67-yards on his way to the endzone to give Atlanta a two-possession lead in the second half, really deflating the Las Vegas team.
Quarterback Matt Ryan led the Falcons offense completing 22 of his 39 passes for 185-yards and two touchdowns. It wasn’t the biggest game of Ryan’s career by any means, but he did enough to manage the game and make plays when he needed to. The veteran quarterback surpassed 3,000 yards passing yards for the 11th consecutive season early in the game, the longest streak in franchise history, and the eighth-longest streak in NFL history.
Calvin Ridley led all receivers with six receptions for 50-yards and a touchdown. Ridley has emerged a solid receiver behind Julio Jones since being drafted out of the University of Alabama in 2018 and stepped up when needed with Jones out today. With the defense playing as well as they did, the offense wasn’t asked to do too much, and really just needed to take care of the ball which they did by turning the ball over just once.
Atlanta came into the game without star receiver Julio Jones and running back Todd Gurley, so to put up 40 points on a pretty good Raiders defense was impressive, despite only gaining 275-yards in the game.
Kicker Younghoe Koo was probably the MVP for the Atlanta offense/special teams, making all four field-goal attempts including a 54-yarder in the 4th quarter. Koo has sneakily been one of the best kickers in the NFL this year with great range and consistency making 24 of his 25 field goal attempts this season.
The win moves the Falcons to 4-7 on the year. Atlanta has had several of these solid performances since their disappointing 0-5 start to the 2020 NFL season, and if they can find this effort consistently, they could quickly challenge for the NFC South division crown next year. Atlanta will stay home next Sunday to take on their NFC South rival New Orleans Saints.
