Thursday Night Football Afterword: Falcons vs Saints

After NBC covered the Thanksgiving Night game last week,
NFL Network took over last night night's NFC South affair.
Photo credit to NFL Network.

For just the second time in his career, Matt Ryan’s Falcons topped the Saints in the Georgia Dome. Atlanta jumped out to a 17-0 lead thanks to a fantastic opening drive and solid defense. New Orleans didn’t die easy, but the Falcons defense never let them sustain anything.

Michael Turner answered critics with a solid game on the
ground against the Saints. Photo credit to SB Nation.

After a solid outing against Tampa Bay, Jacquizz Rodgers appeared to be the man to rule the Atlanta backfield. Instead, Michael Turner ripped off a 35-yard run on the game’s first play from scrimmage and rode that to the first score of the game and 83 total yards on 12 carries, one of his best games of the year right when people were beginning to call for Rodgers to take over his role.

Riding a solid running game, Matt Ryan looked fantastic on the opening possession, but was inconsistent the rest of the way. His lone touchdown pass of the game came on a possession with a short field after a New Orleans turnover.

Drew Brees was undre pressure all night and never
looked comfortable. Photo credit to Sports Illustrated.

On the other side, if it looked like Drew Brees was off last night, it’s because he was. He completed 56% of his 50 pass attempts, a low percentage for him. Most of his incompletions looked terrible and even some of his completions weren’t very accurate. He continues on his NFL-record streak of consecutive games with 20+ completions but another streak ended as he failed to throw a touchdown pass for the first time in 55 games. The Falcons defense also picked him off five times.

A big part of Brees’ difficulty came from the Falcons doing a fantastic job getting pressure on the veteran quarterback. The other part came from excellent coverage from a thin secondary, made even thinner because of Asante Samuel’s departure early in the first quarter.

New Orleans got decent production from Pierre Thomas, and their lone touchdown of the game was a run by Mark Ingram, but the five interceptions were too much to overcome in the 23-13 loss. But the very fact that the Falcons had a +4 turnover ratio in the game and only won by 10 points should be concerning for Atlanta.

The loss essentially kills the playoff hopes of New Orleans. They are not mathematically eliminated, but with upcoming matchups with the Buccaneers and Cowboys, both of whom are fighting for the playoffs, it will be difficult to win out. In addition, they don’t have the tiebreakers to make it likely for such a situation to result in a playoff birth. In other words, their future is out of their hands.

The Falcons, meanwhile, move another step closer to clinching the division and a first-round bye in January.

Thanks for reading everyone and enjoy the rest of Week 13. I’ll be back Monday with my Sunday Afterwords!